Love Confuses Me And Attracts Me All At The Same Time
You can listen to this letter here
The heart never closes down. Never. The heart is an open river and if we let it, it will flow with emotions freely. To your heart anxiety and joy are the same movement just different colours. Sadness and excitement are not a problem but an energy that needs to be expressed. Confusion and uncertainty are different ways of creativity. Things get complicated when the mind is involved. No, more than involved, when the mind is taking charge. I was thinking a lot of how I can be of service. I have been offering lots of videos, online classes with guided meditations (another one is coming soon), recorded meditations and writing from the perspectives of the beyond. Love confuses me and attracts me all at the same time. Love tells me to give with no account. It also tells me to take care of my own needs. Love tells me to open and embrace everything and everyone, yes, including views and people whom I might not agree with at first glance. Love also tells me to guard my energy because being balanced is how I can be in service and offer honest care. Love also tells me that it’s safe to be vulnerable. Love never promised me to make sense! And that’s how I realised that what we really need right now is to learn how to bring self-love to ourselves. As soon as things closed down our tendency was to shut down and contract ourselves. To prepare for the worst-case scenario, to hold back, to wear our defences. Some use blame as a way of relieving themselves from the difficult task of meeting the pain, others ride on the flames of anger. And worry is like the ancient queen of all challenging emotions that whispers in our ear “here, use me, at least you’ll get a feeling that you’re doing something, that you’re responsible, that you’re not just a lazy bum that accepts what’s happening without fighting the good fight”. What we’re asked to do, what we must do, is open up. Keep that love-river clean and flowing. Now, more than ever, it is more than a nice self-development thingy you do, now it becomes a survival skill. A survival skill? you ask. Survival is making sure I have money to eat and a roof over of my head and medication to combat this little bustard that crowns our days. And I will reply - yes! Because love is the first thing you needed as a new born for your brain to develop. And that, my love, hasn’t changed. There’s an opportunity here to meet ourselves. Isn’t it difficult ? Yes. It is. But you can do it! The inner pain (pain=anxiety, worry, self-judgment, shame, sense of abandonment, feeling rejected…) dissolves when you choose to consciously meet it. Eyes wide open, heart spacious as the universe. So here’s my vulnerability. You might want to cave in, lay low under the blanket until this is all over, while I come and say that your amazing opportunity lies outside of your sheltering self. You might want to hold back, cut back on self-care while I come and say that now is the most important time to invest your resources in growing your capacity to love. Especially yourself. You might want to learn all the possible ways to silence your pain while I suggest that you come out boldly and look it in the eye. Sigh. Here’s my invitation to you: Discovering self-love 5 week journey into your unfettered heart Together, we will discover how, as my spiritual teacher John O’donahue said “love is the only antidote to fear”. And the only medicine for meeting the unknown. This is how the Tao master Chuang Tzu speaks about the wisdom of the heart: “Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was myself. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.” Love tickles me and tenses me all at the same time. It taught me how to make love with life, how to embrace my most pressing questions with heart, how to dissolve pain with every bitting pulse. I imagine the same thing for you.
Photo by Alexander Krivitskiy on Unsplash