Good morning, Renegade,

As my daughter navigates her big emotions lately, I've been dancing with grief as well.

In the past I would have buried grief beneath busy-ness or anger, would have run from it and sunk myself into something consuming and therefore distracting, or would've simply denied it.

All because of a feeling.

A painful feeling, but still, just a feeling. Not a rampaging rhinoceros. Not a rattlesnake poised to spring.

Isn't it interesting how emotions can sometimes feel life threatening?

Even though sadness may feel like we're dying, the reality is that nobody has ever died from feeling sad.

People have died from feeling sad in the absence of hope.

Brene Brown says, "Hope is not an emotion; it’s a way of thinking or a cognitive process."

Hope is a bit like faith.

It doesn't actually have to be based on facts or certainties. Hope doesn't require proof, only a willingness - a choice - to believe.

We can practice cultivating hope in our hearts, even when reason or the world tells us it's unfounded or foolish or vulnerable.

So here is my hope for my daughter - and for everyone really -

That she can find a way to make room for loss without losing her sense of hope.

That she can recognize that sometimes good things are also sad things and sometimes sad things are also good things.

That she can learn to leave people and situations and that she can learn to stay and most of all? That she can trust herself to know which is the right path.

That she will not fear or run from the breadth of human emotions, but that she will embrace all of them.

Melancholy and joy. Sorrow and happiness. Fear and hope.

Jenna Lee “let us always find hope" Dillon​