There was an old dream that opening our hearts was always going to feel safe, that somehow love promised that.
That allowing another to matter was going to be easy, that staying close to our vulnerability was somehow not going to feel raw and at times unbearable.
That to heal meant we’d be in some protected, resolved, untouchable state where we had transcended the sensitivity of being an open, naked, alive human being. That somehow healing meant we’d only have to live in one narrow band of the spectrum.
But love has no interest in our fantasies of invulnerability, trances of mastery and control, or sure knowing as to what is coming next. It is just too wild for all that, too creative, and oriented in the mystery.
Love seeks a vessel in which to come alive here and you are that vessel. It finds you by way of that quivering, that tender not-knowing, that willingness to start all over again. Sometimes broken, sometimes whole, sometimes a mess, but always alive. In all of your chaotic glory.
When we are totally unclothed, love will show us what we are. When the known crumbles away, all that remains is this burning heart. There is nothing more alive than that. There is nothing more sacred than that. There is nothing safer than that.
My most recent book – The Path Is Everywhere: Uncovering the Jewels Hidden Within You – is now available
The next book, A Healing Space: Befriending Yourself in Difficult Times, will be published by Sounds True in early 2020, details to come
The next event is The Healing Shame Retreat: Spiritual Awakening and Transforming the Core Wound of Unworthiness, April 24-29, 2019 at Sunrise Ranch in Loveland, Colorado, with co-facilitator Jeff Foster
