I have often felt alone in my emotions, and I know that many people share that experience. Feeling alone in emotions can be heavy, and that is why I write.
I do not write because I should. I write when the words come to me. They arrive when I walk down to the lake, when I pour my morning coffee, or when the house is quiet and I can finally hear my own thoughts. Sometimes they appear just when I am about to fall asleep, reminding me that silence can no longer hold everything. Writing is how I breathe, and breathing is how I continue living.
When studies give my words a place to land
Now that I am studying again, everything I write lands differently. The words lean on the knowledge I have gathered through the years – through conversations, through all the people I have met, through theories that once felt distant but now make sense. What I struggled to grasp before has a place in my life today. Concepts no longer float outside of me; they have become part of who I am and how I understand others.
Meeting young people – and myself
Working with young people has shown me how common feeling alone in emotions can be. They have learned to keep everything inside or break loudly enough for someone to notice. When I write, I try to understand my own protective strategies as much as I try to understand theirs. To support others, I must be willing to meet myself.
The morning dip – staying with what feels uncomfortable
Perhaps that is why cold morning swims have become so important to me. The first step into the water always comes with resistance. The body wants to run. But when I stay, when I breathe, when I let the cold hold me without fighting it, something shifts. The same thing happens in writing. I learn that I can survive discomfort. I am stronger each time I choose to remain in the moment.
Belonging, KASAM, and the bad sisters
It is not only the swim that matters. It is that we do it together. There is a sense of coherence – KASAM – in meeting my “bad sisters” at dawn, before the world wakes up. Sometimes we talk, sometimes we are silent, but we share the same courage. We swim no matter the weather. In that moment, there is nothing to prove. We are simply ourselves. It strengthens us. It connects us. It gives us a place to belong.
Feeling Alone in Emotions – When the Text Reaches Others
There have been times in my life when I was surrounded by people and still felt alone in what I felt inside. Writing is my way of breaking that isolation. And every time someone reads and thinks, “This is how it feels for me too,” then the burden is already shared by two.
Even my blog statistics have become a quiet reminder that words travel. Someone in Sweden. Someone in the United States. Someone I will never meet who needed a sentence or a moment of recognition. Statistics are not the goal, but they are evidence that human experience is universal.
Why I write
I write because the words exist and because I need them. I write so that others do not have to feel alone in their emotions. Emotions are not the enemy. They help us understand where we come from and where we are going. The emotions that once protected me can hold me back today. That is why I continue writing: to make room for healing, courage, and forward movement.
Questions for you as a reader Do you recognize the feeling of being alone in your emotions? What helps you stay when something feels uncomfortable? Where do you find your own sense of belonging — in water, in words, or in connection?
Between the Lines – My Voice
Between the words, there is stillness. I no longer write to understand, but to share what I’ve already learned. Here, emotions can rest without struggle – and so can I.
Reflection
Sharing what we feel makes life less lonely to live. Writing reminds me that none of us are truly feeling alone in emotions.
Carina Ikonen Nilsson
Yesterday can carry emotions that belonged to then, but sometimes they show up in the present. Some of them once helped us survive what we could not change. Today, those same emotions may only create confusion and hold us back. It is exactly when they appear in the present moment that we get the chance to work with them, to release old strategies and give space to the life we want tomorrow. The present always matters, even in our emotions.
When the Cookbook Becomes Life’s Manual and Every Page a New Understanding
Dreams and Self-Reflection
Dreams and self-reflection sometimes weave together in the most unexpected ways. Last night I remembered my dreams – two images that felt so close to what I’m living right now. It’s about growth, learning, and turning pages – both in books and in life. And perhaps most of all: about trusting the process where knowledge and experience slowly turn into inner safety.
Dreams and Self-Reflection – The Language of Dreams
First, I dreamed of little Emilia, my granddaughter. We were sitting together with a cookbook, tearing out pages and putting the recipes in a new order. It may sound strange, but it felt symbolic – as if we were creating new structures, new flavors in life.
Then came another dream: a book, and I turned the pages, one by one. A simple act, yet filled with meaning. I think those two dreams belong together – a reminder of how dreams and self-reflection can guide us through change.
