When I started making changes in my life and working towards minimalism and zero waste, I never thought it would bring me to my heart. And if I knew that’s where it would lead me, to be honest, I might not have had enough courage to start.

It wasn’t until the space was cleared that I truly started listening. I realized that what needed my attention was my heart and emotional body. Unwrapping my heart has been like peeling an onion, kind of unpleasant and not really something you want to do. It feels like a big flower facing outwards from the heart space, and my job is to continually peel back each petal, trying to stay open.

When there are so many external distractions; things to do, work on, clean, schedule- you can disregard what’s going on inside you because there simply isn’t space. It’s easy to close up and protect yourself from the ways you’re hurting. It’s easy to dull down our emotions and avoid connecting with our deepest wild heart. The difficult part is welcoming in the places we’re scared to go, softening into all the parts of who we are, facing our intimate fears and dreams.

If we don’t go deep into our heart, and we run away from the places that feel dark, we sell ourselves short and miss the opportunity to truly love all our complexities. Each time we keep our heart open, it can be a sacred homecoming. Can you soften into those places, and not judge what still hurts?

I think that the only way to really show up and be seen as who we are, is to come from that open heart space. To continually stay in it and stop the ritual of snapping the heart space tightly shut. It’s a process of vulnerability, opening into uncertain territory. The risks are great, but the consequences of not doing it are even greater. When we sit in who we really are; underneath all the ways we protect ourselves, put up walls, judge ourselves and hide, we can soften. And it’s from this place of softness, feeling our true, raw open hearts that we can also love other people and see them where they are. This tenderness, once we’ve let go of our walls, is what makes us whole, because when we feel that calm heart, we can be ourselves, and when others meet us there, it’s beautiful.