I’d add prejudices, anger, addictions and “stories” to the list of things people hold on to in order to avoid pain. It’s easier to be furious than it is to be vulnerable, broken open, with no shell left (except it isn’t). And yet, that is what’s required if you want to be awake. An impenetrable shield is like armor around your heart. We’re taught to be hard and tough, but that’s no way to live; you can’t let the light in like that. Life will break your heart in two, or three, or more sometimes, it’s true. It’s an ebb and flow, and there are times like a hurricane that will blow right through you, sweep you up and spin you in circles until you don’t know which way is up or down, you don’t know your name, the pieces of your life are scattered everywhere, and you are left to sift through broken glass and old pictures. When the unthinkable happens, the mind reels in an effort to process the loss. The heart closes, the light goes out for awhile. It’s okay. It’s okay to be angry, to shake your fists at the sky, or to pound them into the earth, to claw at it, even. All you can do is face reality as it is, know that how it is now is not how it always will be, and hope those people in your life who really love you, show up (they will). Sometimes there’s the kind of joy that feels like sunlight just spilled directly into your heart. We are in the middle of a mystery we’ll never fully solve, and we don’t get much time to figure out that love is where it’s at. Some people exhale for the last time without ever realizing their purpose here, without ever opening their gifts. The gifts are there, they’re yours to discover and to share. The joy in life comes from that sharing, from that connection. We all want to be seen as we are, with all our humanness, and be loved and embraced, anyway. Cherished and understood.

Drop your stories, your blame, your rage, your fear. Fight your addictions, your desire to numb out, to sleepwalk through this thing. Because you might think you’ll avoid the pain, but anything you push down owns you and gains strength and power. You also miss all the incredible beauty if you’re sleepwalking. And as importantly, the key to your freedom lies within your pain. The longer you run from it, the longer you’re imprisoned. Your pain will not do you in, it will open you up if you lean into it. If you hold it up to the light and examine the places where you’re threadbare and raw, or still crying the cry of your four year old self. Your eight year old self. The self you were before everyone started telling you who and how you were supposed to be and what you were supposed to feel and want. Find that you. That you had no story, no addiction, no blame, no need to be right. That you was just open and curious and full of so much love. If you’ve lost that you, walk through your pain and reclaim yourself. Drop everything, get naked, and head into that fire so it can burn off anything that isn’t serving you, and open you back up to love, to your authentic self. Sending love to you, and the hope that we can all make this world a more loving and peaceful place by remembering who we are. Ally