More and more welcome.
Awaken my heart.
Awaken my heart.
Awaken my heart.
What if love is the path,
The doorway,
And the key?
What if love is the path,
The doorway,
And the key?
The key to what?
The door to what?
The path to what?
Freedom.
Freedom.
Peace.
Aliveness.
Fulfillment.
Deep,
Unending soul fulfillment.
I love this idea that the path of the heart is the path of freedom.
And it's not just an idea.
Who here knows that experience?
Who here knows the experience of maybe feeling like you're in so much pain,
Or you feel so tight or so contracted,
And then something just cracks your heart open?
Maybe someone just holds you,
Or someone says something kind to you,
Or something else tender happens.
It might not even be a direct experience for you,
But something happens that just melts the heart,
Just cracks the heart open.
And something that seemed so intense or so stressful or so important,
All of a sudden doesn't seem that way anymore.
There's this flood,
This movement of energy,
This movement of emotion that happens when that heart cracks open.
And what has seemed impossible or catastrophic or whatever it might have seemed just doesn't seem that way anymore.
Love is such a healer.
Such a healer.
And self-love is where it all begins.
Our capacity to feel love starts with our relationship to our own beloved self.
Our capacity to give love starts with our relationship with our own beloved self.
It all starts right here.
I've been having many experiences lately.
So has life,
Right?
For each of us.
And I'll share something deeply personal.
So from time to time,
I will have an experience in the physical body that is excruciatingly painful.
And it's like a spasmatic experience.
And it's a muscular spasm that has all of this radiating pain.
I don't need to make anyone relive it with me.
But the point is,
Is that it's not just kind of like an aching pain,
Or kind of like a sharp pain that comes and goes,
Or something like that.
It's like this involuntary,
Nonstop physical pain.
And it usually lasts for 20 minutes to an hour,
Sometimes a little over an hour.
And there's nothing I can do.
There's nothing I can do when it happens.
I usually find myself on the floor,
Calling out to source to God to my beloved teacher,
Just asking for help to get through the pain.
And I would say that due to my teachers,
And my life experience,
And the lens that I see my life in the world through,
That I have an awareness that something deeper is happening.
I know there's a physical pain in the body.
I know it can be related to what's happening muscularly,
Or what's happening with the cortisol levels in my body.
I know this,
But there's something deeper happening,
An opportunity to let go,
An opportunity to face the pain,
An opportunity to surrender.
And I'm not saying that my path needs to be your path.
But there's something that happens when pain arises fully,
Where it becomes an opportunity.
And not every time.
Sometimes we just do our best to make it through those moments,
Right?
Sometimes we can't add some spiritual meaning to it or anything like this.
Sometimes we just are in the throes of the suffering,
And we are just trying to make it through.
And that is the way it looks sometimes.
And yet,
It can also be a profound opportunity.
I don't even really have words.
I mean,
I could use words like transform,
Freedom,
Heal,
But they just don't pale in comparison to the depth of what the opportunity is.
So I became aware this has been happening for some years now,
That there was a deeper opportunity in this pain each time that it came up.
And it wasn't like I needed to analyze it.
It was very clear in the moment.
I would be in the throes of physical pain that would not wane sometimes for an entire hour.
And I would meet myself.
I would meet the parts of me that were holding on for dear life,
Trying to control reality to stay safe.
I would meet the parts of me that were afraid,
That were holding on to anger or rage,
That were holding on to shame,
That were trying to hide from the world.
I would meet these parts of me every time I sat with this pain.
Every time.
It wasn't because I wanted to.
It wasn't because I'm so great and spiritual.
It would organically happen each time because I couldn't do anything else.
I couldn't turn on the TV.
I couldn't go exercise.
I couldn't even really call somebody.
The pain was too much to even try to speak with someone.
All I could do is curl up on a ball on the floor,
Be on my hands and knees,
Crying for help.
And every single time,
I would end up meeting myself in that pain.
I wouldn't abandon myself or try to distract myself.
I didn't have a choice.
And I wasn't trying to be holy.
I just didn't have a choice.
So why am I sharing all of this with you?
We're talking about self-love.
Why am I talking about this experience?
Well,
Could be for other reasons.
I'm sharing because this happened again yesterday for the first time in maybe a month or two.
And you know,
As this pain is occurring,
And I'm just trying to breathe through it,
And tears are coming,
And I've noticed there's anger coming,
And different emotions are rising.
Because again,
It's like the way that I kind of see this experience that happens for me,
Is it's almost like an opportunity to feel the depths of the pain of the human experience that my intellectual mind just doesn't know how to release and process.
So I'm in this experience yesterday.
Again,
It lasted for over an hour yesterday.
And I'm having these different thoughts about it.
You know,
Oh,
This anger about this person,
And this sadness about this thing,
And this feeling about me and my life or what I'm supposed to do.
I don't even remember exactly what's happening.
But all I remember is there was a point as the tears are just flowing down my face.
