A Gift from the Heart

Woven throughout this blog is the theme of opening our hearts again.  For all of us, it wasn’t safe to keep our hearts open when we were young.  Not only did they close, but we built walls and barricades around them.  So much of awakening is allowing our highly intelligent, sensitive and sensing hearts to open again.  As our hearts open, we again know the joy of being alive – the joy of inclusion rather than exclusion, the joy of compassion rather than judgment, of kindness rather than meanness, and connection rather than control.

I have walked with many people over the years through the process of coming back to their hearts, and over and over again, I see that one of the last places we bring our hearts to is ourselves!  We have lived in the mind for so long that we are used to its judgment, pushiness, criticalness, not-enoughness.  So, I wanted to share with you a beautiful and profound piece of writing from Jeff Foster.  Enjoy!

ALL THE LIFE INSIDE OF YOU

When you were young, you learned to abandon yourself for the world. You learned to put the feelings and needs of others before your own. You learned to hold yourself back, silence yourself, crush your perceptions and feelings and desires, disconnect from your truth in order to protect others from feeling uncomfortable or disappointed or angry or jealous.

You learned to deny yourself, distrust yourself, and you called it being kind, nice, good, unselfish, caring, even ‘spiritual’. You were applauded for your brilliant facade.

But you always knew: you had torn yourself in two. For love. For approval.

You did violence on yourself, seeking safety, trying to manipulate others into loving you.

You were not wrong. It was intelligent to want to protect yourself back then.

But the love you sought never came. The image only crushed your spirit, made you feel less alive.

So now is the time to let the lie crumble. To return to a living truth. To stop the violence, the self-abandonment, the running away. To stop leaving yourself to please others, to protect them from discomfort, to uphold a false image.

Now is the time to drench yourself in radical self-love.

You may have to start feeling your guilt now instead of acting on it or running from it. You may have to commit to feeling shaky, vulnerable, afraid, uncomfortable, even unworthy.

But now you are no longer a victim of these energies. You are willing to hold them. You are their mother, their protector, their Home. They no longer hold or control you. You can walk with them. Invite them to walk alongside you.

You are powerful in your love. Strong in your sensitivity.

Friend, never apologize for all the life inside of you!

– Jeff Foster