Do you find excuses to hold back your love? Do you guard your vulnerability? Have you been hurt in ways that have made you wise to the dangers of love and vowed never to risk love so freely again?

I’ve realized that the most painful aspect of heartbreak isn’t what someone did to break your heart, it’s how you used that heartbreak as an excuse to stop loving them. You told the parts of you that would love that person no matter what that they couldn’t love anymore. And your heart is broken not from having the wind knocked out of you, but from your refusal to start breathing again afterward.

There’s this belief that love requires qualifiers to exist. That love is so fragile it needs just the right environment to survive. And that without the proper context you must stop loving immediately lest you be loving in the wrong.

In fact, you need a label to justify loving another. Some role through which to explain your relationship. Because if you don’t label it, society will label it for you.

If a woman has sex with whomever she likes—for reasons that feel good to her—society tells her she’s a slut with no self-respect. Because it’s not enough to just want something and then allow yourself to have it. If what you’re offering is to be considered worthwhile, you must make others earn it before you give it away.

I saw this kind of thinking play out in my own life whenever I’d dream up a new business idea. No matter how much I would enjoy doing the thing I wanted to do, I was told I just couldn’t give it away for free. If I wasn’t charging for it, I wasn’t respecting myself and others wouldn’t respect what I had to offer. So I felt like I had to be qualified to charge for something before I could share it with others.

But I never wanted to be qualified, I just wanted to do it. I never wanted to learn their way, I just wanted to discover mine. I never wanted to provide a service, I just wanted to provide me.

I had so much love and wisdom just waiting to be shared but, since I could not create the structure that made sharing it acceptable, I kept it to myself. Society offered me the evidence to believe that I must become an expert before what I had to share was worthwhile, and I believed it enough to let it stop me. I chose to feed my power to someone else’s prerequisite instead of directly into my dreams.

No longer shall that be. I believe in the power of free, and that love is the best thing to give away for free. Because giving something away is the quickest way to release resistance toward receiving it in return.

Poetic interlude:

Can we not see that the mountain lends its rainfall to the river?
And the river gives itself unto the lake?
And the lake yields to the sky, who holds its water in its clouds
on its way to cleanse the mountains once again?

And the reason that these wonders give so naturally of themselves
is they know the water’s not theirs to withhold.
They know the love is carried through the warmth within their being
and to stop it is a duty for the cold.

They offer no resistance, and know not any pain.
They carry no agenda, and need not love for gain.
They stop not the water’s path as it swirls down the drain;
because the water is not leaving, but seeking out a lower plane.
For it’s in the depths that peace is found, and all peace must remain.
And they’ve lived this truth enough to know: you cannot love in vain.

Final thoughts:

If the best things in life are free, then to be your best you’ve got to be willing to give your best away for free. Only when you free yourself from the expectation of return can you truly hear what you most want to express. And when you start expressing your true self, everything else will line up.

If you allow yourself to love someone, even if they do not love you back, you’ll be putting out the perfect signal to attract someone who really wants the love you’re offering.

If you give away your best ideas for free, more people will hear them and they’ll inspire you to reach for even better ideas. And eventually you’ll be in such demand that people will start clamoring to pay you for what you already love to do.

When you start feeling the joy of giving away your best—and witnessing how eagerly it’s met by the world—you’ll naturally stop doing the things that get in the way of your success. You’ll turn down opportunities to give less than your best in order to concentrate on what you love. You’ll start speaking up where you’d normally stay quiet. You’ll see the world begin to mirror the love that you impart, and feel swept away by the seductive call of your unprotected heart.