If you want to bring something meaningful into the world, it will cost you something on the inside. Every creative act is an act of the heart and every act of the heart involves risk, vulnerability, and yes… suffering. Pain is what cracks the shell around our deepest truths. The heart doesn’t grow through comfort; it grows through being broken open and healed in love. When you let your heart stay open while it hurts, you’re doing holy work, you’re becoming whole. 🪞Reflection: Where are you being invited to stay open instead of shutting down? 💬 Comment below: What’s one place your heart has been stretched and what beauty has been born from it?

What emotion has been hardest for you to feel lately — and what might it be trying to teach you?

Emotional well-being isn’t just about managing what’s inside us — it’s about moving beyond ourselves. When we live only within the walls of self-protection, we shrink. But when we step out to serve, connect, and create for others, we expand. Wholeness grows when we stop obsessing over our happiness and start participating in someone else’s healing. Questions: How have you noticed your mood or perspective change after doing something for someone else? What emotions often keep you from reaching out — fear, shame, apathy? What’s one way you can practice “purposeful giving” that still honors your boundaries?

Sometimes the ache to matter comes from years of tying our worth to how useful we are. But love was never meant to be earned through service. When your helping starts to hurt, pause. Ask: Am I giving from fullness or from fear? Emotional health is learning to give without losing yourself.

Emotional health is the foundation for spiritual and relational health. If we ignore our emotions, they don’t disappear. They leak out in anger, distraction, and addiction. But when we learn to feel, we learn to heal. Emotional health is having the courage to say, “I am sad” or “I am angry” without judgment. God gave you emotions as signals. They’re not a curse. They’re a gift pointing you toward your needs. Chip Dodd says it this way: “Feelings are gifts that invite us to a richer, more fulfilling life.” What’s one feeling you’ve been avoiding lately and what might it be trying to tell you? Mine has been lonely...it's been teaching me that I long to be known. I long to be seen for who I am not just what I do.