My heart has often felt like my greatest superpower and my biggest enemy. Sometimes it cycles between the two and often it feels like both at the same time.
Sound familiar?
As I've grown older, I've learned how to settle the relationship to my heart and to love, but it's been quite the journey...
I was born with an overflowing heart...some of my earliest memories are my experience of other people's feelings; often walking up to someone who I just knew was having a hard time and sliding my tiny hand into theirs. These memories feel like they'll never leave me.
I remember realizing that people's eyes lit up when I said "I love you" and those lit up eyes began to twinkle when I made them smile.
The lightness in their heart made mine feel better too.
Watching your world become more beautiful because of your kindness is a beautiful thing...
But somewhere in my discovery of others' joy, I began to depend on it...
That sad person in the corner began to tug so deeply on my heart strings that I too became sad.
The angry outburst I just experienced felt like it might just rip my heart from my chest.
So I'd focus all of my attention on cheering them up.
I'd fix the problem & all would be right in the world again.
Mostly it worked & the cycle continued...
Sad environment --> cheer it up, make it nice --> everything feels good again.
I became so fixated on the energy and feelings of those around me that I didn't really think to check in on how MY heart actually felt.
When I would fall in love, I would quickly become dependent on making sure the other person felt good all the time...so that I would feel good all the time.
Their upset or their pain was too much for me to handle, I took it on as my own & fell completely helpless to the cycle.
After a particularly bad break up, I decided that the best plan of attack was to stop letting people in, to be single & to move forward on my own. I spent several years intentionally single & bolting at the first sign of emotional attachment..genius plan, right?
Somewhere along the way, I remember a therapist asking me how I felt about a particular situation and I responded by rattling off how EVERYONE else involved must feel about it. As soon as the words came out of my mouth I stopped in my tracks.
Closing myself off wasn't working anymore, so what could I do?
I had no clue where my emotional body ended and another's' began.
So I began to explore that space inside of me that felt like me.
Who was I? What brought me joy? How did I like to be loved? What did love really mean to me?
I questioned everything.
For years.
I meditated.
I read the books.
I dutifully showed up to my therapy sessions.
I sat with acupuncturists and healers and medicine men.
I worked with coaches and attended events that were full of the kinds of people I wanted to become.
And, slowly, I began to see where my heart ended and anothers' began.
I started to trust that the folks around me could handle their challenges and understand that it was never mine to fix.
I learned how to witness another's heart without needing to attune my own to it.
The best we can do for another human being is hold a grounded space for them to share their hearts.
As I learned to tune into my own wants, desires and needs, I started to ask myself what kind of love I really wanted, what did a healthy love look like for me?
And I wrote that list down. Half laughing as I did. Believing that my desires and needs were a little too much & I may just live this happy little life alone.
But sure enough, Yonatan came waltzing in, just about a month after I'd jotted this abundant and outrageous list down in my notebook and left it to be forgotten.
Nearly a year after we started dating, I found that list and immediately burst into tears. It described this man to a T. Loving, kind, adventurous, respectful, willing to face the hard conversations and create a world that looks better than he found it.
Maybe one day, I'll share the complete list here, but for now, I'll say, if love has felt unfair or painful, unsatisfying or overwhelming, I understand. I've felt that & I know how heavy that can feel.
This story lies in the foundation of our Magnetic Partnership. I did it the hard way, but you don't have to if you don't want to.
When we clear out the space that is filled with things disguising themselves as love & get clear on what we actually want in that space, we become a magnet for the things that we really want.
Magnetic Partnership brings together years of both of our personal and professional experience to help you create that space with more ease and grace than we were able to. We offer a space for you to get incredibly clear on what does and does not work for you & invite you to make that outrageous list...
Outrageously in love,
Jaime
