Dear Friends, Lovers, Lovers of Friends, Lovers of Life’s Mysteries and Warriors of the Broken Open Heart,

Please get comfortable. Life will bring plenty of heat and plenty of windstorms without having to create them. And when they do come, please do offer the gift of asking for help. It will change your life for the better.

Love is not about getting what we want. Love is not about getting what we want. Love is not about getting what we want.

And yet love with your entire being. Love radically and way too much.

But whatever you do please do not try and capture it. You will always lose it. Love is in the act of loving. There is no outcome.

Remember God, Your Beloved, Your Big Bird or whatever it is that brings you into a deeper relationship with your heart’s longing.

Cut in line and then buy everyone behind you a cup of coffee. Your beauty is your broken open heart so please accessorize your scars by sharing your story. Donate your breast milk even if your babies die. And when someone tells you that you have capitalized on your baby dying, give them a hug. They need it.

Love your work in a way that you would do it even if you were not getting paid for it. Eliminate the word “should” from your vocabulary. Get to know the invisible plane that is always conspiring to totally support you. Coincidence awareness is learning God’s language, so pay attention.

Be shameless, unapologetic, unstoppable and totally vulnerable. When the waves look scary, paddle out anyway. You can always catch the next wave in.

And yes, go heal a broken relationship.

Use big words incorrectly. Make up your own punctuation. Take off your underpants. Write your advance directive. Please just tell the truth. Hoarding it, concealing it or skirting it is both cowardly and time-consuming. Truth always works its way out. Go for a run. One day you will not hate it. Divorce your grudges and then marry yourself. Invite all of the Bodhisattvas to your wedding, including your mother.

Our stories teach us where we have been, who we are now and all that we are becoming while simultaneously inviting us to outgrow them. We are only here to grow. Replace the word “intention” with the words “compassionate action”, you can intend all you want and still be an asshole. Note to self: sacred wounds are not sacred if they continue to hurt the people you love.

Give life all of you. None of us are making it out of here alive. Please stay too intense. When your body does go it will have been very well used and why else would we have one? Please tell “hope” to fuck off and send someone flowers and a random thank-you card instead. Let devastated, broken open and impossibly happy share the same smile.

Even in the moments of impossible sadness, please do keep your sense of humor.

And keep letting love in.

There is nothing else.

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Assistant Ed: Jamie Khoo/Ed: Sara Crolick

{Photo via Klearchos Kapoutsis on Flickr Creative Commons}