Over the past year and a half, the well of love that normally flows so smoothly and effortlessly from my heart dried completely up. The pain and uncertainty my body put me through asked for every ounce of that well to be given back to myself for survival. I was forced into unwanted isolation as my body took me to new levels of pain I didn’t know existed. My physical survival was the first thing on my mind at all times, and I’d do what I could to find joy and light in the midst of the darkness that plagued me.

Looking back on this past season, I see how it all forced me into so much discomfort to change old habits and mindsets that had to go. I am an enneagram #2, and if you know anything about that system you know that 2’s are considered “the helper”, and that is a role I have clung to most of my life. I have used my own love to manipulate others into loving me in return.. all of this is subconscious, but at the heart of it I have “helped” others or have poured my heart into relationships in order to receive the same love I so easily gave. Truly, I have never rested in unconditional love.. thinking that I must DO or EARN the love I desired from others. The drama of this past year shook this habit out of me in ways I could have never predicted.

Without anything to give in return, I was humbled again and again by the love I was given by the people who crossed my path. This habit was extremely hard to break, I would push my body to it’s limits to make sure the homes I stayed in were clean, to wash clothes or cook meals to make sure I would still be welcomed. Was I giving enough? Do they still love and accept me because I did X,Y, or Z? Over and over again I was given love from others without any condition, other than the expectation and condition I put on myself in those situations. The first outpouring of this love started with the Go Fund Me that my friends set up for me, and the love letters and compassion and kindness flooded into my heart like a big bright light- giving me the energy and push that I needed to keep moving forward. Strangers donated and shared, and I didn’t give them a thing.. they just loved me for being me. The gift of that love stayed in my heart in the darkest of times, I would be in total isolation, but would never be alone. Friends would buy me food when I couldn’t even talk, mothers would give me the mothering love I so desperately needed during that season while also scheduling appointments when my cognition didn’t work. I would show up to homes literally shaking because I had been in such a mode of fighting, and I would stand there just asking for a hug and for human connection. I asked for healers, and I found them at every turn.. healing my heart, mind body and soul.

Over and over again I would be humbled as all of my preconceived notions of love an how I should operate within relationships was shattered. When you aren’t used to getting that kind of love, it’s often hard to accept. It’s hard to open your heart to such depths of beauty and allow it to fill that well, which in turned help me in my fight for my life. Old friends opened their homes to me, when I had nothing to give in return.. sometimes not even a conversation. New friends would come in at just the right time and would hold me in such a sweet and tender space, giving me laughter and life when I needed it the most. I feel as if I haven’t had anything to give in return, but I know that love pours out of each of us even when we aren’t making an effort— and maybe that is also the lesson I have learned? When you are aligned with love and your own heart, loving others is easy and you drop all of those nasty cords of expectation and fear.

If I know anything about myself, it is that I learn from experience.. and I needed the experience of being loved fully in order to shatter all of the old unhealthy patterns that I used to exist in the world. I have been shown again and again what unconditional love looks and feels like, the same love I have been cultivating within my own heart for my own self was mirrored back to me. I have learned how to give unconditional love to those around me, which is a harder practice than you would think, especially when those deep seeded notions of “being enough” or “doing enough” to be loved run soooo deep. Friendships that did not exist in that plane of love were taken away, and new friendships opened up that met me in that space and taught me how to be a true source of love and light. It broke my heart a thousand times, but that breaking has just opened me up to see things clearer. As Joe Dispenza says, I have been breaking the habit of being myself, and introducing new habits and new beliefs into my system to override all of those limitations within myself that held me back from loving you fully.