How Love Grew a Garden in My Broken Heart

I am remembering that Love is truly all around us and within us. Even if we don't understand how to recognize it.  Even if we have come to believe that we are not worthy of such a precious gift.

Through my own painful experiences, I can look back and see the precious layers of love that were so patiently and gracefully present, holding me and walking with me in that darkness.

To be clear, the darkness is not bad; it is a time of deep growth and potential. How we relate to the darkness determines our experience of withering or blossoming.

In one of the darkest moments I have had the blessing of experiencing, Love couldn't initially heal me and walk me through my suffering: I was too deeply attached to my pain to allow it to grow me into greater understanding. But it stayed with me all the same, through every ragged breath, every heart-broken tear, and every fall deeper...

...until one day, a sliver of that precious love was able to illuminate a seed that was hidden deep within my heart, and that seed's gentle life came online. Softly reaching for the light that had seeped in through the cracks of my broken heart, it slowly began to grow roots. It began to bless the space and the darkness in which it was buried. Over time, through becoming very present, deep introspection, and much conscious healing, more love began to float down into the darkness, and a garden had begun to grow.

The light from this love was just enough to sing these little seeds awake, and they began to caress the darkness, to take it by the hand and show it other ways to understand. With patience and devotion, Love helped the darkness within me to trust that perhaps there was a way to find peace and healing with the experiences and people involved, including myself. This is a process that continues to this day within me. The more I allow it to be here, the more I learn just how powerful Love truly is.

In the story that follows, I offer up my own bruised and healing journey.  May it serve in the highest and best ways to bless, to invite, to inspire. 

Munay

Being a mom was something I had called in very consciously. I prayed for the arrival of each of my children.

Making sure they were loved, especially that they had conscious knowledge that they were loved, was of highest importance to me. This set the bar for my incredible thirst to learn how to be the best parent that I could be.

Their arrival sparked a huge shift for me into spirituality and conscious living, and I threw myself fully into that life and into parenthood. My kiddos became my reason for living and I strove to help them remember their sacred place in the world.

** and Love and I skipped hand in hand as we embarked upon this new adventure**

Walking a path will activate both success AND failure; often not realized in its full scope until years later through multiple reflections.

In my assessment of what my kiddos were reflecting back to me at that time, I felt that I was doing a decent job as a parent.  I became aware of things that I considered mistakes on my part and endeavored to correct myself accordingly.

But I hadn't realized that I should have looked deeper into their life and their experiences, I didn't know HOW to look deeper at that time. I was developing some good tools and practices, but wasn't adept at their utilization. I just wasn't at a capacity to understand our shared and individual experiences in the way that I do now.

**and Love asked me to develop compassion for life and how we navigate it**

Looking back, I realize now that we are supposed to have these experiences of learning in layers, because it gives us several opportunities at different points in our life where we can see another aspect, a deeper understanding as we are ready, and apply it.

Fast forward to them being teenagers. The life we were engaging gifted me with a powerful rectrospectoscope that invited me to see things in new ways, and I began to see some of the deep heartache and hurt that they had experienced. Some that I had caused, and some that were from others. I began to hear their words and requests offered so long ago in a new light. I started to have some personal experiences that led me back to some of theirs, which helped me to see them in a new way as well.

This continued for several years into their 20s.

As layers of insight began to fill my heart and recollection, my failure to be the parent I had always worked so hard to be had come painfully and overwhelmingly into view. To realize that I had hurt them, that I had been dismissive of a situation they had come to me for assistance with, or that I had offered conversation or action that would have conveyed that they were not worthy of support or presence… this devastated me to my core. It tore my heart out and stomped it to a bloody pulp that was left lifeless on the cold floor of my new reality.

** and even though I felt so very alone, Love sat on that floor with me and held me tight, holding onto every piece of shattered heart that I had dropped **

Now, what one may think of as not-such-a-big-deal, could be a huge deal to another. Some particularly important things that I had misinterpreted as not-such-a-big-deal, or perhaps it was dismissed because it simply wasn't on my radar, was actually devastating, even sometimes dangerous, for them. I could also recall several instances in which my own overwhelm in any given moment had closed down my capacity to receive them and what they needed me to understand.

One of them continued to bring things up with me at different points in time. The other remained neutral about it all.

By this later point in their lives, I had begun to listen deeply, and to apologize. To hear their deep hurt. And my heart broke every time I heard them. It still does. But I am so thankful that they have been willing to bring it to me: I recognize that this has taken an immense amount of courage on their part.

I spent these next 11 years listening and realizing things, hearing them from a different space. Each time I had a life experience that was similar, I would ask myself what my children must have felt when this happened to them. I have never gained such humbling insight as when I can put myself into another's shoes and imagine their life through that experience.

Those years filled me with such depression and heart break, because I realized that I had harmed the very ones I was striving so hard to love and honor. To know that I was capable of that… often delivered to them without my conscious awareness, or sometimes through bowing to others’ discipline approaches even though it felt out of alignment, and in other moments it was easier to just short cut an interraction rather than being present and patient… threw me down the deepest, darkest hole I had ever known. Their love and well-being meant everything to me.

In the judgment and sentencing of myself, I was now irredeemable. I was worthless. I was a failure in loving the very souls I had asked to come in.

At the darkest points in this journey, I had come to believe that anything I could offer to them would be worthless, no matter how hard I tried to do and be better.

During the move to our current house, I came across keepsakes I had been holding for them: trinkets, letters, things that conveyed my deep love, joy and appreciation of them. At this point, I could not believe that they would even want these, and worse, that these things may be considered my false attempt to show that I was a caring and loving (AKA “good”) parent.

