I love hearts, I collected them for years while I was married. Ceramic hearts, wooden hearts, hearts with phrases that resonate with my soul, bowls with hearts on them. There are hearts bloody everywhere in my house, but how much love was there? Your ex-husband wasn’t really living an authentic life, I was still hiding away, choosing the unavailable and afraid to show up for myself. What kind of example was that for our kids?
So, what was this obsession with hearts (I even have one tattooed on my wrist)? What was I trying to compensate for? A love not found or felt. The obvious answer is, yes! I certainly struggled to love myself or to even see myself as deserving of love.
But, what I find really interesting is that while I was married many of these hearts somehow or other ended up broken. By various means and various hands. But I never threw them away. And even though it took me years after my actual heart was broken to fix them; I kept buying glue and then losing the glue, then buying more glue. One day I actually managed to use the glue.
It’s nearly two years since I put them up on the wall again. Broken hearts put back together again. Cracks still visible, but the whole none-the-less. And you know what, I don’t even see the cracks now. They are whole. Just like I’ve always been whole.
What I realize at this point in my journey to knowing I am whole; I don’t need to buy hearts (or love signs, I have lots of those as well) to hang on the wall anymore. I don’t need to work at feeling love for myself. I have come to understand that I am already pure love. We all are. We have within each of us the divine. Instead of trying to love and accept me, I focus on having gratitude for the life I have and the life I have already lived, all the pain included.
“You not doing life wrong; you’re doing it right.
If there’s any secret you’re missing,
it’s that doing it right is just really hard.”
Glennon Doyle – Untamed
Leave a Reply