| LOCATION: Nashville Airport staring out at the most beautiful Southern sky |

I’m sitting in the airport in Nashville having just completed an intense 3-week rollercoaster of business failures and successes, amazing relationships and connections with people, training and coaching from my core genius more than ever before, and… reflection with myself.

I watch so many people I meet struggling in a certain relationship or life circumstance—struggling to be present in their lives. I’ve sat talking for longer with so many because we are all giving so much to life… and at times that giving can be heartbreaking.

I’ve asked myself, why do we find it so hard to let go? Why do we resist moving down into our hearts, and trusting–ourselves, other people or Life itself–in those crucial moments? Why do we stay locked into the tight cages of our comfort zones when what we most long for is to be free?

I’ve gotten the reputation from so many of you who have coached with me or simply conversed, of causing people to cry 😉 I will own that even though I don’t try to make that happen. Yet it does. And as I sit here in Nashville today waiting to board my plane, I’ve begun to try to put words to why tears come when we connect.

I believe it’s because I love you so much. You know you don’t have to BE anything—just yourself, finally. In your eyes, I see that undaunted beautiful soul figuring him/herself out like I am. Like we all are.

So why does this cause us to cry together sometimes? I know it is because you are seen, appreciated for simply being, understood as magnificent, and finally because all BS is ripped away. No excuses. No hiding. No playing small. Just the real stuff. The stuff that matters between us. The truth of who we really are that words can never fully express.

That truth whispers, “…Life is happening RIGHT NOW!” Getting hung up, resistant, untrusting, dissatisfied in our comfortableness is trying to stay far away from the raw joy and sometimes the pain of being fully alive right now, nothing held back.

I feel the incredible men who are secretly afraid they are not enough. They love so much and work so hard for those they love, yet feel so distant from the moments of love that connect them to those they are wholly committed to.

I ache for the powerful women who give and give every minute of the day to make life work better for everyone, yet who can’t feel the deep truth of peace in themselves—who are afraid what they give won’t be enough for the happiness and thriving of those they love.

So when we talk, I feel this. And I know the truth. Gently, I expect you to stop, to listen to your own heart, and to know the same. I know that life is simultaneously intensely joyful, beautiful and grateful,… and heartbreaking—if we’re really honest.

That relief brings tears.

Cynicism, anger and fear shut the heart off from the brain. My first mentor said to me nearly 2 decades ago, “Tears are sacred.” She said this to the woman (me) who had resisted crying for so long believing it was weakness.
It is not. It is honesty. It is an open heart. It is sacred.

It took me awhile to stop being afraid of my own tears, but once I did, I found a paradoxical gift. I could sit with others and truly see them—in their most secret hopes as much as their deepest despair or shame. And not be afraid.

I thank you for who you are, for your truth, and the honesty of your tears. May you be free. May you be blessed.