And there was just this clear voice that said,
It's all about you.
It's not about the other.
It has never been about the other.
This is all about you.
It is all about you.
Whatever hurt you are holding onto that you feel someone has done to you,
It is all about you with you.
Whatever anger you harbor towards someone for something they did,
The mind is projecting it is about something outside is all about you.
And not just meaning,
Oh,
Your reactions,
Your feelings,
Your wants,
Your needs.
It is about you with you.
And I have to leave this simply because it's not it is something I could try to explain to your intellectual mind to my intellectual mind.
But it's so far beyond that.
We are mirrors for each other.
We are mirrors.
We are one.
We are one.
And it all starts and ends with you.
The freedom you long for starts and ends with you.
The peace,
The love,
The joy that you want someone or something outside of you to bring to your life,
It all starts and ends with you.
You are everything,
Beloved.
You are the light and the dark.
You are the joy and the pain.
You are the beauty and the ugliness.
You are the fullness of the whole experience.
And it begins with us welcoming each of these parts of ourselves.
Every single part.
The parts that seem the most shameful or ugly or unlovable.
Those are the parts that we welcome the most.
All of them.
Every single part.
Love you,
Heather.
You're not alone,
My love.
So,
Ready to cultivate some self-love?
If that didn't wake something up inside.
And I'd love to hear anything you wish to share.
What did this sharing I just offered wake up inside of you?
If anything,
Maybe nothing today.
But is there something waking up inside?
Maybe it's a feeling or a thought.
Ah,
Yes,
Lori.
Every part.
Over and over again.
And that's it,
Really.
Over and over again.
Because they keep coming up.
The parts that we have rejected for so long.
They keep coming up.
So we just welcome them again and then again.
Yeah.
Ah,
Beautiful awareness,
Ella.
Yeah,
I have been abandoning myself for protection.
Yeah,
How much kindness is actually in that.
We speak about this often.
I have some talks here recorded on the app.
The Inner Critic.
How it's actually a self-protection mechanism.
Yeah,
My love.
Yeah.
Yeah,
Starlight.
That's it,
Darling.
Can you feel that tenderness?
I don't want to abandon myself anymore.
Oh,
It's so precious.
Yeah,
Liz.
I was feeling like it all comes back to me.
But try not to blame myself.
Yeah,
It's and I want to continue on because you were kind of tired of the learning opportunities.
Sorry,
I don't mean to be a Debbie Downer.
That's okay.
That's okay.
Okay.
Sometimes we really are just so hungry for relief.
Life will always have challenges.
There will always be painful moments.
Always.
Now,
How we relate to the painful moments may shift,
Transform,
Evolve.
But they will always arise in the nature of this Maya and the nature of this reality.
So if we find ourselves resisting the pain,
Resisting the learning moments,
That usually means it's because we haven't wanted to see what there is to learn,
Right?
To some degree,
Or maybe it's just the peeling of the onion,
As we say.
You know,
I've been consciously doing this depth of work for way over half my life.
I mean,
I've been doing this deep work for at least 25 years.
And there are still these layers.
You know,
I'm like,
Oh,
I should be totally healed from this thing.
Or that thing doesn't bother me anymore.
And boom,
It's in my face again,
Or boom,
My nervous system is responding as if that trauma is there again.
That's the peeling of the layers of the onion.
If I was feeling that way,
I would ask myself,
If I was feeling if I was feeling like I was just tired of learning moments,
Can I just be happy already?
I would ask myself with kindness.
I would say my beloved,
What are you resisting?
And beloved,
What are you resisting?
And just be curious.
Not like I know it all.
But just be curious.
What am I resisting?
Because the freedom is within us.
It's not the outside world.
It's not like,
Oh,
The problems go away.
And I have a peaceful life,
Right?
Or like,
Oh,
Like,
I just don't have so many issues.
And it's a peaceful life like that.
That those external opportunities will always be there.
So what is happening in here?
And rather than coming at myself like,
Oh,
I have to change and I have to grow and I have to evolve.
Oh,
My beloved,
What are you feeling?
What's going on inside?
What are you resisting?
And listen,
You know,
We're all different.
You don't have to agree with me.
You don't have your path is different than my path.
And I'm speaking to each of us here,
Right?
Some of us have similar paths,
And some of our paths look very different.
And that's okay.
That's the beauty of life is the diversity and one of the beauties of life.
Yes.
So our paths may not look the same.
However,
I can say that I have taken on the perspective in my life that suffering is a gateway to freedom.
Sometimes it's like the sufferings just building inside.
And then that intensity gets so strong,
That there's a crack like that roomy quote,
Something like the wound is where the light enters.
I was listening to this beautiful piece interview or podcast or something with Adi Ashanti the other day,
Where he was speaking about how so many people not all for sure,
But so many experience an awakened state or an awakening experience into a state through a psychic buildup of energy,
There's such a psychic buildup of pressure,
That something finally breaks.
And that's where that light enters,
So to speak.
