Most of us have one or two feeling states we will do just about anything not to feel. It might be an emptiness, a particular kind of shame, heartbreak, a sense of abandonment, or the feeling that we do not belong.It could be deep rage or deep grief. Without realizing it, we spend much of our lives organizing around not feeling these places.Our behaviors, coping strategies, relationships, work, spiritual practices, and even our identities quietly arrange themselves in service of avoiding contact with an old, lost, orphaned place within us.As we deepen on our path—through reflection, therapy, meditation, or simply the lived experiences of relationship and loss—we may begin to sense this place more clearly.It often appears in quiet moments, in dreams, during a walk in nature, after an argument with someone we love, or in the ache of not being seen or met in the way we long for.Alongside its appearance comes a deep, primordial fear: if I truly meet this place, I will die. I will not survive the encounter.There is a certain truth in this fear. Something does die. But it is precisely in turning toward this place, rather than continuing to organize our lives around avoiding it, that the water of life is found.It is here that aliveness, connection, meaning, and purpose begin to return. The lost orphan within us was never here to harm us or to take us down. It has only ever been waiting for us—waiting to be felt, to be lived, and to share its wisdom, its fear, its love, its beauty, its mercy, and its grace.