on being held.

When we are in pain, our tendency is to constrict ourselves, to preserve all of our energy so that we can just survive. This is a natural instinct. When we are in danger, especially if we know we will not survive the fight, we hide. Hiding takes the least amount of effort and is the safest bet for staying alive, hiding gives us time.

However, even in the most dire of situations, we cannot hide forever. We need resources, we need a way out to freedom. We want to thrive. Hiding may protect us, but it doesn't provide us with what makes life worth living in the first place, it doesn't fill us up with good things like love and joy and hope. It doesn't allow us to expand into wholeness.

Hiding makes us smaller.

I recently experienced a loss that knocked the wind out of me, more than I would care to admit. Losing love is like that I think. One day you are breathing clear and sure, and the next you are not. The next day you find that breathing is harder and slower, that it takes a more concentrated effort and determination than it did before. You come to see that you took for granted what came so naturally, so easily, and it leaves you weary down to your very soul.

In this space of loss, my impulse is to isolate. To turn away from others.

To hide.

I want to be able to safeguard myself from further suffering, I want to numb the heartbreak I have already felt. Loss has a way of bringing up a history of grief, of reminding us of every instance throughout our years in which we felt the stinging pang of abandonment. It feels as though loss takes something from us, every time, until we are afraid we won't have anything left. And so we hunker down. We put up our defenses.

We try with all our might to decrease our pain, and this takes quite a bit of energy. And so in our attempts to hide, to preserve our life, we actually do the opposite:

We become dead inside.

And while this may feel safer at first, we discover that it is no way to live, like breathing stale air or being stuck in the same mud day after day.

Let me be clear: desensitizing yourself is not the same as healing.

If we want to move forward, if we want to feel better, we must allow space to be broken, but also...

to be held.

We cannot make ourselves smaller in our brokenness because this does not allow room for healing to begin. When we go to the doctor, we don't say "I'm sick, but you can't help me." We move toward our physician, we allow them to touch us and examine our bodies, and it puts us in a very vulnerable space. And this is how it should be.

The doctor cannot help us if we don't show where we are hurting. But even more so, the doctor cannot heal us unless we give permission for that healing to enter our hurting places.

We have to let healing in, without running, without fighting, without hiding.

This can be exceedingly difficult, because it means we must remain open, we must feel everything that has destroyed us in the first place. It means we are trusting that our pain can be transformed if we let it. It means we are raw and sensitive and vulnerable and most likely in a state we would like to keep to ourselves.

It means we are allowing our most fragile pieces to be held, so that they can be healed.

So that we can be put back together.

So that we can be whole.

And isn't that much better than being broken?

Our safety is not determined by how many walls we can build to keep ourselves from being attacked.

It is determined by who is holding us.

And how we choose to hold ourselves in the process.

Are we growing, nurturing, speaking compassionately to our wounds? Or are we looking for quick fixes, easy remedies that don't require us to see the full extent of our injuries?

We cannot be healed until we are held.

And we cannot be held unless we are vulnerable: with our pain, with our shame, with our fragmented hearts.

I know it feels you may die from the pain of it all.

But don't shut down, don't hide yourself away.

Stay open so that you can receive, so that you can let in light and love, so that you can do more than survive.

So that you can thrive.

Your heart is still beating.

Don't lock it away.

Let it be held, with great tenderness, and with all your hope.

Healing takes time.

But so does hiding.

And only one of these options leads to you being truly alive.

heartbreak and hope.

It's an age old question: what do you do with a broken heart? As a person who loves intensely and deeply, heartbreak is no stranger to me. And yet, it never stops being difficult. I think one of the hardest things in this lifetime to do is to accept that all things come to an end. We struggle against the changing of the tide because it is scary, because it takes all the joy and goodness and security we have experienced and washes it out to sea.

This fear   

that we can love and lose,

is often what keeps us from loving at all.

I have spent so much time avoiding intimacy because of fear. Call it what you want  attachment issues, commitment phobia, it all boils down to the same thing: I am afraid to love and lose. I have spent the majority of my relationships, friendships or otherwise, anticipating loss. It is so hard for me to sit in the present moment and enjoy what is right in front of me without my brain wandering into the past or future with extreme trepidation. Predicting and preparing for farewells is my specialty.

Unfortunately, life has much to offer in the way of loss. We lose jobs, outgrow friendships, go through breakups. People die. It's messy, this business of living. And yet, we have no choice but to keep moving forward in the face of grief, to put one foot in front of the other in the midst of suffering.

Heartbreak can steal away our hope.

It can hide it, cover it up so that's it's almost impossible to find. It can convince us that there's no point, that while life was generous to us for a time, that time is over.

At points, the pain of heartbreak can feel unbearable.

It can feel like something has been taken from you, something that was a part of you, something that moved within you and was as natural as breathing.

You can feel the tear, in your soul.

You can feel your heart physically break.

And the ache, it can make you wish all the good times away. It can convince you that it would have been better if it never happened, if you had never allowed your heart and home to make room for another person.

But that tenderness, that feeling of vulnerability and fear   

You're listening to it all wrong.

You're brain is trying to rationalize something that cannot be understood with words:

You have loved and lost.

We will never be able to make sense of it this side of heaven.

Grief becomes a familiar friend in these times.

But what I am learning, what I am trying to fight for, is to continue to live with my heart wide open. To continue to love fearlessly and courageously, even when I may lose, even if loss is a possibility.

I am finding that each time I allow myself to fall a little more, to love a little deeper, I am making space for more love to come into my life. I am stretching, pushing past my anxieties, and seeing that even when I experience a goodbye it doesn't destroy me.

There may be days where we feel like we can't possibly push through, that there is no way we can tolerate another loss, another heartbreak but  

We get through it.

So. I am leaning into my heartbreak because it is letting me know that what I lost was valuable. That it changed me in such a way that had I not experienced it I would not have been for the better. That it gave me the gift of love, no matter the time period, a gift that can only be received if we lean into it fully.

I know we want to protect ourselves, keep our fragile hearts safe.

I know.

But don't ever stop loving. Don't ever stop showing up to what life has to give you, especially when it's really good, especially when it's sweet and full and whole. Yes, there is always the possibility of loss. Yes, our heart does have the capacity to break.

It also has the capacity to heal.

And sometimes, sometimes we need a glimpse of the good to just make it to the next day. To get through all the bad moments, to remind us that life can still be beautiful and full of hope despite what has happened to us.

Love prevails despite our circumstances.

Don't let it go because it hurts too much.

Being without it is much harder.

Much darker.

Your heart may fall to pieces, but the pieces will be put back together.

Not always in the way we want.

But with time, in the way we need.

You are not alone.

You will get through this.

Stay open.

Love is never lost.

And it will find its way back to your heart again.