Day three: Heart, what do you need?

I need you to open me. Not just figuratively, either. But I need you to literally drop back into scary backbends in your yoga practice and have faith. I need you to practice physically opening me up and then remembering that come what may, you’ll be okay. I know, I know–sometimes you lose your foundation and collapse. But here’s the thing…you’ve always gotten back up again. Do you remember those years when you protected me so fiercely? You tried so hard to convince others you were tough and untouchable. Always in control. Unflappable. You did it well, I must say. You fooled so many for so long. But do you remember how you felt late at night, alone with your grip so tight around me? I was squeezed so tightly I thought I might die. That worried me because I know you better than anyone else. You are a girl of big, big feels. And those feels start in me, your heart. Those big feels of love and surrender, of trust and forgiveness. They live here, in me. You are at your best when I can relax and feel those feels, both big and small. Sure, it’s scary. But it will be okay. If you protect me too much, if you squeeze me too tightly, you’ll miss out. Life will become nothing but shades of grey, rather than the brilliant rainbow of feels you love so much. Those brilliant feels fuel your writing. You know that. They make you feel alive.

Remember how exhilarating it feels when you come up out of a deep back bend in your yoga practice? How you are breathless and light-headed and almost feel drugged in the very best way possible? Do that more. Go deeper. Go to that edge where you feel you just might bite it, but then feel your legs support my opening and go back deeper. Do it again and again and again and trust. And then trust some more.

Open. Feel. Trust. In that order.

That’s what I need.