🎧 Episode 199 – Bittersweet

Theme: 💫 Learning to honor and allow the emotion of bittersweet — the ache where joy 🌤️ and sadness 🌧️ intertwine.

In this first episode of Heidi's Emotions Series, she explores one of life's most tender paradoxes — bittersweet — that space where the heart stretches between what was and what's becoming. 🕊️

Heidi shares personal stories of sending all three children to college 🎓 — the joy of their independence and the ache of quiet rooms and empty shoes at home 👟. She reminds us that bittersweet isn't broken; it's love expanding to hold both pride and grief. ❤️‍🩹

Bittersweet is the bridge 🌉 between past and present, endings and beginnings. From selling her family's beloved home 🏡 to adjusting to new rhythms, Heidi invites us to honor both sides of the emotion instead of resisting it.

Quoting Brené Brown, she says:

"You can't get to courage without walking through vulnerability first."
Bittersweet is vulnerability — our heart saying, "I love so much that letting go hurts." 💔💖

🧠 Nervous System Wisdom

When we feel both the bitter and the sweet, our nervous system experiences:

• 🌼 Expansion (joy, pride, gratitude)

• 🌧️ Contraction (loss, change, longing)
  If we deny either side, our system stays dysregulated. The key is to make space for both.

🌬️ Tools to Stay Anchored

• 🗣️ Name it: "This is bittersweet." Naming calms your brain and brings you back online.

• 🌸 Breathe: Inhale the sweetness 🍯, exhale the ache 🌫️ — whisper, "Both are welcome."

• 👣 Ground: Feel your feet, smell the familiar, notice the sounds around you — remind your body, I'm safe.

• 🚶‍♀️ Move: Walk, stretch, cry, or dance — emotion is energy in motion.

💖 Honor the Shift

Instead of saying, "I shouldn't be this sad," Heidi reminds us:

"It's not that something's wrong — it's that something important just shifted."

Slow down. Let tears fall as acts of love, not weakness. 🙏
Practice gratitude for the moments that made you who you are.
This is mono no aware — "the beauty of things passing." 🌅

Because that ache in your chest?
It's just love with nowhere to go yet. 💞

We're not broken for feeling bittersweet — we're beautifully human. 🩷

✨ A confident mother is the greatest gift to her family — not a perfect one.

Visit heidibenjaminsen.com for the 💕 College Mom Course and to explore private coaching that helps you stay anchored, calm, and confident through every season of change. 🌿

Set up a consult call at https://calendly.com/heidibenjaminsen