Yearning is wild.
These days, my emotions don't wait for permission—or the right setting.
Like last week: lifting weights at the gym, earbuds in, listening to Monica Lewinsky interview Alan Cumming on her podcast.
Apparently, Monica and Alan have been friends since 1999, the year after the Clinton scandal. She'd saved a letter he wrote her back then, expressing how unfairly he thought she'd been treated. And how much he admired her strength.
She asked him to read it aloud. And, well, I cried.
Not a cute-single-tear cry.
More like an I-need-to-sit-down cry. A cover-my-face-in-my-hands cry. A this-is-gonna-take-a-minute cry.
My crying surprised me as much as it did the Hollywood models re-racking their weights nearby. I was trying to look hot. This was not it.
(While I'm at it: listen to Monica's first episode here. It's about her long journey toward purpose. My husband Marco recommended it, and it's really inspiring.)
But why was I crying?
Gosh, something about that public display of deep friendship hit me right in the chest. It plucked a string in me.
And I swear I'm not a big crier. But this same thing happened to me recently at an absurdist comedy show. At the end of the performance, the star brought someone onstage and exclaimed: "This is my best friend in the whole world!!"
And just like that, I burst into tears.
These weren't sad tears. They were something else—tears of truth, maybe. Some kind of longing that snuck up on me in the most unexpected place.
The tears were signals. My body's way of flagging something important. Like: hey, maybe you want more of this in your life. Maybe you yearn for it.
I'd never used the word "yearning" much before I became a coach. I wanted things, sure. I strived, definitely.
Yearning, though? It always sounded...sad. Like that empty, aching feeling of something missing. And sad feelings never felt all that useful. What was I supposed to do with those?
These days, I see it differently. Yearning can be beautiful—even useful.
A quiet tug. A kind of wish or desire that's both within reach and just beyond it. A pull toward a greater sense of aliveness. A greater sense of you-ness.
I’m not great at letting myself want things—or more specifically, at letting myself feel the wanting. Which is probably why my tears staged an intervention. Thanks, tears!
I'm getting the message: I need more of what the tears are pointing me toward. Connection. Presence. Friends who'd write me a letter, or who I'd bring onstage and shout about.
No way I can suddenly manufacture it all at once. But I can feel it. I can name it. And maybe that's how it begins.
