{"id":9532,"date":"2019-01-09T09:39:17","date_gmt":"2019-01-09T14:39:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/?p=9532"},"modified":"2019-01-09T09:39:17","modified_gmt":"2019-01-09T14:39:17","slug":"love-with-all-your-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/2019\/01\/love-with-all-your-heart.html","title":{"rendered":"Love With All Your Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"twohearts\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sometimes when I am out and about in the world, objects call to me to take them home with me. This heart…the red one was just such a thing. The price tag was\u00a0all of $2.00 but the message is priceless. The drawing was a gift from my longtime friends\/family of choice Janet Berkowitz and\u00a0Phillip Garber\u00a0<\/a>following the life-altering cardiac event (a.k.a heart attack) in 2014. Backstory:\u00a0 Three years after my husband died in 1998, Phil became my son Adam’s ‘Unofficial Big Brother’ as a role model, go-to-guy and confidant. A few years later he became a father surrogate and evolved into a man Adam called his Pop. He jokingly referred to me as his ‘baby mama’. Phil died July 31, 2017, right before Adam and Lauren’s August 12th wedding. He and I were to walk Adam down the aisle together. Instead, his wife Janet accompanied us.<\/span><\/p>\n

My initial thought was that “Of course, I love with all my heart.” Most who know me would likely nod in agreement.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The reality is, I don’t. When I withhold love from anyone because their values and behaviors are dramatically different from mine, whether it is on a relatively minor scale such as people who smoke and drop their cigarette butts on the ground, or a major scale, such as the current occupant of the Oval Office and those who are in alignment with his actions, I am not loving with all my heart. Love doesn’t mean approval. It does mean acknowledging the full humanity and worthiness to be loved for every person on the planet.<\/p>\n

When I judge myself harshly for being fully human with foibles and frailties, I am not loving with all my heart. When I speak harshly to myself for falling short of my goals and expectations, I am not loving with all my heart. When I tell myself that I will never have certain experiences I desire, I am not loving with all my heart. When I second-guess others’ responses to me, I am not loving with all my heart. When I deprive myself of heart’s desires, because of regrets from the past. I am not loving with all my heart.<\/p>\n

What does it cost to love, full out? Risking rejection. Willingness to fall and skin my symbolic knees and have boo-boos. Knowing that I will have to change the mind that has been trained over the decades to view the world and the people in it in different ways. Re-writing the narrative. Going the extra mile and not remaining complacent. Stretching comfort zones.<\/p>\n

When I wear a lovely facade and pretend to be something\/someone I’m not, I push love away. When I tell myself that somehow I just ‘can’t get it right,’ and others have the key to the locked door that evades me, I turn myself away from the opportunity to enter the chamber of wonder where riches await.<\/p>\n

Grateful for the reminder that arrived courtesy of wood, red and white paint and words of wisdom.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n