Between the mountains and the sky – where thoughts and dreams meet in silence.
Dreams and Self-Reflection in Motion
When I think about it, maybe the dreams weren’t that strange after all. The cookbook Emilia and I worked on felt like an image of what I’m doing now – I’m not tearing knowledge apart, I’m simply rearranging it. I’m moving recipes, trying new ways, and letting old wisdom take on new flavors.
That’s exactly how my studies feel – like a living form of dreams and self-reflection in motion. I use everything I’ve learned over the years, but I do it in my own way now – with my voice, my experience, my heart.
And that other dream – the one where I turned the pages – is probably about trusting the process. Letting life show its pages one at a time, without rushing to the end. It’s the same feeling I carry in my education: not everything needs to be understood at once. The important thing is that I’m in motion, in learning, in growth.
The dreams feel like confirmation. I’m creating my own cookbook – not with recipes for food, but with recipes for connection. Conversations, empathy, presence. What I’m learning now isn’t new in itself – but the way I’m learning it anchors the knowledge deeply in my body.
Dreams and Self-Reflection – When Knowledge Takes Form
I’ve always had a lot of practical knowledge – steady, intuitive, natural. But now, during my training as a therapeutic counselor, I’m gaining something I’ve missed: the chance to weave together experience and theory.
I notice it in every lesson. I get full marks on the assignments, not because I’m better than anyone else, but because I’ve carried this understanding in me for so long. The difference now is that I understand why I do what I do. It’s as if knowledge is moving from being learned to becoming integrated in the body – it lands, matures, and deepens.
But it’s more than that. It feels like knowledge has now found its home inside me, resting safely on a foundation that’s been reinforced. As if I’ve drained away the surface-level knowledge built on others’ interpretations and begun to read between the lines within myself.
I no longer read just the back cover or someone else’s summary. Now I build my understanding from within, from all the conversations I’ve had through the years working in treatment and care. That’s where my foundation grows – from real people, real meetings, real emotions.
Previous courses gave me tools. This education gives me depth, grounding, and confidence in what I already know – but now with language, theory, and awareness that make it whole.
I now feel more one with the knowledge – as if it has become part of my breathing, a way of seeing, listening, and understanding. It’s as if I’m no longer standing beside the conversation – I’m inside it. Knowledge is no longer something I carry – it carries me.
Of course, there was a swim today. My lake sisters and I braved rain and wind – the water must have been below ten degrees, because it bit sharply at the skin. But that’s the point: to breathe, feel, and be here, now. When you step out of the water, endorphins meet the body’s defense, and everything becomes warm and still inside.
The swim, just like my studies, reminds me that growth happens through contrast. The cold awakens warmth, discomfort leads to strength, and stillness carries learning.
Dreams and Self-Reflection – Rearranging Inside and Out
When I got home, the little one arrived – sniffly but happy. Between nose blows, he helped me rearrange the living room – again.
My husband will probably shake his head and say, “What you can’t change inside yourself, you change on the outside.” Maybe he’s right. But I think it was me who planted that thought in him from the beginning – even if he’d never admit it today.
And maybe that’s how it is: every time I rearrange the furniture, something small inside me finds its place too.
Reflection
Maybe the dreams, the swim, the studies, and the rearranging all connect. It’s all about movement, change, and allowing things to shift – both in thought and in space. Last night I turned a page. Today I rearranged the room. And somewhere between those moments, a deeper understanding grew – a quiet calm that tells me I’m on the right path.
Everything is movement, change, and dreams and self-reflection woven into everyday life.
In every layer of mist lives a thought longing to be understood.
AHA – Between the Lines
What I feel most strongly right now is that I am part of my own development – right in the middle of what has always fascinated me most: the power of conversation. Conversations heal. They carry, lift, and mend – both the listener and the speaker.
I’m beginning to truly understand that it’s about trusting the process – not forcing, not knowing everything, but resting in the fact that it unfolds anyway. Knowledge has taken on both body and soul. And somewhere between theory and feeling, the conversation becomes a living space where people can truly meet.
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