This time of year is so wonderful with all the brilliant leaves. Soon we will see those leaves falling off and enter winter. Winter evokes memories of holidays and a time to reflect and connect with our feelings; a time to focus more on family or marriage relationships. For singles it may bring about feelings of loneliness without a partner. I know for many years I wanted a man to come into my life before the holidays so that I wouldn’t have to experience that time of year alone. Being alone is such a fear for most of us that we will avoid it at all costs. However, learning to be alone with ourselves and allowing to release suppressed feelings is vital to experiencing freedom. Lately I am struck with the number of people that are feeling losses. People are experiencing losses of relationships with significant others, career transitions, or deaths of loved ones. It may be also the loss of a childhood that was experienced as early abuse. It can even be experienced when I am not achieving a goal or undergoing the death of a dream that I desired. You may have stuffed feelings of loss deep down inside which can lead to the numbing out of your positive emotions. As a result, we may walk around feeling not alive lacking passion for life. Losses come in many forms and symptoms can vary. If we are feeling the loss of a childhood it may show up in an emotional numbness or depression. If we experienced the loss of a loved one it can first be exhibited as having difficulty concentrating or spontaneous emotions. It’s important to understand that these feelings are a normal part of the grief process. When ignored, they may get buried and eventually affect our ability to feel our passion for life and inhibit our moving on with a career Over the last year I have found that most of the people that come to me have experienced some kind of unresolved feeling that has kept them from feeling passionate and happy. Once they release these buried emotions, they feel so much freer and more apt to embrace life. Sally was one who felt extremely bound up in emotional pain due to a broken relationship and so depressed she didn’t want to go on. She found herself procrastinating on things that were important to her and didn’t enjoy her career. She wanted a man in her life, but most of the available guys passed her by. She wasn’t aware of how much her unhappiness was related to feelings of childhood neglect that left her feeling unworthy and unappreciated. The only way she knew how to compensate for this loss was to work hard on being perfect and masking that side of her that felt so unaccepted early on. As she released many of these early repressed feelings, she was able to walk with more freedom and self-acceptance. If you identify with any parts of Sally’s journey it may be time to take an inside look. What are you holding onto that will keep you from living a more passionate joyful life? Tips on reconnecting with yourself:

• Value the time alone and see what you haven’t released.
• Embrace your negative feelings rather than numbing them.
• Give yourself permission to be a little out of sorts while experiencing the loss.
• Determine the deeper root to what you are really grieving.
• Develop a safe place to grieve.