Part Two: Stretching into Intimacy:

Is love scary for everyone?

There were years when I wept and wept, yearning for love, feeling broken, wondering if love would ever come. Salt licking my toes by the wipe open Pacific blue slick ocean that drank of my tears as I sat by it, while I cried:  “If love and partnership and family are not for me, then let it be.  I surrender my desire.” I tried to give it away again, and again.  Wanting that deep fathomless abyss to suck out of me the burning desire I had to be held by the loving strong protective arms of a Beloved.

But it didn’t go away.  The desire stayed with me.  And for years I met Mirrors of my shadows and desires and yearnings and weaknesses in partners.  My karmic cleanup team.  Adventures and lovers and stories.  I dated and loved a great many ‘story.’  Not a true Love, but one that would simply become a tale.

How do you have the patience to wait for a desire to be made manifest?  How do you not become numb and complacent by all the years of longing?  How do you stay close to the sting in a way that doesn’t harm you or overwhelm you?

And then, if it comes, no, when it comes…and you’re so happy it came - did anyone tell you about the stretch it might take to receive it?  Like if you’re used to holding your breath underwater for 30 seconds but now, all of a sudden, you need to hold it for 60. Did anyone tell you that receiving love can be like that?

Not for everyone, no…some people are already stretched open wide and they are those people who always feel like love, and don’t fear love, and trust love.  Like the huggers, and the ones who invite everyone to dinner and are so comfortable in their loving.  Maybe they are from a big family, or one of many children…But then there are the timid ones, who you can feel are a bit afraid of Love.  They hold their affections back because they aren’t sure, will their love overwhelm you?  If they run up to you and hug you would it be weird? They are unsure.  In moments this falls away…but mostly they are praised for other talents as humans.  Not their loving.

I was one of those.  Awkward at times with my love.  And I have best friends who, over bottles of wine, or cheesy rom coms, I was able to sink into love with.  Hold hands with in a platonic way.  Cozy on the couch with.  Say how much we love each other over and over with true praise.  Wipe each other’s tears and bring cups of tea to one who is in the bath.

Is that intimacy: to be able to wipe a tear of one you love and gently invite their head to lay on your shoulder?

There were times in my life when this intimacy felt so far…and times when it felt so near.

This intimacy requires a heart vulnerability that is scary.

It is risky to wipe the tear. 

To be the one who grabs a friend’s hand first. 

To be the one at the end of the call to say: I love you.

And are we taking these risks?  For that level of romance and intimacy I wanted with a Beloved I first had to rake those risks with friends, with clients…Inviting them into my heart.

As I went to the home of my singing teacher, and she brought me tea with honey, and said: “Sit on the couch, that blanket is so divine…”. And I let the lush soft blanket hold me, as she cared for me. That was intimacy. How could I show my clients that love? Because that imprint is a repair, it is a living transmission.

To receive the love we desire, we must take risks in intimacy.

Because don’t you want to be one of those people who feels like Love?  Not the sugary saccharine drippy kind that asks things of you…not that covert craving.  But the simple one, that brings you a cup of tea without an announcement or ceremony.

It can be much work to get there…to massage the heart scars and learn to trust and take those risks that inevitably open the heart wider than before.  And slowly you become more love, less fear. More love, less anxiety.  More love, less doubt.

The journey to that is not always one I hear about. All those tender risks, the awkward ones.  Maybe that time you went to hold a friend’s hand and she pulled it away fast.  Or you invited her to lay her head on your shoulder and she said: “Enough of my crying!  I’ll get us some snacks” and didn’t say yes to the intimacy.  That can all feel like rejection for a timid heart…but also it creates strength and courage.  That you bring into all areas of your loving. A reminder that loves is ready to give and isnt contingent on how its received.

This heart training will lead you to that love. I promise you.  I can’t say what that will look like, but it will lead you to a life of feeling love, being love.

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Stay tuned for Part Three on Thursday the 28th…My new book DARE TO FEEL: THE TRANSFORMATIONAL PATH OF THE HEART comes out January 16th with Sounds True! Pre-order it here and support my work. Means a lot to me as an author. Thank you.