To be loved.
Have you ever loved a photo because it shows you how you look through the lens of someone who loves you?
Flowers and yoga teach me to love in the present, to be in the presence, to see something for what they are, and to exist in the most present state of mind. How often do we fall in love with potential? We see someone for what they could be giving to us, for the role they could become in our fantasy. We see them as someone who could rescue us out of our own traumas, someone who could sweep us off our feet and make all our childhood dreams come true.
Love is not a fantasy of what-ifs, of what could have been.
Love is to see the person before you for who they are, exactly as they are in this moment, and to delight in their presence. Love is to fully and deeply exist with the person before you — until you forget what could have been and what has already passed, when there are no surroundings, no past, no future — only love.
To dream is to hope. To be is to exist.
Love lingers in the quiet in-between
holding someone as they are,
while allowing tomorrow to remain a gentle mystery.
Have you ever let yourself sit alone in silence, held within the shared energy between you and someone you love? And the love you share begins to move through the cracks of your soul — becoming the water that nourishes your deepest wounds, becoming the light that gently reaches the darkest corners of your heart. Love is that simple:
allowing yourself to be.
Flowers — to me — are a reminder to love something in the present moment. Flowers are most beautiful in the moment they are, and that alone is enough.
Flowers wither, feelings change, people leave, but all of those things make life worth living.
You can’t kiss the same person twice, even if it’s the same person living in the same body.
You can never have the same moment twice, even with the same person.
That’s why every encounter is beautiful, every kiss is the first kiss, every hug is the first hug. Because the moment dies as soon as it arrives, and if you are not careful enough, it will slip through you like the way snowflakes disappear as soon as they reach their destination.
Love is silent, yet unmistakably loud.
You can never deny loving someone.
It leaks through the quiet moments.
It sneaks up in the way you smile.
It lingers through the scent left behind.
Or in all the words you haven’t said,
Yet immensely felt.
And understood.
Empathy — a couple of months ago, something happened at work that broke me so beautifully. It broke a lot of my confidence and arrogance — that I knew how to live, that I knew what I was doing, that I knew the intentions of my behaviors, and that I knew the results of my actions. It shattered my heart completely, and there were days when I could do nothing but allow myself to feel all the pain
That’s when I learned about the beauty of pain. To be disappointed, to feel hurt, to allow yourself to be defeated — these are beautiful moments of being alive.
When I was so hurt, every day I asked myself, what could I do to make myself feel loved? And I cooked a lot of delicious meals for myself, I took myself to yoga, and in those meditations, I let myself feel the anger, the most revengeful part of myself. I let myself grieve for the innocence that I knew would never come back to me again, and to shed a part of me that no longer aligned.
In my most despairing moment, when I felt the hatred overflowing through my heart, leaking out into the way I saw the world,
I prayed.
I prayed to the universe for all the love that could carry me through my challenges. I prayed to the universe to show me the way to carry me through my challenges with love. And that was when I received the most unexpected messages, all the smallest acts of kindness and empathy around me, that filled my heart with love and thankfulness.
I will forever be thankful for all the loving energy from everyone around me that carried me through my moment of despair.
You are never alone.
That’s when I learned that empathy, forgiveness, and compassion can’t be forced.
And sometimes forgiveness means that you forgive yourself for not fully knowing what is happening to you. You forgive the situation that happened to you, knowing that it served a higher purpose than anything you could understand at the moment.
You can’t use toxicity to fight toxicity.
You can’t use hatred to answer hatred.
There is only love.
The love you have for yourself, and the love you have for humanity are the stronger forces that will protect and expand your heart.
In my moments of deepest despair, I’ve learned that I love myself too much to ever poison my heart with hatred.
In my deepest moments of despair, I learned that the love surrounding me is stronger than any force that could pull me away — always guiding me back to the path of love.
Don’t give up on yourself.
When life brings you into its most challenging moments, it offers you a choice. You can always choose — to meet those challenges with empathy, with compassion, with love.
You always have a choice: to see things from a different angle, through a different set of eyes, from a different point of view. You can always choose to face what comes with love.
I hope you know you never have to fight your battles alone.
There are so many people out there,
some you may not even notice,
who are only a message away.There are many who wish for nothing more
than for you to be well,
and for you to be happy.And I hope you know this too:
there are so many people you haven’t met yet
who will love you in ways you can never imagine.
Loves,
Tracy