After leading a whole  retreat on the topic of the heart I’m pleasantly surprised by what I came out with:

To know and experience the love we have always wanted we must, absolutely must, begin by loving ourself completely.

But this is not news, we have all heard this before. So what do I hope to offer by repeating it again? I hope to offer a movement from an intellectual understanding of this concept to a real true daily experience- through practice.

We practice welcoming the sum total of who we are Right Now in this Breath. We make a choice to shift our way of being with ourselves. For instance, next time we feel like cringing, breathe deeply instead. We choose to embrace and learn instead of withdrawal,  we accept and look deeper instead of push ourselves away.

To be alive means an incomprehensible amount of intuition, organization and adaptability is constantly going on inside that gifts us the ability to run and jump and fall and scrape ourselves up. If we expect to be able to know LOVE we need to be in touch with the power of our own inner magnitude, choice and ability to voice. Otherwise what we feel, and what we see is LACK, and there will never be any person or any desired situation that will be able to bring us to a lasting knowledge of love.

This is not the easy way out, this is not allowing ourselves to sweep past incidences under the carpet, this is being with ourselves instead of running away in the hopes someone else will make things better. It will not always feel ‘good.’ But the practice and the process establishes a foothold in real choice. To face the inner and outer challenges, to see ourselves in a welcome light, to reveal that the love we’ve always wanted is ours.