From this sixty year old perspective I sometimes look wistfully back on what feel like a whole lot of lost opportunities. It feels as if there were so many wasted years in which I was lost in my own limiting story. I lived years with a closed, protected heart. I always felt like I was here on this planet to serve and to make a difference. But I was too fearful, too cut off, to hidden to really be effective. There was an internal battle being waged between what was seeking expression within me and how willing or capable I was to be seen and heard and really felt.
And so I hid. I medicated in countless ways, pretended, defended, and played small while acting big. I deadened in so many ways and then wondered why I couldn’t feel the Love I believed my Source to be. I tried to look as good as possible. I tried to sound good, make good, and pretend I was good, all the while covering over what did not in any way feel good to me.
Years ticked by and opportunities to love were lost. I lived stretched by a tension, by a deep and continuing call to release the shroud of protection and to then step up and out in what was essential and authentic inside of me. As much as I wanted to do just that the fear was often paralyzing.
And then one day a crack in the armor began what was to be my great unveiling. I began to deeply examine how I had been living. I began to be gifted with the courage needed to go into the interior places that most needed my caring attention. I began to reclaim all the disowned parts of myself. I took back my projections and got honest about the people and circumstances I blamed for my self-induced torment.
I asked bigger questions and my life got bigger. I re-evaluated my priorities and prayerfully sought the strength to live by what I discovered matters most. I fearfully yet consistently began to allow myself to be seen, heard, and felt. I risked exposure. I became less and less defended. I became willing to love first, to love beyond return or condition. I found hidden beneath all of the deadening a life that was seeking to serve as love. Beneath the pretense was the presence I had always longed to become and to serve.
I do not love perfectly, no, far from it. Yet I know it is what matters most. I know it is my purpose. Now when the fear arises I rarely reach for one of the old compensating reactions. I bring an acceptance to the fear that softens it without deadening it. My goal isn’t to never fear. My goal is to love beyond the fear. To not let fear prevent me from serving, giving, being the love I know I am meant to be. The ability to be with my own fear allows me to stay with and to compassion yours.
I guess this awareness and this increased capacity to love and to serve are the currency that turns those lost years into the price I paid to reopen. What feels lost is now a literal part of my spiritual gain. It took what it took. I look back with a tear and a smile. I look back with a determination to never hide in those ways again.
And I look forward with a stunning clarity about what matters most to me. I am here to love. I am here to open and yes, to close, and to reopen again and again in love. I am here to be imperfectly perfect in a state of essential, authentic love. To waste no more time in hiding or pretending or defending. Whatever time I may have left will be spent in service of love.
And that is what matters most.
