It has been an intriguing time quarantining during this pandemic. I have had quality time with myself… everywhere I go there I am. The conversations have become monotonous, drab, even repentant and mournful. I have read an array of books. Currently, I am reading several about women warriors, feminine mythology, and Toltec teachings. I am also listening to Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D., and watching a new horse training series out of Europe. What else… oh, I have cried and wept out of the blue, researched prejudice and systemic racism, delved into my own bias and learned behavior, and took a few naps.
In the middle of all of this, I have discovered some things about myself. One of these things is that I have a hardened shell around my heart. At first, I thought it was a solid shell, like steel or platinum. That is not accurate, it can be permeable and pliable. I know this because when my pup smiles at me and makes eye contact, I can feel my heart lighten and expand. It feels as though my heart takes a deep soft breath, and a smile rises from the expansion as it fills my cheeks and eyes with happiness. Or, when my mare leans into my hand with her body and gently breaths me in with her eyes half-closed. These moments are visceral reminders of the loving resonance I share with these beautiful sentient beings.
Let’s talk about humans. I experience an expansion of my heart when I teach or facilitate people. I often do my work with people through horses and the lessons I have acquired from horses. The work is with people, and the resonance occurs with those people, and my heart feels overflowing in that environment. I am fulfilling my purpose and passion while supporting others in growth and healing, and that feels good from the inside out. I can hold space for them, share my experiences and learning, be vulnerable, shed a tear, and listen with a depth of focus and attention that blurs the world around us. I feel deeply, and the feelings are broad strokes of vibrantly colored emotion dancing through empathy and caring. That heart beating inside my beautiful being is ever-present and expanding.
The hardening seems to be with romantic or intimate partners. I have discovered that the permeable bubble shield around my heart turns to a solid. As I reflect on my past relationships, I can see a pattern. With each partner, I have opened my heart, lowered my shield, thinned the veil of protection, and allowed them to enter my heart. With each occurrence of joining my heart with someone, I have also experienced levels of pain and sorrow—disappointment in outcomes. The tearing apart of hearts and lives for varied reasons has left my heart broken with jagged, sharp edges slashing my soul. The deep red blood has pooled at the base of my heart space where it thickened and became sludge. The pain and disappointment of broken dreams, the sadness and grief that has accompanied the devastation, the mourning of said loss has come with pain and crocodile tears. Early on, my heart opened easily to romance and love. With each passing loss of intimacy, my heart became less permeable. Once light showed through and refracted all the rainbow’s glorious colors; now my heart casts shadows that are dark and cold like the depth of winter during an arctic blast in Calgary. The effort it has taken to warm and soften my heart in my most recent relationships has been challenging and fleeting. I have found my way to opening only to have it frozen and shattered yet again.
Here is the truth of my heartfelt enlightenment. This did not happen to me, I created it. My heart did not come with a handbook or directions. I have looked inside, and there are no instructions carved into my heart, or on the walls of my heart space. There is no loudspeaker calling out to me with the next steps. I must figure it out. None of this has happened TO me, I have defined and chosen my emotion, or lack thereof in each situation and ending. I decided to compartmentalize the painful arguments. I opted to shift to hardened inflexible neutrality when conflict and emotion escalated with my partners. I dropped my internal temperature to a state of frigidity that forced the shattering of my heart. I stopped the fluidity of emotion running through my being. I allowed myself to bleed out and become stagnant.
Why? Why did I make these choices? Quite simply, I did not have the tools or understanding to choose differently at the time. With each new foray into pain and discourse, I turned away instead of facing it head-on. I honestly thought I was creating better coping tools. Instead, I was destroying myself from the inside out. I get to own my choices and the role I played in the destruction of each relationship. There have been times when I have pointed my finger at the other person and refused to own any of our implosion resulting in the end. It could be called a childish or selfish response. However, I simply did not know how to do it differently.
Today I have a new awareness. I see the balance in my emotion. The depths of pain and despair that I can touch is balanced by the depth of love I can experience and gift to another. For example, my father has been gone half my life, and the cavernous grief I can still access today when I reminisce about our time together is unending. I know that I loved him as deeply as it hurts. As painful as that can feel, I would not trade a single moment or memory to lighten the load.
So now, I choose to shift my perspective of LOVE and loving another. I choose to embrace the softening and opening of my heart. The last blog I wrote was embracing Love as the reason. Today I choose to embody that concept. I know with each new awareness; I open the door to possibility. I open the door to expansion. I open the door to vulnerability. I open the door to both pleasure AND pain. There just cannot be one without the other. I want the experience of loving another as deeply as it might hurt. I am choosing to focus on love instead of pain and disappointment. I believe that I will be a better partner, spouse, and lover because of this shift.
I choose love. I choose acceptance. I choose me, and in doing so, in genuinely loving myself, I open the door to loving another in ways I have only dreamed of. What I have to offer through my soft open heart is a love that bridges time and space. A love that can change the world. What we focus on we create, and it is time for me to soften the shell and focus on giving AND receiving LOVE.