To live with an open heart, inevitably means to risk a broken heart.
It comes with the territory of being alive.
And please allow me to clarify, that there is a difference, between merely existing, and being truly ALIVE.
To merely exist, is to be a passive observer, a tacit complier, to a culture built on fear, control, and the false belief that it is not safe to trust.
To merely exist, is to allow our hearts to become calcified, jaded, and numbed as a natural by-product of undesirable yet seemingly unchangeable circumstances.
To merely exist, is to allow our soul to go into hiding, to calculate the opening of our heart like a chess move--only risking making ourselves vulnerable if we can guarantee the upper hand.
This is not living, this is purgatory. It is a life worse than death, because at least in death, we are free.
To be truly alive, on the other hand, means to opt into this body, this heart, this moment, this life, right now.
To be truly alive, means to lead with the raw, messy, inconvenient, infinitely endearing truth--that lays us out naked and vulnerable for the universe to have its way with.
To be truly alive, means to be so indelibly connected to our heart, our value, our soul, that we know nothing can be taken from us that is not freely given.
We are safe, you see, we are infinitely safe, beyond anything that your mind, your ego, or your insecurity could begin to fathom.
Your heart, you see my darling, is an infinite resource, and to hide her from the world, to make her a scarce commodity, is to deprive the world of something it is in dire need of.
Love. The world needs your love.
It needs your love unadulterated, unfiltered, unencumbered by fears of being "too much", "not enough", or "unworthy of being received".
The world needs your heart open, and yes, to open your heart, does mean that you exponentially increase its risk of being broken.
But let me tell you my dear, a broken heart, is not what you think.
It is a gift, you see. Because in the breaking of your heart, you shatter the calcified walls of fear and retraction. You break apart the avoidance of feeling, of breathing, of claiming your aliveness.
In the breaking of your heart, you open yourself to a love beyond what you can possible imagine. A love of this life that goes beyond anything our human mind could comprehend.
This is a love that connects us to all things. This love shatters fear, it shatters story, it shatters illusion.
This love, is simply truth. And it is waiting for you.
Waiting for you to remember that your love does need permission or validation to be fully expressed. It gets to exist right now, without expectation or agenda.
Your love just gets to be here.
And oh my love, can you imagine, if we had a world full of hearts, courageous enough to be open, and willing to be broken?
Can you imagine, what a world, that would be?