The smallest betrayals
Most people think being free is an absence of external constraints and the ability to do as we choose in any given situation. But freedom can always be available to us, whether we are in a prison cell or enjoying a life of privilege and comfort.
The journey from narrow place to expansion and freedom lies outside of time and space.
We can traverse that seemingly daunting distance with a thought. We can travel that length without accruing any mileage at all, with remembering right now what we really care about or recollecting right now the source of our deepest happiness or coming back right now to our essential selves.
The opposite of freedom is a sense of internal constriction.
The journey to liberation and expansion is a journey within ourselves nowhere else.
Life will always bring pain loss and hardship. But no matter what comes our way we can always choose how we respond. This is our basic freedom. We can react from unhealthy and limiting patterns that create further entanglement and suffering, or we can meet the moment with compassion, acceptance and inner spaciousness.
So there comes a time in the journey to the heart when it is time to let it heal. The deeper we go into the healing, the freer we will be, the more we will know what we feel, and the more we will feel joy.
Your heart may have been broken many times. Some breaks hurt more than others, but each break caused a fracture, a weakness in your ability and willingness, to love, trust and heal.
Don’t shut down. Don’t go away.
Don’t tell yourself, “My pain is not important. I’m stronger than that. That’s just the way life is.” Those are all lies we tell ourselves, lies to hide the pain of the break.
The smallest betrayal unexpressed, at least to ourselves, can cause damage to our hearts.
Willingness is the key. Willingness to feel all we need to feel, willingness to heal, to love again.
As you go deeper into your journey, deeper into your joy, go deeper into your heart. Mend and heal all those tiny breaks, all the fractures, all the cracks. As you go deeper into joy, you will go deeper into your pain, your grief, your losses. Don’t be afraid. That doesn’t mean you’ll return to despair or that you will live forever in grief and anguish.
Take the time now to mend the breaks.
Go deep within your heart to help it heal.
Recognise the dreams that have been trodden upon.
Acknowledge the betrayals.
Release the hurts.
When we can keep our hearts and minds open no matter the circumstance then we have truly found freedom.
—
Andrew.