If anyone knows about not giving up, it’s the Dalai Lama.

Fleeing Tibet when he was young, he made his way on a dangerous journey to India, where he’s been ever since—losing his country. Now in his late ’70s, he knows about not giving up, and doing amazing good in the world.

Never give up.
No matter what is going on,
Never give up.
Develop the heart—
Too much energy in your country
Is spent developing the mind
Instead of the heart.
Be compassionate,
Not just to your friends
But to everyone
Be compassionate.
Work for peace—
In your heart and in the world
Work for peace.
And I say again,
Never give up.
No matter what is going on around you
Never give up.

~ the Dalai Lama

So as I’m sharing this with you—what I share comes from my heart. In this poem, the Dalai Lama talks about giving too much energy in our country, developing our mind and not our heart—as witnessed by our technological advances.

But how are we doing in relationships?

You see, it’s very scary coming from my heart—much different than coming from my head. My heart is open, vulnerable and can be hurt easily.

Coming from my head, there’s no risk—my ego can be cool. The heart is a whole different ballgame.

I don’t like getting hurt. If I was in the least bit hurt, I would shut down  like a clam, or stay angry, but that didn’t work. I never really knew what was going on,  and I really didn’t like who I was. I wanted to be cool: always have the right answers, not humiliate myself and not show my vulnerability. As a result, most of my conversations were superficial, always on the surface, never allowed to go deep.

The heart muscle is big—it can take a lot. As a matter of fact, so much so that all of our hurts can make our hearts stronger and bigger and not want to ever give up…if we stay open.

But—and I say a big but—sometimes we fall in love and it goes wrong, we don’t get that acting job, our manuscript is rejected over and over, our team keeps losing, we don’t pass a medical exam.

Or we are in a long term relationship that no longer works for us. One changes, the other one doesn’t. I don’t want anyone to see how vulnerable I can be, and then try to take more advantage of me.

I put myself out there a lot, and because of that I can get hurt a lot. I need to take a lot of alone time to recharge myself and to be able to go back out into the world. And, to understand, deeply understand who I can be vulnerable with.

People tell me I have a great big heart—almost like they can see it when they talk to me.

Many times my heart has been the spokesperson for people who aren’t able to explain what is going on for them. I pick things up intuitively, but I need to realize that it’s the other people’s stuff and not mine. Realizing what’s yours and what’s mine.

My heart speaks the truth, sometimes it wants more and doesn’t get it. What to do? Not give up. Not to be afraid to speak what my heart needs, even at the risk of not getting what I want at the time.

If I am at odds with someone—someone wants one thing and I want something else—how can we resolve the situation? Can we be flexible with one another or is it just a plain “no” and that’s it? And sometimes things can’t be worked out.

Sometimes when I speak to people, I can see my words bouncing off of them—I can actually see that they aren’t taking in what I’m saying. They’ve disconnected from our conversation and gone away (emotionally). Depending upon who it is, sometimes I will say something, and that can take the conversation to a whole different level, in a good way.

So I am not saying “go out there and open your heart and get hurt”, but I am saying if you don’t keep your heart open, you will never know what true love and compassion is.

Sherri Rosen is now living in Harlem, New York. She has had her own publicity business for 12 years, giving a powerful voice to people who are doing good things in the world. She writes her own blog at SherriRosen.com.

 

 

 

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Asst Ed: Terri Tremblett/Ed: Bryonie Wise

 

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