The more involved you are in a relationship, the more likely you are to get hurt because the more you are emotionally exposed, the more dependent you are, and the more you link your hopes and future with that person.
But also because you start to share the pain of your loved one.
You suffer when they are suffering or when they aren’t near you.
It is natural and inevitable.
At my wedding, I remember one of the Zen Masters who reminded me of this truth, saying that when we open our hearts to the other person, we automatically open ourselves to pain and hurt.
We have two options here:
- hide behind the wall and keep your heart locked up, it’s safe and at the same time … sad because you’re depriving yourself of love and joy to share your world and life with someone else.
Or…
- you open your heart wider and wider until it becomes so huge that it can receive absolutely any feeling – great unconditional love, bliss, joy, and great sorrow, grief, pain – and embrace them all within you.
If you choose option 2, you will have a great life, great like your heart.
If you choose option 1, your life will be as tiny as your heart, limited only to you and your problems.
How to open your heart?
Practice opening your heart to others.
Start with your loved ones.
Imagine you invite them into your heart and make a place for them.
It’s not that you have to do something for them, solve their problems, or find solutions for them.
It’s about letting them be who they are and being 100% with them.
The second practice: allow yourself to feel all your feelings, without judging yourself for them.
Without doing anything to silence them.
And when you let them be, the amazing thing will happen – they will naturally go away.
But you will become more and more familiar with whatever will show up in your life and you won’t be disturbed by that.
Your heart will be bigger than all that 🙂