Standing up for love

I've been thinking so much about love these days. I have also been reflecting on how our childhood wounds contribute to who we are in relationship to others as adults.

My father moved to America from Rome, Italy, in his twenties. He lived in the center of Rome. As a child during World War II, he was running toward a bomb shelter and a fragment of a bomb cut into his leg. The fragment remained in his leg. This "shrapnel" was left in his body for his entire life. The doctors said that his immune system would form a wall of scar tissue around it. And it did.

The thing is, that bomb fragment was nothing compared to the trauma my father experienced growing up. I often think that my father had some kind of ability to compartmentalize his childhood pain as well. 

With everything Dad experienced including actual starvation, somehow he became one of the most loving people in this world. I am not saying this lightly- everyone who knew him says it. Every year when I return to Italy, I see tears in his friends' eyes as they say: "Oh Giulio.... Era un uomo d'oro"

How did he live with so much love after growing up with so much fear? I asked him once. In his strong Italian accent, he said:

"I switched it. I can choose."

Maybe love is not something to find outside of ourselves... perhaps it is something to become. 

Love is one of the most sought-after experiences in all of humanity. Longing to be seen, chosen, understood and held. What if love is not outside but is within waiting to be  "Switched."

How does someone stay open when life teaches us to close? Soft in a world with so much hardness? 

Love asks us to be courageous enough to be vulnerable, honest enough to be real and compassionate enough to see beyond our own pain.

It starts within. The more we cultivate the love inside, the less we need to be chosen by another. Once we find the gem of love inside, we stop chasing something outside of us.

Inner love assists us in aligning with our true selves... it eradicates the false self. It is not perfection- it is a continuous practice of returning to the heart... again and again and again. We choose again... and again... and again. 

At the end of our lives, what will matter more than how much we loved? I don't know. I just know that I am making the choice to love... and if my love is too much or too little... it is ok... I will continue to choose love again and again... and again.

A new podcast will be released next Monday. It will include simple exercises to assist in reseting the nervous system and coming home to self with love.

"The Karena Virginia Podcast" is available wherever you watch/listen to podcasts.

Thank you for being here. I truly appreciate this community more than you know.

Ti mando amore,

Karena xo