In estimation of my broken heart, I was sure that I would be considered a fraud, even though neither of my children have ever hinted at this perspective.

In my grief and despair, I threw it all out. I cried deeply at this loss: of my tokens of love that they would never know now. Of my overtures to express to them just how precious their lives are. Of my opportunity to love them fully and to feel like they could know deeply that it was true...all of those things had represented my ability to help them know, without a doubt, that they were so precious and loved. The worst part was my fear that my children might already feel unloved and of no value within themselves. This would be the biggest failure; to realize that they could feel themselves worthless.

I did keep some things that they had made, some things for my own heart to hold close. But I was so sure that they would want nothing of mine (again, they have never once indicated this to be true, but my despair was so great that I feared it would be).

I also got rid of anything that represented me personally: every diary I had written and every piece of writing I had ever kept, things I had created, and on and on. I was erasing myself. I felt that I didn't deserve to exist: If I had failed my children in their knowing their innate value, what right did I have to exist?

**and Love whispered, “Listen deeper. I can show you a way through this”...**

While I was lost in this deep sadness, I also desired to understand how to better embody the love I have for them... and most importantly, to show them that the love and sacredness that they have always been deep inside is strong and true and priceless.

At some point, I started to ask myself and the Beloved Universe how I can support them in the best ways, to cheer them on, to be truly and deeply present with them. As I would get insights and inspirations, I would choose to follow through.

I began to ask how I can heal the hurt that had been created. I realized that I couldn't fix what happened, but perhaps I could have the courage to see the truth of that time, and to cultivate the courage to do better with the new understanding I had gained. And I chose to follow through each time an opportunity presented itself.

I learned to listen deeply, without needing to explain or offer argument for my past actions, but rather with the humbleness to apologize and to offer my heart as witness to them.

As I began to do this, I could see that this was, indeed, starting to heal things. I began to ask for more ways to heal and to move on in a direction that created deep and loving relationships with them. And as I got insight, I would put it to work. I started to look for ways to show up better and learn from the past.

**and Love encouraged, “Keep going”...**

I sought multi-level healing assistance from teachers and mentors, I began applying meditation again and choosing to be present to insights and nudges toward living what my heart sought so deeply.

Perhaps most importantly, I became willing to see what could happen if I let go of my self-imposed prison, even just a little bit. I was starting to realize that by relating to my kiddos from this space of hurt and shame, I was also keeping them prisoner here, because that hurt had been my focus. They deserved to be freed of it, to be free to thrive, and heal, and at the very least to choose their own path rather than be chained to this pain.

Love was helping me to understand that no one gets through life without making mistakes. How we meet those mistakes, and what we choose to do with them can make all the difference.

This has been helping me to own my choices with compassion, to learn to release my painful attachment to my wrongs, and to know that I can choose better now. I’m learning how to apply that to the lives of others. I hope that this will invite my kiddos to have compassion for themselves and others in the same capacity as well. They are amazing young people, who constantly humble me with their kind hearts and deeply genuine presence.

My love for them and their well-being became stronger than my need to eternally punish myself (and ultimately us all) for my mistakes. I wouldn't want them to eternally punish themselves for mistakes. I would want them to learn and grow and meet life with a full heart. So, I had to choose to develop this as well and live by example.

**and Love cheered, “Now you're getting it!” **

I won't pretend that everything is completely better now. It is a process, as it should be.

But I will say that it is making a beautiful difference. In the choice to be genuine, present, compassionate and true, we have the potential to create some incredible healing and to regrow tender and sacred connections with one another.

Love is offering me a way to connect with my children on deeper, sweeter and more present levels now that I didn't have a capacity to engage all those years ago. And even though I feel incredible sadness for my inability to come to them with such fullness and support in their younger years, I know that doing so now can make all the difference with where we are presently. And I hope it may demonstrate for them that we are always learning and growing and coming to deeper awareness of our lives and how they weave together.

I am still very sad that I won't have the keepsakes to share with them. I wish I had been more aware of the importance they may hold for these two precious lights of my life, but in deep despair and pain, we can make choices from that twisted, suffering space and I have to acknowledge that.

My hope is that what I am creating with them right now will be more valuable than those keepsakes. My hope is that the love we are cultivating right now will be what they can hold onto and remember, and that it can be just as important as any item because it is held in the sacred spaces in our hearts.

So, with the choice to grow through the darkness, one baby step at a time, Love is leading me home. Love is my motivation to heal, to be as fully present as possible. Love is cultivating a courage in me to choose better; because, even if I don't know where it will go, or how it will turn out, I know that genuine Love always chooses from a sacred space, and always seeks to honor all, to nourish all, to uplift all. And so, each day, I choose to let Love in as fully as I dare.

Some days are fantastic. Other days will find me heavy with the darkness, the fear and the shame, and I have to find a way to let Love illuminate things: to allow that rich, dark earth to become the ground that gives life to Love's blossoming through the composting of suffering's debris.

Having been in both despair and in vibrance, I am learning to discern the difference in how Truth is able to present in each. I am learning to trust that Love can lead me better than fear.

I am discovering what it means to be master creators of our life. If I have a choice about what I'm creating, and I truly believe I do, then I am going to cultivate the courage to choose Love over and over again.

I have seen the results of fear-based choices as well as Love-based choices. I know I will be in the company of both as I live my life. Love is showing me how to live with courage, compassion and grace. Fear teaches me to curl up into a little ball, crushed and devoid of any life.

I am learning how to let Love walk me through the fear.

My prayer is that Love can peek into the dark places in your heart as well and grow a beautiful garden. The precious seeds planted there are waiting....

In deepest Love and Gratitude~

Munay

Kimberly Logan

Harmonic Luminosity

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