I thought I knew. I thought I knew how to love and what love feels like. As I have expressed lately, God has me on a journey of the heart. I am relearning what love is and of course, what love isn’t. It is not that I did not know how to love, but I sure have been engaged on a deeper level lately. My relationships have grown exponentially this year in the depth and richness of love. I have AMAZING friends who show me what love is not only by loving the mess of me and the things I am healing and changing, but also by letting me SEE them….see them to the depths of their souls. No hidden agendas. No fake facades. Just them. They have entrusted their soul’s care to me and it is such a sacred space.
There is one thing to know someone and we all have those that are ‘close’ to us. But here is where I ask….how well do you actually ‘know’ them? Would they share the depths of their finances with you? Would they care if you asked? Would they share some inappropriate choices they make? Would they share the struggle they have with knowing they are not right in the eyes of God, yet make them anyway? Do they share their struggles with their spouse, their children, their parents, and inward struggles of their faith? And the deeper and more profound questions is do you do this for THEM? Do you let them SEE YOU? Do you let them see the stormy and twisty stuff inside? Do you let them see the shiny and sparkly stuff too? Do you give voice to your struggles with faith, life, and everything in-between? Are you willing to be raw and authentic and share the things they ask—would they feel comfortable asking the uncomfortable? Do you?
It seems that so many of us live half way to love. We love only when it is safe. We hold ourselves back for the fear of being found out or the fear of being hurt. The list of why goes on and on. We all have experienced hurt and we all have experienced betrayal. Isn’t it time we shed this our self and take ownership of what we do, say, think, and feel? Can we be honest in it? Can we speak our truth IN AND WITH love rather than using our speech as a weapon disguised as speaking our truth? Speaking our truth comes from a place of LOVING not slingshots and arrows. All of us express ourselves differently. We all take things in differently. We all tell ourselves stories in an instant and these stories define how we perceive something to be. What if we just paused for second and realized that the person talking to us LOVES us and we are on the same team? What happens then? Would you react the same? How would that change your interaction with EVERYONE you meet? WE are all connected after all…sharing one breath, one prana, one Creator.
I had a moment where I was working through some things….exploring the depths of my own heart and soul…when I literally felt my heart expand. Expand physically as well as energetically. I laughed as I looked over at the person I was with and we both at the same time said, "WOW! WHAT WAS THAT?!” From that moment on, I saw things differently. Felt things differently. I was rooted into a deeper space of knowing, sensing, and trusting. I recognized that I only allowed myself to feel anger and frustration. I am happy in the heart and mind most of the time, but I never truly allowed myself to feel love. I give my love freely….or at least I thought I did. I learned how I held myself back from the full embodiment of loving and being loved myself. It was bewildering, scary, freeing, and exhilarating to find these new spaces and places to exist from. The journey still holds all these things and I think it will continue to do so.
Our yoga practice lets us into the deepest caverns of our inner world. It gives us the tools to make self discoveries we can share and process alone or with others. It allows us take what we learned and put it into action. Yoga goes off the mat and into this world. My mat has opened a whole new world to me and continues to do so each and every time I choose to be on it. It is sacred just as we are made with sacred purpose.
To those of you who are on this path with me, you know EXACTLY who you are, I can't thank you enough for holding my heart in your hands as I embrace the more feminine side of me—the more loving side, the more gentle side, the more compassionate side, and you have helped me to gently stay there….open myself up more so that I can live free. Thank you for holding me accountable and telling me when I am wrong. Thank you for showing me what you see and what you feel. Thank you for allowing me to be in your soul’s care as well as entrusting yours to me. Thank you for letting me see a tangible version of God is love. I am excited to watch this journey unfold…to have it twist, turn, prune me back and let me soar.
Loves does, yogis…..LOVE DOES.
