Welcome to another Grateful Heart Monday, where gratitude remains the sole expression of my writing at the start of every week, which for today is for my heart continuing to become more and more open and how that seems to be helping other souls along the way.
Honestly, I must say, opening my heart in this life has been so…very…difficult. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve allowed my heart to get trounced upon by one unhealthy person after another, all of which began with my parents long ago. While I believe the key to living a joyful life is through the heart, every time I’ve opened it up to someone, it’s inevitable that another dagger seems to get placed within it. Over the years, I simply began expecting this to happen when I met someone new mostly because rarely has anyone ever shown me unconditional love, save the exception of my friend Cedric who taught me in my 12 Step recovery a lot about living in the heart. Then add in the amount of abandonment issues I’ve endured with so many abrupt and tragic losses, I just learned to live a life where it was easier to have my heart more closed than open, something that left me in a flurry of addictions to cope with the numbness it created within.
Recently, that has begun to change dramatically though, as I have been sitting with the emptiness, waiting in the silence, spending great amounts of time alone, withdrawing from countless slippery-slope behaviors and friendships that weren’t healthy for me, and having far more conversations with my inner child and with God. All of this seems to be opening my heart greater and greater, which in the process, has been opening doorways to spiritual gifts within me I didn’t even know I had. Gifts that seem to be helping others get in touch with their heart and true feelings as well.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been contacted by several people who really needed a friend, a friend that wasn’t going to judge them, give them advice, preach, lecture, or control the situation they were going through. Old closed-heart Andrew would have done any of those things, or pretty much all of those things. But new open-hearted Andrew, the one who is becoming far more aware of the hearts of others now, I cried with each of these individuals, allowing myself to feel what they were feeling, even getting images of the very painful things they were facing. And for those brief moments of life, those hurting individuals didn’t feel so alone, as they felt a heart connect to theirs with unconditional love, something that can only come from having a heart more opened than closed.
So yes, I am truly grateful that I continue to work on opening my heart more and more every day now, as I find the experience is helping me see the world in a way I never did before. A way that is showing me how I can really help others who are suffering to know they aren’t alone, which in the process, continues to help me open more to God and to the life I’ve always wanted to have with Him.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
