I have something to tell you.
Are you listening?
I hope you’re listening.
Because this is important.

This is about life.
This is about love.
This is about how you cut yourself short.
This is about how you think you’re undeserving.
Unworthy.

See, most of us go around acting like there’s a limited supply of love.

You think that if you capture the essence of love, if you love someone – and especially if you think they love you back – you must CLAIM them. OWN them. Wrap them – this love – around you so tightly that there’s no chance of it ever being freed.

Why?

Because you might not get the chance again.
Because it might be the only loving meal that with sustain you.

THIS love … once it’s gone, it’s gone.
No second chances.

It’s the law of supply and demand.
Low love supply + high demand = an outrageous, treacherous, risky, high price.

Love becomes dangerous.

The belief goes like this: Since there’s not enough love around and since we have to be perfect to be lovable, chances are, we aren’t going to “get” it … as though Love is a commodity.

So we hold out. Hang back. Withhold our hearts.

Not out of wisdom, not when we know we should let go, but out of fear of being undeserving.

We think we have to be perfect to be loved.
Lose weight.
Have a good job.
Follow the rules.
Be NICE.
Prettier.
More. Less.

We feel isolated from others. Cut off. Separate. Alone … and don’t admit it.

Yet we refuse to see our part in this. How we refuse to lay our vulnerabilities down and instead create distance and build walls. We’re unwilling to expose ourselves – our humanity and our bright light – to become emotionally intimate.

I’m here to tell you there is no love shortage. 
Love never runs out. It’s not a fossil fuel.
(We’re all acting like it is … but it isn’t.)

Instead, we scavenge around on the rotten beliefs that have been thrown at us. Beliefs of what Love is supposed to look like. Ideas that love means complete attachment. That you must cling, hold on tightly, beg, and grasp onto one another.

Love doesn’t bind to anything. It’s the light weight of an ethereal feather kissing your soft cheek.

It’s a lover looking deeply into your eyes, seeing past your detachment, the ways you shut down and hide away, but loving you still.

It’s a mother recognizing her child’s worth and loving them – without condition – even when they make mistakes. Especially when they make mistakes.

It’s the ability to know that in our humanity, we’re sometimes cracked, wounded AND also divinely luminescent, shining, and capable to be the conduit of all love.

We’re afraid to rip off every mask. We’re afraid to cut open our vulnerable heart and let the very rawness of our humanity be seen in its total mess.

Because let’s face it: We all have stories. We all carry deep hurts. And there’s NOTHING WRONG with this. There’s nothing wrong with your imperfections. There’s nothing wrong with YOU.

Can you accept this? Can you take this into your heart and truly feel it?

Oh, it’s hard for me to do.
It’s hard for most of us to do.

Look at our planet.

Look at the children screaming for attention.
Look at our relationships barely surviving the push and the pull game.
Look at the ways we think we’re different from eachother … so different that we need bombs, guns, rape, knives that cut off heads … because we pray to a different god. Because we have different colors of skin. Because we live in different neighborhoods.

Can you not see how our world is screaming out, aching for love?

Our world trills and tremors with this idea that there is not enough love to go around.

THIS is the tragedy … only because the love we seek is here always. It is within us. It surrounds us. We are it.

Love is not complicated.

Love is not a painful scream.
Love is not dangerous.
Love is not a risk.

Love just IS. It’s around us, always, ready for us to access. Ready for us to pull it inside of our hearts and simply see one another, our world, and ourselves through it.

Love doesn’t demand attention (even when we do). It doesn’t have to.

Love lives on the tip of your tongue. Love is in the curl of your ear. Love is in the way you throw your head back when you laugh. Love is in the way you look at your beloved pet.

It accepts.
It sees.
It recognizes.
It embraces – but does not bind.
It just kisses you and loves you and lets all be.

It’s not about the outcome.

It’s not afraid. It doesn’t shut down.

And it doesn’t take giant steps away.

It just is.