(Warrior Princesses CAN Love With) A Paper Thin Heart

Now what do I do
With the sweet love of mine
Do I give it away and
Hope someday I’ll find
Someone half as awake
As the moon and the stars
Mother, teach me to love
With a paper-thin heart

  (From Sheryl Crow’s song “Detours”)

 One of the gifts I have given myself for 2014 is weekly attendance at a Yin Yoga class. I have been an occasional practitioner of yoga for years, and although I am not particularly good at it, I love yoga. Yin Yoga, however, is a different breed from all my previous yoga classes. It’s a very gentle yoga. We hold the poses longer, we breathe, and we “let go.” Each week our instructor focuses on different areas of our body to “open  up.” What I love most about Yin Yoga is its focus on our body’s energy or qi. Using our breath and our bodies and our minds, we get that qi moving! Half of the time, I don’t even feel like I am doing much of anything physically. But by the time the class is over, I experience the most amazing changes. Often, I feel like I have just had a massage and I walk out of the class, smiling and all “loosy-goosy.”

Last week in my class, to celebrate Valentine’s Day, we focused on opening our heart center. I’m not a yogi master so I won’t waste your time talking about chakras and qi, but here’s what happened to me. During that class, I looked into my heart and I found a corner of it that was dark and boarded up. “Closed For Repairs.”

Bravely, I shined a light in there and pulled off a board or two. What was in there? It was loss and grief. All the people who I have loved and lost over the last 10 years. My mother-in-law; my father-in-law; my best friend from college; my Uncle Barry; my dog; my mama. Right now, my grief boils down to one thing: I just miss them so much. When someone dies, there comes a point (for me at least) when I am forced to confront the most horrible reality ever: I will never again see that person in this life. There’s an emptiness there, a big dark chasm that seems all encompassing. And to put it frankly…..it freaks me out. I would prefer to continue the busy-ness of my day-to-day life and not look into that black hole. Let’s board that sucker up!

Letting a little sunlight into that boarded up area, well, it blows. It’s hard. It’s painful. My instinct is to nail another “two-by-four” over it, maybe by eating peanut M & M’s until I’m nauseous. I want to lay in bed and read Pride and Prejudice for the umpteenth time or snuggle on the sofa and watch a Downton Abbey marathon. I want to cry. I want to cuss. And, yes, during this past week, I have done some of those things! But what I am trying to do is to just continue to let that light shine in and clear out the dust and the cobwebs.

This morning I remembered my friend Judy telling me about a TED Talk by Brene Brown, “The Power of Vulnerability.”  So I finally watched it. (It amazes me that I will watch hours of Project Runway but don’t make time for 20 minutes of something enlightening and stimulating…..but that’s a topic for another blog!) Don’t be like me…..go ahead and watch it! Anyway, Professor Brown tells us that those people who live “whole-heartedly” embrace their vulnerability; she says that what makes us vulnerable also makes us beautiful. Instead of numbing our hard feelings (say by eating a bag of Reese’s miniatures), we can “let ourselves be seen”; “love with our whole hearts”; “practice gratitude”; and know “I am enough.” Easy-peasy, right? Here’s my take-away: living “whole-heartedly” ain’t for sissies, but guess what? I’m no sissy. I’m one brave warrior princess!  And I am committed to living and loving with a “paper thin heart.”

Warrior Princess Lee, armed with sparkly wand and action figure Jesus, in front of window of power

One Final Thought: I know we don’t get grades on sharing our vulnerability, but if we did, I think I would get an A. First of all, I wrote this blog about vulnerability and second, I shared a not-very-flattering selfie.  I am actually much better looking in person :)!