#openheartedness

kin

I’ve learned to hold unmet expectations and keep my heart open to possibility. I’m practiced in searching for new growth springing from dreams that have been scorched by disappointment. I’ve trained my eyes to see joy woven through a story I would never have been brave enough to write for myself. And I have discovered that delight is indeed infused in that story too.

Vulnerability is a key to deep love. When you're vulnerable, true to yourself, and speak your truth, it allows others into your heart and increases their trust in you. Ultimately, deepening your relationship and connection with each other. When you practice crystal clear communication, you reach the other person's heart. When you speak from your head, you reach their head.

Reminder: It’s ok to feel joy right now. It’s ok to laugh, to have fun, to fall in love, to relax. It’s okay to take a break. In fact, all of this is crucial. You’ll be pulled back to the tangle of everything else you’ve been feeling soon enough. For now, claim your joy when you see it.

Paradoxically, by welcoming our experience without initially trying to change it, we actually change everything.

When you're hellbent on your expectations, you close yourself off to things unfolding in other, and maybe even better ways. It's like walking into a dark forest with one torch. If you only point your torch forward, that's the only path you'll see. But if you shine your light to the left and to the right, you may see another, quicker, more beautiful path you wouldn't know existed had you never looked. Let go of your expectations and open wide to the possibility of things unfolding in other, maybe even more magical ways. Stay open wide. When we have unrealistic expectations about how we think things 'should' look, we close ourselves off to the miracles around us.

You may not have signed up for a hero’s journey, but the second you fell down, got your butt kicked, suffered a disappointment, screwed up, or felt your heart break, it started. It doesn’t matter whether we are ready for an emotional adventure—hurt happens. And it happens to every single one of us. Without exception. The only decision we get to make is what role we’ll play in our own lives: Do we want to write the story or do we want to hand that power over to someone else? Choosing to write our own story means getting uncomfortable; it’s choosing courage over comfort. One of the truisms of wholehearted living is You either walk into your story and own your truth, or you live outside of your story, hustling for your worthiness.

Unlike self-esteem, the good feelings of self-compassion do not depend on being special and above average, or on meeting ideal goals. Instead, they come from caring about ourselves—fragile and imperfect yet magnificent as we are. Rather than pitting ourselves against other people in an endless comparison game, we embrace what we share with others and feel more connected and whole in the process. And the good feelings of self-compassion don’t go away when we mess up or things go wrong. In fact, self-compassion steps in precisely where self-esteem lets us down—whenever we fail or feel inadequate. When the fickle fancy of self-esteem deserts us, the all-encompassing embrace of self-compassion is there, patiently waiting.