The Love Experience - Gratitude to those that are helping me expand my heart

I have been feeling a specific spiritual growth around the heart and solar plexus lately. I have been praying to learn how to love for years now, but have been feeling blocked by my own pain and ego. However, these past few weeks I have been feeling a small spirit guide chip away at an odd ice sculpture in my chest, known as my sentimental heart.

I woke up this morning feeling in complete gratitude, oddly enough, for the most difficult situations I have encountered in relationships. I realize that those who have made me angry, made me cry, and made me want to resist loving are the ones that are helping me grow to love the most. They are teaching me, often unconsciously, all of the polarities of this earthly realm which I must deal with in order to connect with pure Love at its core. I feel overwhelmed with gratitude for the most complex emotional situations - the lover that I couldn't stand to be around anymore, the friend that cursed me out, the person who had been an abuser. In my crazy state of heart expansion, I felt compelled to write this blog entry in complete grateful honesty.

Thank you to those special people in my life that had once been romantic partners, who I once thought were the embodiment of everything I've ever wanted, but who also became the embodiment of everything I couldn't stand to be around. I realize now that the pain in my chest that I have been dealing with for years were an unwillingness to let go of disappointment, anger, and disbelief that love could have many sides to it. I was never angry at the person whom I couldn't be with romantically, although I might have projected this anger onto them. I was more so upset with the nature of love. Now, however, I see that these experiences have allowed me to evolve so I may learn a deeper type of love, one that is unconditional and unselfish, and one that is never ending.

Thank you to the friendships that had turned sour, where I felt betrayed and hurt and that you never really "had my back." My tears were never in vein. I needed you to be my spiritual teachers as well. Whether our relationships were karmic settlements from past lives, or whether you intuitively read my insecurities when you met me and knew how to push all my buttons, you were a mere reflection of my vibrational state. I accept responsibility for the situation and that I have attracted a person that could hurt me so. I am sorry for any hurt that I may have caused you. Even in the face of residual pain, I still have Love. I love you unconditionally, whether you receive it or not.

Thank you to those relationships that I still have to work through. You are my everyday teachers. These may be current family, friends, associates, and people that are currently in my vibrational field. We are in each others lives for a reason. We reflect each others deepest desires, thoughts, and attachments. Here is where I can practice the Love that I am growing to know on a deep level. I promise to practice my patience and trust with you, even when it is most difficult. And I promise to practice to see you for your God-consciousness, something that is in everyone of us but is often veiled by our illusions of each other. I Love you. I pray you learn to Love me too.

Thank you for those that have Loved me unconditionally, even without knowing me. My guru, Amma, comes to mind when I think of this. Here is a woman who has millions of disciples around the world, yet who Loves so fiercely and openly as if you are her only child. I feel like she is more than a mother or a best friend. She is the one who Loves me the most while knowing me the least. We don't speak the same language, and I only see her once a year (while she is being swarmed by thousands of other disciples), however I feel her Love to be pure. Amma (and God) have been my ultimate teachers. Thank you.

And thanks to all of you reading this article. Whether I know you or not, I am releasing my fears and am willing to Love you too. I aspire to be able to Love every and anyone the same with no strings attached. This is the teachings of Jesus, of Buddha, of Ghandi, of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This is the teachings of all of the saints, gurus, and seers. Now, are we willing to practice? To embody it? Or will it always remain in a book on our nightstand, or a theory for the mind? I plan to live it to the fullest, whether I realize it completely in this lifetime or the next.

Give praises.

-- Helina Metaferia

** Some of the "L's" in love have been capitalized intentionally.