There’s something sacred about watching a storm roll in. The way the wind rises in quiet threat, the hush that falls over the trees like nature itself is holding its breath. Clouds thicken, darken, and suddenly, the air feels heavy—like it’s been holding too much for too long. And then, with no more warning than a flicker of light across the sky, it breaks. Rain crashes, thunder growls from deep in the earth, and everything that was once restrained is now in motion. Unapologetic. Unfiltered.
That’s what emotion feels like in a human body.
We live most of our lives trying to be the calm before the storm. Tidy. Controlled. Palatable. We smile when we ache. We push through when we should rest. We nod when we want to scream. But underneath, the clouds are gathering. Whether we acknowledge them or not, they are always forming—thick with memory, tension, grief, longing. The weight builds, until one day we crack. And like the sky, we break wide open.
I’ve come to believe that storms don’t destroy us—they reveal us. They show us what was already there. The pain we tucked behind our productivity. The fear we stuffed into the corners of our smiles. The sadness we buried because no one ever taught us how to feel without shame. Storms don’t create chaos; they expose it. They bring it to the surface, where it can finally breathe.
The rain doesn’t ask permission to fall. It doesn’t apologize for soaking the ground. It doesn’t withhold itself to make the landscape more comfortable. And maybe neither should we. Maybe our tears are as holy as the downpour that cleanses the dust from the world. Maybe our anger—when rooted in injustice or protection—is thunder finding its voice. And maybe the winds of our grief, though strong enough to bend us, are only trying to show us where we’ve been rooted too long in soil that can no longer hold us.
Some of us are afraid of our inner storms. We were taught that emotion is something to tame, to manage, to keep quiet. But that’s a dangerous lie because emotion doesn’t vanish when ignored—it transforms. Into illness. Into addiction. Into sharpness in the voice or silence at the dinner table. It becomes a quiet storm that lives in the body, waiting.
And yet, storms always pass. That’s their promise.
They are intense, yes. Unrelenting at times. But never eternal. The sky never stays black. The rain never falls forever. There’s always a moment—quiet, almost imperceptible—when the thunder fades, and the light returns. The air smells different, like something has been released. The leaves glisten. The Earth breathes.
Human emotion is no different. We were built to feel deeply and survive it. We were built to weather the inner hurricanes and still rise the next day. There’s something deeply redemptive about honoring your own storm—about letting it roll through you without resistance. Because on the other side of it, clarity waits. Clean air. Sunlight. A softer heart.
Sometimes I wonder if the purpose of pain isn’t to ruin us, but to reshape us. To wash away what no longer serves us. To remind us of our humanness. Because if we never felt the downpour, how would we ever appreciate the stillness that follows?
You are allowed to be your own storm. You are allowed to feel big, messy, overwhelming things and not apologize for them. You are allowed to be loud in your grief and tender in your anger. You are allowed to let the clouds gather and not fear the sound of your own thunder.
Because feeling isn’t a failure. It’s a forecast. It tells you what’s coming, what’s changing, and what needs your attention. And if you let it, it will also show you the way home.
Lessons From Nature 