Space for love

My body now carries two souls, yours and mine.
My body now carries two hearts, yours right below mine.
Just get here, little one, and I will show you the earth.
I will show you the earth and you will teach me of heaven.

I have been steering into my fear for some time already. Generally when I feel my heart wanting something, I don’t hesitate to follow it, no matter how my head may protest. I trust that my heart knows. I also trust that the fear I feel in these moments will eventually subside.

And sometimes within the very thing we fear lies the key to everything we have been searching for.

The bigger things I fear

One of the things I have always been afraid of, was having children. For most of my thirties I convinced myself, and those around me, that it wasn’t for me. I was deadly afraid of losing my independence, ruining my relationship, losing the autonomy of my body and in general losing my lazy Sunday mornings. No, I thought, I could not risk it. Let other people reproduce, and let me remain independent and unattainable.

At the same time the very thing I longed for the most, underneath it all, was to feel connected. To connect with others, with my family, with friends and loved ones. I wanted to shake the existential loneliness I have always felt in my independence. I started to wonder if perhaps all my running around the globe had been escaping the realities of these feelings and fears? Because sometimes, when my guard was down, I felt the tug. But fear always took over and I shut down.

Until my heart knew again, stronger than ever. A major circle completed, a chapter ended, and a new one was about to start. My heart whispered, give love a chance. Surrender to love and let life fill you.

So I did.

Come through me

I sent an open invitation to the Universe declaring that I would step out of my own way. I faced my fears and jumped once more, declaring that I would be ready. If someone wanted to come and join us, I would be open. If not, I would be fine as well. I could live with the decision of the Universe, but what I did not want to live with was a decision based on my own fear. Because that’s what I had been doing all along. Deciding against something, deciding to run away from something, deciding for something based on fear.  But that was not a way to live. I wanted to choose for love, go forward towards connection, I wanted to choose life. So I said:

Come through me, my child, if you wish, I am ready for love.
I am reaching within to find endlessness for you, to carry space and to share my power.
I will stand here, both feet on the ground, my heart full of space for all that it is you are.
Beauty, light, love.
We are down here, we are together, we are open.
Come through me my child, if you wish.
The earth is an amazing place.

The invitation was received, and I am filled with love, beauty and light. After the first weeks of disbelief and fear, and after the first months of nausea and misery, I am happy to announce that my heart did not steer me wrong this time either. What I feel is a spiritual connection unlike anything I have felt before. Connection to my family, to the Universe, to the earth, to the path of life waiting for me.

This all has actually very little to do with the general question of whether to start a family or not. It’s about accepting the invitation you hear in your heart, whatever it may be, and going for it no matter how scary it sounds. Today I feel I can breathe again, there is no resistance.

As Glendon Doyle Melton puts it in her beautiful book, don’t doubt yourself, but trust the invitee. And I do feel we were the ones receiving the invitation, not the other way around.

On the other side of fear

On the other side of fear is connection and love. And trust. Because all I can do is trust. There is no freedom in choosing against what you fear. There is only freedom in choosing what you crave for, choosing for what your heart desires.

I cannot express how much in awe, again, I am of the Universe and its ways. How the Universe was hiding the key to everything honest and pure behind my biggest fear and hesitation. But why? Is it to challenge us to look beyond the fear, to step off the cliff and jump into madness? To take a leap of faith just because there is a faint whisper in your heart that it might be right (regardless of the thousands of practical reasons why your mind is telling you to stay where you are). What if I had chosen fear? What if I had leaned on the side of hesitation?

I don’t want to think about it.

I always want to choose love. I want to fill myself with love, to receive love and to feel connected. This particular choice (pregnancy and children) is not a general way to happiness, let that be said again. But this is the path my soul wanted to take. With it I inherently choose difficult things, things that will overwhelm me and exhaust me. But it’s ok because it feels right. The direction feels good, and whatever lessons it will bring, those are just the right ones for me.

It’s almost ironic that my search for freedom has lead me to this. It lead me to my ultimate sacrifice of freedom, and yet I feel limitless and endless. Connected and cradled. Loved and held. I feel more free than ever. I am free of fear.

Because I choose love, life, beauty, light. Because we are all that light.