Receiving what an experience has to give you, does not mean looking for its bright side, or the positives. It does not mean looking for the reason or the meaning. It does not mean wanting it or being grateful for it. It’s just receiving it. Plainly, for what it is and what it has for you. If it’s heartache, then it’s heartache. If it’s longing, then it’s longing. If it’s rage, then it’s rage. You are a deeply feeling, wholly alive, breathing, bleeding human.
It is the blessing and it is the curse.
Witness yourself where you are. Witness your heart experiencing what it is to be a human heart – breaking yet again and still beating, beating, beating. Rest in the ebb and flow of your life. Rest in its inevitable duality. Rest in knowing that this is indeed, a moment of movement, and it will exit as surely as it came in, with a promise to leave in its wake, strength that you didn’t have, compassion that you were only striving for before, and a home in yourself you didn’t know you could find.
(Photo from a South Carolina beach, in a very different season, holding a heart transforming from very different pain. Ebb and flow. Ebb and flow.)
