The volcano bursted the other day like it does on so many occasions and all of these big feelings and tears just poured down my son's face. The burst of emotion reminded me that I really had no idea in the moment where all of this emotion is coming from. Sure, I could guess as a parent but really, there are just so many levels of intricate feelings happening within each experience that sometimes, it's really hard to tell in the moment just why the volcano is bursting forth. As parents, we are usually so quick to go to a solution to just stop the emotion, stop the pain, stop this uncontrollable river of emotion overflowing. and the process of discovery is sometimes lost. For within that one precious moment when the volcano finally explodes and the lava is overflowing all over the place, lies your golden nugget of connection. Here is where you will know your child.

And your child is waiting for you- enticing you - to find that golden nugget, to dig deep and not let any piece of that gold go. You're child longs to be discovered beneath everything (here's a secret: so do you!). I'm learning that there are so many luscious surprises when we actually do go mining for gold.

For, as my son's tears erupted all over his face, I chose to be the discoverer alongside him in the middle of that red, hot lava flowing in every direction. I could see the fire, his frustration building up in his eyes….it was like he wanted to cry but was trapped in the actual crying process as if the crying wasn't really him but that it was a part of him that he didn't quite understand. So, while wrapped in cloaks of emotion, from deep within himself, he looked helplessly into my eyes and a small voice emerged: 'Mommy, I don't know what to do with all of this.' It was one of those moments that stops your heart. Know what I mean? It was just so honest, so raw….so…so….human. He said it again as if to reinforce that it really WAS something that he was struggling with -- the enormity of an emotion riding through his body. And he really didn't know what to do with 'ALL of this.'

If you get really honest with yourself, isn't this how you feel too at times when your emotions are coming up so strong and so big for you? Sure, it's easy to push them away and easily distract ourselves. But, if you were to really sit with your biggest feeling -- sit right in the middle of the fire of the volcano bursting forth -- and just BE there, you would probably utter something of the same. What DO I do with ALL of this?

Big feelings are like these gigantic boulders that come rolling through our bodies (and our lives.) And often, they completely knock us over, allowing little space for recovery. Remember the last argument you had? What was fueling it? Could you really stop the volcano from exploding once the lava began to push forth from the depths of the mountain? Big feelings of anger, of sadness, of disappointment can seem enormous, whether we deal with them or not.

So, here's where your alchemy comes in for if you can remain in the fire with yourself and your child, not fire back, and not make him/her bad or wrong for simply having a feeling, there is something very sweet waiting for you on the other side. What is it?

Empathy is exponential. Love is quantum. There is an alchemy of connection. As one mom wrote me back this week, 'Both my boys are VERY intense little personalities, but when I stand in the fire (instead of FIRING BACK) it's always always better for all of us in the end.' No, we don't always know what to do with our big emotions and neither do our children.

No, it's not always fun to be present, completely present with yours or a loved one's big feelings. It can just be downright uncomfortable and even painful. Painful like the moments just before birth when the pain becomes almost too much to bear and then, in the final moment, gives way to an explosion of light and love and creation.(alchemy)

Yet, it's those places that must be freed. Those places within ourselves and our children that must be allowed to just be so that we can discover a much deeper part of ourselves underneath it all.

We may not know 'what to do with all of this' -- with all of this sadness, with all of this anger, with all of this confusion, with all of this love, with all of this anxiousness. If we can just be with the not-knowing for a bit as the emotion moves through, then we just may find that the process of discovery is a deepening of the soul and leads us into that childlike place of wonderment where we really don't know what to do with all of this. And, that's ok.