“If you are uncertain about what to do in a situation, just open your heart and love.”
Andrew Holecek
God that is easier said than done...or is it?
I am expecting bad news from someone I care about deeply today. I am expecting the worst outcome possible. I know that I just need to be open but I am scared and want to run. I want to hide and keep open possibilities that I believe will be shut off today.
I want to do a whole host of things, none of which are opening my heart...all of which result in me closing down, shutting off and protecting my heart.
The very idea that I could just stand here and open my heart more than it already is, love even when circumstances are likely going to lead someone away from me, that seems like one stop past any length.
But when I read this quote this morning, I knew it was right. I am not sure what to do...but opening my heart and loving seems like the best, most evolved outcome. And I think I can do it, even though a great deal of me doesn’t want to...
Here is what I know for sure, that growth for me exists just on the other side of my willingness to do something that feels like too much of an ask. Growth happens when I am uncomfortable, in an incredible amount of pain and I go ahead and do what is being asked of me anyway.
Ironically, the person I believe is going to deal the blow today, doesn’t seem to be able to withstand the same discomfort and pain. So I clearly see that we are in the same place, but facing different directions.
There is nothing I can do today that is more authentic than open up my heart and love. Even though I am going to have overcome my ego, pride and this place in the pit of my stomach that makes me want to vomit. That flip flops like a fish on a line to let me know that something ancient and critical is being addressed...it is because of my love of this person that I even knew this place inside my own body existed...he being the first one to introduce me to it when he left my life before.
In truth, I do not know what is going to happen to today. And like usual, that panics me and makes me feel incredibly vulnerable. And I do not like feeling this way. So I have tried to deploy a million strategies for coping and dealing all in an attempt to feel less, and minimize pain.
It doesn’t work though...the pain is going to come no matter what I do. And if there is some other message I am get today, then all of the anticipatory anxiety and pain was all for naught. One more time, me wasting my life trying to pre-feel my way through this world.
So today, I am going to try to just open my heart and love. To really listen to what is being said to me. To ask questions, to really try to understand where this other person is coming from...to allow the universe to guide this conversation to wherever it is supposed to go and trust that even though it may feel like shit right now, that this too, is happening for my highest, best good.
If it goes down like I think it is going to today, I am sure that it is not what I want at all. But I have to trust that there have been so many things in my life that happened that I was sure were the worst news ever, and they turned out to be some of the best things that ever happened to me.
Perhaps happiness is more than getting what you think you want. Perhaps happiness and love and an open heart give you more of what you think you don’t need...love comes with a heavy burden because when you love, you are the most vulnerable to the other side of love which is loss. But I have learned something about loss and love recently...
I lose because I loved. My losses the best examples of my open, loving heart. While painful and hard to bear at times, my losses and pain and grief and sadness the best, most vibrant examples of how much I love, how I love and how deeply I give my heart.
So whatever comes my way today, I pray that I may receive the news, bad or good, with an open and loving heart. That even if this is my last time ever speaking to this person again, that I make sure that I show him how very much he is loved, even while he walks away. That this is the most loving thing I can do for both of us...to love even when a future isn’t promised. To love even as one says goodbye. Gut wrenchingly sad, yes. But keeping an open loving heart anyway.
