I have been thinking more about being open to love as I wrote last week and contemplating how to really do this and not just give it lip service... because I notice that I do not commit the way that I should. The last thing I really committed to was becoming healthy... it was what I had to focus on. It wasn't a bad thing to put my heart and soul into it as I got to a place where I felt physically strong. However I believed I had control over it and nothing was further from the truth...
Something comes along and challenges you, you realize the truth is there is no guaranteed tomorrow... there is no real control... My defining moment came in November when out of the blue I was not able to walk... as you all know I became frustrated, disappointed, almost disillusioned... when I realized I couldn't make my body do what I wanted it to.... forces outside ourselves can change in a moment.
I was reminded of many years ago when a friend of mine was going to
visit her family in the valley... she and I had made plans for when she
returned. She didn't return as she died in a car accident. I remember how fleeting life seemed that day.... death does that to us ... we never think about it until it happens... of course we shouldn't dwell on it as we need to live in the moment but I think we need to remember that life is about change ... we honestly have no control over anything except what we think and feel...
All of this made me think about why I closed my heart, I wanted to have control over it... I felt if I did that no one could or would hurt me but in the process I almost lost the ability to feel much of anything. I have not felt true happiness or joy for a couple of years, it's true I once felt a joy more than I ever could have imagined possible but the flip side of that was despair. As I have written before I wondered if it was worth it... how could that joy be worth that much pain? So, no matter what happened, I didn't truly engage... when I did that, I didn't truly live...
After last week, I thought about how I want to engage... I want to live in the moment, I want to give up the illusive control because it hasn't served me well... I thought it protected me but I wasn't living... I was going through the motions. I don't necessarily think that opening my heart means romantic love, as I stated last week, I will be okay without it... but what I am not okay with is holding myself back for fear of pain, which doesn't let me move forward. This is why the thought of opening my heart has been at the forefront of my thoughts... the minute I contemplated it is when I started feeling tense...
I know that is fear ... I want to step past it, it isn't easy... it means allowing myself to feel... happy or sad ... it means allowing myself to believe that it won't always be sad and mostly it means knowing that even though I want to control it... it's really illusive... control just meant holding myself back... Besides it's an illusion that I am giving up so that I can be ready to take on whatever comes my way...
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