Love can be terrifying,
Can't it?
Not the fairy tale kind of love,
I'm talking about the real kind.
The kind of love that makes your chest ache and your nervous system whisper,
No,
Please don't do this again,
It's not safe.
Somewhere along the way,
Love stopped feeling like warmth,
And started to feel like risk.
Each heartbreak built another layer of armor.
Each betrayal taught the heart to close a little tighter.
Until one day you woke up and realized that safety had become locking yourself out of love.
But there's something very important I need you to know now.
When you barricade your heart from pain,
You also barricade it from life.
The technicolor of life fades,
The music doesn't sound as good,
And you start existing in your life instead of loving your life.
And when I speak of love,
I don't just mean romance,
I mean relationship.
Connection,
Friendship,
Trust,
Safety,
Kindness,
Hope.
I don't want you to lock yourself away from all of those delicious things.
So let's walk into your inner world now and change things slightly.
If your eyes aren't closed,
Then please close them for a moment.
Close your eyes and imagine the gates around your heart.
You built them for good reason,
And they've kept you safe when you needed them to.
So please thank these walls around your heart for doing their job so well.
But now picture your heart behind those gates.
Tender,
Glowing,
Waiting,
Wanting.
Whisper to your own heart now,
It's time for you to be free again.
And just feel what happens in your body as you say that.
Maybe there's a little tremor of fear,
Maybe the sweetest relief.
Both are just as sacred.
Fear means you're close to the truth.
Relief means part of you already remembers it.
Love is risky.
You will get hurt sometimes.
You will misunderstand the situation and you will be misunderstood.
But the pain you experience isn't proof that you failed or lost love.
It's proof that you're brave enough to fully feel life.
You can't guarantee what happens next,
You'll never be able to.
But you can trust yourself to survive whatever comes.
Love gets safer the moment you realize how safe you are in you.
So please,
Next time you meet someone,
A soul who stirs something in you,
Don't run because you're scared.
Let your curiosity lead instead of your fear from now on.
Just notice the scared flutter in your stomach.
Notice the instinct to immediately lock yourself away.
Notice the voice that says no,
This is too much,
It isn't safe.
And pause,
Breathe,
And then ask yourself this.
Is this fear protecting me?
Or is this fear preventing me from fully living my life?
And give your soul time to answer.
Because sometimes the red flags are real.
And the most loving thing you can do for yourself is walk away.
And that's not failure.
That's self-respect and that's amazing.
But other times the red flags we see are really ghosts.
Old memories haunting you from the past.
Begging not to be repeated because they hurt so much.
Learn to trust yourself.
Learn to decipher your fears,
To listen closely,
So you can finally understand which fear it is you're dealing with.
The fear that loves and protects you.
Or the old toxic fear of the same thing happening again.
One fear is to be trusted.
The other is to be thrown away now.
Because fully loving is fully living.
And fully living is scary.
But it's also exhilarating.
And liberating.
And tantalizing.
And beautiful.
And delicious.
You've been through enough heartbreak to know that fear is real.
But courage is real too.
And courage is self-love creating magic.
So let love be scary.
Let it be messy.
Let yourself learn and grow and transform because of all of it.
Let all of it be worth it.
Because nothing brings color back to the world Like a heart that dares to stay wide open.
