My heart is a safe place to flow into

This is 'Choices' weekend. (http://www.choicesseminars.com/) My daughters and I are coaching again -- Givers 1. It's an amazing 2 1/2 days filled with learning and sharing, caring, listening, being heard, being seen and being 'real'.

Choices is comprised of the first 5 days, followed by the two Givers weekends. So, both girls and I are back with our small groups from Choices, catching up and digging deeper.

Last night, there was a party for anyone who wanted to attend. What an amazing sight to see 200 people, ages toddler up (the oldest woman was about 80 in a walker). Everyone was on the dance floor, having fun, expressing themselves, dancing with someone, dancing with a group, dancing alone. And no alcohol.

One of the coaches and I were standing at the door, drinking water and watching the scene. "It's quite amazing," he said. "To witness so many people having fun letting their inner joy come out."

I agree. It is awesome.

When I arrived Friday night, I noticed tears clogging my throat. It's a phenomena I've noticed now every time I step into the choices room. At first, it worried me. What on earth is wrong? But my tears aren't about what is wrong. They're about everything that's right within me.

In the 'outside world', I'm really good at living in my head. I seldom let people see if I'm hurt, or in pain. I do not cry in public. I think my way through everything.

In the Choices room, I live in my heart. I feel connected to the source of my emotions, free and alive.

My challenge is always to bring that feeling of being 'at one' with myself and the world, back out into my every day. I move through it. Into it. Live it. Staying conscious, being aware, acknowledging what needs to heal or change allows me to dip into my feelings without fear that they will lead me into danger, or lead me astray. My feelings are an expression of me. When I'm centered, they do not flow willy-nilly onto the floor. When I'm breathing deeply, moving with grace and ease through my day, feelings move through me without dragging me into the drama of not knowing what I'm feeling. Sometimes I slip as I struggle to come to grips with what I'm thinking about what I'm feeling. And when I do, I breathe deeply again, connect thoughtfully with my feelings and move into being who I am, not who I think my feelings are telling me to be.

In the past, being in my heart was not a place I knew how to connect to safely. My tapes, self-defeating games, my past continually tripped me up into believing, the heart is not a safe place to live. Perhaps that's why for years when a man came calling, I always picked men who were emotionally unavailable. Because I'd thought it through, and read up lots on the subject, I knew what the thinking behind being emotionally available was. I became adept at fooling myself into believing I was emotionally available. I even believed myself as I thought, it's all their problem, not something we shared. I wasn't consciously choosing to be unavailable, I was unconsciously choosing not to be somewhere I didn't feel safe. The emotions surrounding being with someone unavailable were very, very familiar to me. It wasn't much of a stretch to be with someone who shared my state of being, thus, my fear level was always lessened when in the familiar safe zone of emotional unavailability.

At Choices, my heart is a safe place to flow into. My smile radiates from my heart, my love surrounds everything I do and think and feel. I stand exposed, confident that 'my best is good enough'. I'm safe with me, centered in my light, and in the truth I know is unassailable -- we are all magnificent human beings on the journey of our lifetimes. As I learn to let my emotions flow, as I learn to 'be real', to drop my masks and to be vulnerable, life takes on a richness and deepness I never before imagined. Sure, it's still scary at times, but this is a good scary. This is just fear moving through courage, connecting my thinking with my feeling so that I can be at one within me and with the world around me. As Franklin Roosevelt once suggested, the only thing I have to fear is fear itself.

I have nothing to fear when I step lovingly into heartfelt consciousness of living all that I am meant to be.

Have an awesome day spreading your wings and flying into the limitless possibilities of life beyond your comfort zone.