Hearts don’t meet by accident
arts
Love is a big theme for me at the moment - I can't seem to escape the opening back up of my heart, which I must admit has been closed for sometime. It feels scary and exciting, all at the same time…
A couple of months ago, I started dating someone who I met in person (yes in person, a strange thing in this day and age), which for a while seemed full of possibility, but then it didn't work out and I walked away. Soon after, I met another person who made me question my sexuality because I was immediately drawn to them and I wanted to spend so much time with. And then recently, I reconnected with someone who I've wanted to get to know more for a while. I'd just like to point out this isn't common for me, I've dated sure, and for quite a while now I've been single, but these 3 new ‘love interests’ seem to have sprung up on me rather unexpectedly when I wasn't looking. I like to think, as I'm continuing my breathwork journey that I'm opening up energetically to the possibility of love again and the universe is sending people my way to connect with.
To add to this…this week I returned to the south coast where I own a little house by the seaside. I don't live in the house, it is usually rented out but I returned there this week after 3.5 years to do some much needed renovation (heart) work and get it ready for the next people to make it their home. This house is wrapped up in the 3 most significant loves of my life so far. For the sake of the story, let's call them ‘The Fiancé’, ‘The Heartbreaker’ and ‘The Big Love’.
I bought the house post-break up with The Fiancé, after we sold the house we owned together. I bought the house as a refuge, to escape him and have somewhere safe to be. The relationship was emotionally abusive for many years and in the break up, (funnily enough) it didn't improve. I was scared of what he might do, so I bought the house in an area I knew he wouldn't visit whilst still being able to commute to work. During the time of living in the house, which was only lasted 4-5 months, I was scared. I was angry and resentful towards The Fiancé, as well as living in a deep place within myself full of shame for my actions which ended the relationship. My relationship with the house took on the same energy, of shame and resentment towards it. I bought the house not really wanting to, instead wanting to go travelling and feel free after feeling so caged. But I knew I wasn't in the right head space to travel and I'd easily spend all my life savings, so I did the ‘sensible’ thing and bought the house.
Then there was The Heartbreaker. The guy I'd fallen in love with whilst with The Fiancé (hence the shame). Before moving into the house, he'd left me without a word. Disappeared like a ghost. No reason, no explanation. I was devastated, confused and heartbroken. Since, my energy towards the house has always been associated with the confusion and sadness I felt at that time.
Then enter The Big Love. I met him once I'd left the house and moved to the South of France to start afresh. I've not spoke of him at all in the moodletter before, maybe because I've been healing from him for so long. We were a lockdown breakup, him living in Belgium, me living in London. It was the right thing to happen, but it doesn't mean it hurts any less. Sometimes healing from a breakup when nothing was wrong but it wasn't going to work can be the hardest, there's no reason not to love them anymore. The Big Love helped me move out of the house fully when I returned several years ago. He was my last memory of the house, until this week.
In the quiet of painting the walls from grey to white, I forgave, grieved, appreciated and accepted all the love that had helped me get to the point where I am now. Every soul comes into your life for a reason, we might not know the exact reason at the time but it does make sense eventually. Now it all makes sense to me.
If I hadn't met The Fiancé I wouldn't have bought the house. If I hadn't fallen in love with The Heartbreaker, I'd have married the wrong guy and not known what love was…So when The Big Love came along I could experience real love and eventually the grief of a great love.
So now I write this with freshly painted white walls - both physically in my home and metaphorically in my love life. I have a sense of closure for all those past loves and the gifts each of them gave me. The good, the bad, and the ugly, or should I say the Ugly, the Bad and the Good?
But still, there's work to do. Last week during a breathwork practice with my teacher, he asked us to answer this question - Who do you love the most? I took a few moments and thought, being single and child-free there was no ‘obvious choice’ in that sense of having a spouse to immediately think of, so then I moved onto family. I thought of my parents - "but he said one, do I choose Mum or Dad, how can I choose? Maybe it should be a friend, no wait, but which friend would I choose….?" I consider myself a loving person and I found myself feeling sad not being able to choose the person I loved the most.
A few days later, it hit me. The answer to question -
who do you love the most?
Have you guessed it? The answer is you.
It was supposed to be me, I am the person I am meant to love the most. But that wasn't the answer I had, which made me curious. And realise then, that I had some work to do to change that. Remember the person I wanted to get to know more? Well my immediate reaction when I thought of asking them out was, “I'm not good enough, they'll not want to date me.”
In that moment of lack in my own thoughts, I was given the gift of abundance. It showed me where my work was, in my self-worth and the realisation that their answer shouldn't affect my self-worth. Asking the question showed me I was ready to be vulnerable again, to be loved again, and open to giving someone my love. With the closure renovating the house brought me - I allowed myself to know now that I do love myself, with or without the love of others, and that's enough. I'm enough.
“In order to develop love - universal love, cosmic love, whatever you would like to call it - one must accept the whole situation of life as it is, both the light and the dark, the good and the bad.”
What I'm listening tothis month..
The Science of Love, Desire and Attachment
Huberman Lab
Love Your Imperfections with Jennifer Pastiloff
Mark Groves Podcast
Kamal Ravikant On Why Self-Love Is Everything
Rich Roll Podcast
this month’s affirmations…
I AM LOVING, LOVEABLE, LOVED
Everybody is worthy of love. I am loving, loveable and loved is an affirmation I use regularly when working in the heart space with my breathwork clients. It often gets a big reaction. Accepting ourselves as loveable is hard, it requires self-love to know that we are worthy of love. If we've been told we're not worthy or our love has ever been rejected in the past - this might be a hard one for you.
Considering myself a loving person, this month I've had to reflect on the conditions of my love. Do I love freely and openly without conditions? Sometimes the people we struggle to love, perhaps a parent, a friend, a colleague, give us the most resistance to be unconditional with our love. Whoever that is for you, imagine them as a young child trying their best to be loving, loveable and loved, and send them your compassion. Place them in your heart, feel that. Does it help see them as innocent and ignorant in their actions now as an adult?
Last thoughts…
A MESSAGE FROM A CROW
Whilst at my house by the sea - one morning I woke up early and took myself off to the beach before the world work up. The beach was full of seagulls, but during this walk, a crow (the one crow on the beach) decided to attack me. And when I say attacked, I mean it was literally diving for my head. I thought at first it was my long hair in the wind enticing the crow, so I tied it back thinking that would solve it. It didn't.
It flew down at me twice more, the last time making me dive for the sand to avoid it. During the attacks, I felt a deep sense of fear rise up in my body like I'd not felt in a long time. I was scared and it made me wonder, why? Why did this crow decide to do this? What was the universe trying to tell me? Where else am I scared in my life?
I discovered later that crows represent transformation, destiny and fearlessness - and in some way, I wonder if the universe was trying to send me a sign to overcome my fears and allow my heart to open back up - the scariest and the most vulnerable thing we can do as humans. I had some deep healing to process being back in the house. Perhaps the crow was simply trying to give me that little nudge I needed to face my fears and allow myself that closure. Sometimes we need to be confronted by the fear that comes with moving on to allow ourselves to step forward into our destiny.