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Heartbreak is messy.

Every day feels different, and even in the moments when you think you’re healed, an image will show up, or a song will play, and you’re brought right back into a memory of you with that person.

Heartbreak has a way of wanting to keep us small. Suddenly, we’re afraid to put ourselves back out there because it means hurt. Rejection. It means opening ourselves up to pain, again.

One of my favourite podcasts is the Mark Groves’ podcast, self-proclaimed “human connection specialist,” a term I effing love.

I was listening to an episode the other day while on an early morning walk (one of the only things we can do now that Dublin, where I live, is in a full lockdown again).

And he asked us, listeners, this one key question: Can you keep your heart open when you have every reason to close it?

I know you are hurting. Or maybe the hurt is gone, but there’s that little voice inside you that’s whispering, Please, not again.

And I want to tell you to take the time for yourself to heal, but don’t keep your heart closed forever. Because when we close ourselves off to the bad, we close ourselves off to the good too.

Being brave means being vulnerable—it means growing from the dirt we will inevitably find ourselves in.

So, can you stay open when you have every reason to close?

~

Pre-order Naomi’s upcoming book, here.