From Behind the Walls

Where is your heart today? Can you bring it out from behind the walls, can you open it up to the world, can you reach across the ravines that separate you? Can you accept that pain is coming and know that the joy you create and live will swamp it? Can you be the love you want to see?If there is one thing in life that I know intimately, it’s walls. I’ve built them so many times and in so many ways, both consciously and unconsciously. Mostly they were designed to keep me safe, often from myself. Even when I thought they were to keep others out, they were mostly to keep me in, to keep me from seeing too clearly.The strongest walls are not the walls of behavior, they are the walls made by stories. Because behavior is easy to change. Stories remain. We fit observations to them. We connect our feelings to them. They control our internal dialogue and sometimes our external dialogue as well. And a full throated assault rarely changes a wall or a story, but love, given and received, can slowly unwind them if we give it time.As you read this I wonder:* How do you bring your heart more into the open and show it to others?* Can you allow love to slowly undermine your walls?* Can you have faith that doing so will create more joy than pain, even if the pain comes first?The hardest thing about our walls is they are there because at least at one moment in time, they served us. This week, can you remove a single brick and let your light shine forth? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aconstantbecoming.substack.com