My Heart Weeps Blood

       When we open our hearts to love, we take risks. Risk is inherent in life. We manage risks all the time. Crossing the street against the light, we gauge the risk of getting run over against making it to Dunkin’ Donuts a few seconds quicker. We invest our money, risking losing some of it (or all of it) to make more of it (or shitloads of it).
       When it comes to our feelings, we risk every time we care about someone. When we care, we risk getting hurt. It’s part of the equation. What we try to do is gauge the chances of getting hurt, or how mow much we could get hurt, against the rewards of caring. The more we care, the greater the risk for pain. And the greater the chance for true love.
       For most of my adult life, I managed risking my heart. Whatever experiences I had growing up, including my first love, helped mold how I managed that risk. Of course, when you’re younger, you rarely realize what you’re doing. It’s pretty much an unconscious process. Hopefully, as we get older and wiser, we unravel this and become self aware of what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. Only then can we learn from our own process. Those lessons become crucial in how we do relationships going forward. This can happen all within one relationship as well. We don’t need to have many partners to get our lessons.
       Some people never get this. Maybe I never would have, so resolute was I in protecting my precious, tender heart. But I did get it. And it changed everything.
       I first became acutely aware of my own process a little over ten years ago. Before that, I would manage the risk of love by not investing too much of myself in any relationship. I would invest just enough where I felt comfortable. As I aged, my comfort level expanded, meaning I could invest more and more. Consequently, my relationships deepened and expanded as I became more aware. There was more love, because I was risking more of myself. But still, never all. I kept just enough hidden, a piece of my heart that no woman would ever get, because of my fear that if I ever lost that piece from heartbreak, the pain would be unbearable. The risk of that pain just did not seem worth the reward of true love. Of intensely deep, incredibly energetic, outrageously passionate, transformative love.
       And make no mistake about it. Love is transformational. It is in fact the most transformational energy in the universe. Nuclear fusion powers the stars. Nuclear energy powers the physical mechanics of the entire universe in fact. But love powers the human experience. And the human experience is what defines our life. And a universe, no matter how vast and magnificent and amazing, is, without life, to paraphrase Carl Sagan quoting Thomas Carlyle, “an awful waste of space”.
       When the day came that my heart did get shattered, after twenty plus years of making sure it never would, it transformed my life. It transformed my experience of life. It was only when I became willing to risk it all that I became capable of truly transforming my life and myself.
       Since that heartbreak six years ago, I’ve learned how to risk even more. That allowed me to experience love on new levels, and thus allowed me to transform my life even further. That did not come without risk.
       Recently, I experienced the beginnings of a healing of some very old, very deep wounds. But that healing has now taken on a different form, and it’s actually opened up some wounds again. Right now, my heart weeps blood.
       This is transformative as well. Even if I’m bleeding. Because I’m choosing not to run from how I feel. I’m choosing not to let fear get in my way of where I need to go. Even if I don’t know exactly where that is. Even if that’s painful. I’m choosing to stay open and not let fear keep me from feeling. From experiencing. From transforming. I’m not protecting my heart the way I did for so many years. I continue risking it all. Because I’ve done it the other way. It doesn’t lead to anything very real. It certainly doesn’t lead to anything transformative.
       Today, my heart weeps blood. But that’s not going to stop me from loving.


©2014 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart LLC, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.   

Kym

Kym

When I needed a place to live
You said yes
When I needed a space to call mine
You created one
When I needed a home
You gave me one
When I needed a family
You took me into yours
When I laughed
You laughed with me
When I cried
You filled me with love
You are always there for me
I love you
Grateful
Blessed
Honored
Awed
Does not begin to express
How I feel about having you in my life

                                    - Johnny (‘cuz only you and your family call me that)
                                  

©2014 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart LLC, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

Universe Denter

       Came across this email that someone wrote to me a little over a year ago. When I read it then, it moved me. When I read it a few days ago, however, it still moved me, but it’s context is different today than it was fifteen months earlier.
       The email means something more to me now than it did then, because of where I’m at today and what I’ve come to. I have a viscerally different experience today when I read this little note than I did even just a few short months ago. That excites me to no end. Because that is true evidence of progress, of growth, of some sort of transformation.  
       And, if that were not enough, just now, as I’m writing this little prelude to the aforementioned email, a feather flies right in front of me. It hangs around for about half a minute, floating and darting, riding the air currents, just like in the movie Forrest Gump. In fact, exactly like in Forrest Gump. I’ve got goosebumps watching it here, outside of Starbucks in Cohasset, Massachusetts. Most coffee shops where I go to write don’t have tables outside. This one does, and I felt the pull of the outdoors. Taken with what I’m writing about, this little episode was yet another sign from the universe that I’m on the right track.
       Man, I love this shit…….

“Got a chance to read some of your stuff. I continue my thought from the other night....you are truly a fascinating guy. I've got a challenge trying to rationalize the whole package in my head - there's some really contradictory pieces you put out there. So for now, I'm just going to think of you as "the onion” (as in, you clearly have a lot of layers).

Glad you got inspired at your seminar yesterday. You inspired me too. You are clearly living your life out loud. I've done the complete opposite. I have done some really cool stuff, but have almost put the sunglasses on so people DON'T notice. Almost like, "if you have to tell people your cool, you aren't". They always have - I just always brush my stuff aside like I'm too cool to care. Or it would be arrogant to ask people to pay attention.

I've decided to take the sunglasses off. Time to live out loud a little myself. Granted, you'll never see me sporting a purple satin shirt kind of out loud, but I'm going to put my stuff out there and watch what happens. Meeting you was just one open door I happened to walk through, and I met a truly unique, authentic, cool person. And if connect all those dots over the course of a year, I bet I'll have a pretty amazing year.
So thanks for kicking it off. You made a dent in my universe. And that's pretty f'ing cool.”

       Today, I see this touching note as yet more testimony to my dharma, to my life’s calling, to my nature, to my way. I see it as more validation for what has become progressively clearer to me over the summer, especially during my time at Omega and Kripalu.    
        I dent people’s universe. Clint Piatelli: Universe Denter.
        I’ll take that.

©2014 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart LLC, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.