There are many articles, blogs, journals, songs and an endless amount of words that preach the gospel of love.

Love makes the world go round.

And I find it almost cliché to write another blog about love, but love is what saves us. Holds us. Comforts us. It doesn’t have to be love from another; it can be love from ourselves. It can also hurt you, break you, bruise you.

Love starts out with that elated feeling. You are soaring high through sunny skies and rainbows. You smile at the thought of your love and just seeing your love gives your stomach butterflies. On the opposing side, you suffer.

One of the most difficult things any soul goes through is that of a breakup or a loss.

They suck. Literally—they suck the life out of you.

They reach deep into your chest, take your heart and squeeze it until it feels like it will explode. Then it’s released, feeling deflated, bruised, broken and torn to a million little pieces.

It leaves us to question: How in the hell am I going to fix this one? How do I put back together my paper mâché heart?

Sometimes we just have to get crafty. Some of us choose to never love again after our heart has been swallowed whole and then spit right back out.

We then may feel like a cruel and heartless being after having ripped out the essential organ that keeps us alive, the one that motivates our purpose in life.

Some of us take months, even years to try and rebuild what has been bruised, broken, torn to pieces.

The first step in repairing it is to grasp that there is no set time on how long it takes to heal. Everyone is different. Allow that to be understood and accepted.

Countless times people have told me “you should be over it by now,” but I couldn’t be. It wasn’t my time. I wasn’t ready to forgive, to let go. I felt I didn’t have the tools I needed, the courage, the acceptance, the forgiveness, to get over that pain.

We have to want to get over the pain! And then it will come. When I decided that I wanted it, everything beautiful poured itself into my life.

The second step and hardest for most, is learning to let go. What’s done is done. We must live our life in the present and not the past. That time has come and gone use it as a lesson on how we want to live our present day life. Forgive them, forgive yourself, and forgive the situation.

Breathe and let be. When the time comes, when we have met a soul that moves us like no other, but we are so scared because of our past.

The third step is learning to love ourselves. If we do not love ourselves, how do we expect others to be open to loving us back?

It’s a two way street and we both have to meet in the middle. We are all worthy of our own love, so do it!

Court yourself. Know yourself enough to let someone else have the glorious opportunity of knowing it as well.

In my own personal love expedition, it took a few frogs for me to find my prince. I never allowed myself to be open with any one, until he came along. In him I saw the same guardedness. I saw the same pain. The same break. The same bruise.

I knew deep down that we had and endless amount of potential because we had both been to hell and back.

Having spent the last two years learning to let go and love myself, I felt I was ready for love. I let go. I let it happen. I let everything about him swallow me whole. It was the most beautiful, yet scary, thing I have done.

Letting my walls down for him to see my vulnerability. Ugh. Just the thought of that makes me cringe, but he still loved every bit of me. And isn’t love worth that?

It’s a scary and liberating thing to let your heart love again. Knowing that they may or may not feel the same. That they may leave at any given moment. That this could just be a short lived fantasy. That you may not be all that they need.

But life is too short to live with the maybes and what ifs.

I want to share these moments with someone that appreciates all that embodies me. Me and my paper mâché heart.

“Happiness, only real when shared.” ~ Christopher McCandless

By allowing my heart to be open and full of love, I can now share happiness with the world. Sharing happiness and spreading happiness is a gift of a job and I thank my loves for allowing me that opportunity.

Love elephant and want to go steady?

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Editor: Renée Picard

Photo: zbellink at Flickr