The Opening the Heart workshop has been home to me for the past 18 years.  I found it at a time in my life when change was happening in me, ready or not.  I was falling in love and it felt like it might do me in.  I had built an emotional fortress around my heart that was sturdy and effective. This fortress was in response to sustaining a number of major losses all in a row. I felt like I couldn't come up for air before another loss knocked the wind out of me. My fortress was an attempt to protect me from the unknown, and from the unbearable pain of losing yet another loved one. No one could get past my inner protection without permission and I liked it that way. I felt safe in my self-sufficiency and misunderstood it as independence.  At my first Opening the Heart workshop in 1990 one of the facilitators said these words to me:  "The heart is a package deal.  When it closes, it stops the flow. When your heart is closed, you are closed to all of life. Nothing can come in, and nothing can get out." Something in me stirred.  I felt busted. My cover was about to be blown from the inside out.  My fear was palpable, and right on the other side of that was the longing for and the possibility of deep connection with the beautiful, human souls an arm's reach away from me.  My heart made up its own mind, and my soft, human body followed. Out tumbled so many tears, so many years of holding in, holding on. I hadn't met myself in that place.  It was new to me to lower the drawbridge and let love in.

There are no words to express how I move through the world today.  My heart is open most of the time.  I am so in love with life, and that doesn't mean there is no suffering.  What has changed is that I am beautifully met in all facets of living and loving, and when it happens, in loss.  The lonely places in me that thirsted have been rained on with human kindness. I am full of gratitude.
And I am privileged to be a part of creating the Opening the Heart experience for others - privileged to be able to participate in such a masterful, loving and emotionally intelligent creation.

This week I decided to take flying lessons.  Since childhood, I have been mesmerized by Amelia Earhart.  I think her courageousness was like a magnet for my young, Leo heart.

Remember dreaming as a child that you could fly?  Me too!
You can!  All you need to do, in order to fly, is to be willing to be lifted.

With love,

Donna

Thank you Donna for this inspiring story.

Come meet Donna, Linda, Jon and Peter at the next Opening the Heart Workshop™ at Kripalu in Stockbridge Massachusetts, March 2010

and check the OTH Website for a full description of our workshop.