Thank you as always for being on this journey with me! This is the final chapter (of this story at least). If you haven’t read Part 1 or Part 2 and want the full story click here

Let Go, Lean In

It is not the path of least resistance. It is the path of all resistance. Or is it?

It feels like resistance because it isn’t easy and because I have been fighting it in my discomfort and fear. Really, it’s just swimming with the current, allowing life to carry me where I am meant to go.

What feels like the path of all the resistance is really just letting go and allowing love to flow through me with trust. This is the paradox. This is my test. Am I willing to let go; truly willing to relinquish the illusion of the control I crave? To love myself so deeply that I can fully receive any quantity of his love and trust that I have the capacity to, moment by moment, choose the best course of action for my heart, and what is in alignment with my purpose? To live fully in my truth and authentically connect with this Warrior I am blessed to share space and love with, for however long we are meant to flow together? That nothing is promised but I will be provided whatever it is that I need in abundance, as long as I maintain this trust? These are all big questions but in my heart, when stripped down to truth and presence I feel a resounding "HELL YES!”

Is it going to be easy? fuck no.

There is going to be doubt and fear that creeps in. There have been and are going to be more moments where old stories, beliefs and conditioning take over and rip me out of my heart and up into my head, telling me “this is scary, unknown, uncomfortable and you are going to die if you don’t get out NOW!!”. In these moments I have to take a deep breath and remember that uncomfortable is where I live now, and embrace it. I believe in my heart that I can survive anything that comes my way. And not only survive but thrive.

Every experience — every passionate kiss, frustrating conversation, every phone call where we cannot seem to say goodbye to each other, every long eye gaze where neither of us breaks or looks away because we are so fully open and present to the other, every experience where doubt of my worthiness creeps in— is by design to bring me closer to my Love and my Truth; to the full expression of Me. This is my journey, my process. I am taking ownership of how I show up to each experience, each moment, and choosing how I react to the reality that I am presented with. This is what I can control.

I want to be free in love and I want him to feel freedom in love.

I want him to choose me for as long as it serves him and brings him closer to that freedom that the divine masculine within him seeks. I want to both share my love and fully receive every ounce of his love without expectation or attachment, as if it may be the last taste I ever get. That feels like living to me. That feels like freedom. Like bliss. Our commitment to each other is to live in our individual truths, honor our hearts and communicate that with the other out of the respect and love we share. And if either of us chooses to leave that commitment, then we will both be better for having experienced each other’s love. We will have learned so much about ourselves in the reflection of the other [we already have as I write this]. How fucking beautiful is that? We are free to choose. To experience whatever flavor of life we desire.

We can choose to come together or we can choose to follow separate paths, but we will forever be changed and better for every experience we have with each other.

Love is what matters, not what it looks like, not how much, or how often we feel it from another. Love is everything. In every quantity, shape, color and flavor. It is up to me to either accept it for its beauty and ability to change me, grow me, expand my own love, or, I can try to control it, resist it and ultimately suffocate and kill it.

That’s the choice. I choose uncomfortable. I choose unknown. I choose love.

AFTERWORD

While my Warrior and I have gone down separate paths at this point in our individual journeys, I reflect back at the power of love;

love so viscerally real that the only word I have to encapsulate it is truth.

It has been an incredibly challenging journey. I was faced, in his reflection, with a lot of ways that I had not yet healed and I did the same for him. It was unnerving at times to be so open and vulnerable, to care so much for another. But it was also heart filling and healing in a way that I cannot even begin to describe with words.

For the sake of the authenticity that I talk so much about, the months we have now been apart I have felt a longing—a void— that I’ve never experienced. I made a conscious decision from the beginning, that I was going to be heart open no matter what; I was going to feel the high high’s and the low low’s, allowing my humanity to move me and do my best not to numb or distract when things got uncomfortable. I have been doing my best, and it hasn’t often been pretty. This is not the first time I have felt the pain of heartbreak. It is however the first time I have experienced this type of pain fully open… It’s deep and some days all-consuming, other days it’s just a tickle of missing. And it’s all ok.

In the past when I felt the pull of loneliness I would seek out someone comfortable, usually a man from my past, who would affirm me and feed my need to be approved of in some way, so I didn’t have to go about the process of meeting and getting to know someone new. But let’s be honest, it was really so I didn’t have to go about the process of meeting and getting to know me.

Also, new was unknown and possibly not safe, just as was the space within me. I’m recognizing now how true that feeling still is that I have... the fear of letting someone new into my space; the limbo I have been living in, between desiring companionship and being so scared of letting a man close enough to take me down to the depth of pain that I know is possible when I allow my heart to be seen so intimately.

So instead of moving in either direction, I’ve gone deep inward, and every day I’m still learning how to choose myself, how to be kind in the face of longing and my judgment of the longing. The story of “it’s been long enough, just get over it” has come up from time to time and all I can do, is do my best to determine when I’m feeling fear and take myself back to love in those moments. And trust. To be honest with and compassionate toward myself, about as much as I can be, no matter how messy and awful it feels some days. [This is all a part of it, this thing we call being human.]

This part of my journey is the epitome of what 'Coming Home’ is about.

It has challenged me and grown me in ways I’m still recognizing. It’s led me to question my pattern of prolonging suffering and playing victim; to witness my attachments and feel my own deeply rooted insecurities about my belonging and worthiness in the world and in love. It has affirmed to me what it is that I will no longer allow in my space as I have explored more honestly than ever before, what it is that I desire for partnership. And it has allowed me to see all the ways I allow fear to take hold and drag me around, and how that fear leads me to betray myself and compromise what it is that I actually want and need.

It’s also showing me how and where to set boundaries around my physical and emotional space, as I have had the opportunity to spend time cultivating the most important relationship: the relationship with my heart, and subsequently, with my inner child. I have come to realize she needs a lot more love than she has ever been given and I never saw it— or maybe just never allowed myself to recognize it— because instead of honoring her, I was too busy trying to be enough for others and fearing what would happen if I didn’t show up for them.

As much as I hate to admit it, it has put a spotlight on the fact that as much as I rationally know and believe the absolute I talked about at the beginning— that I am enough, exactly as I am; that I don’t have to be anything more or less of anything to be worthy of the love, connection and belonging I so deeply desire—it is something I have been bumping up against in resistance when I’m not grounded and when fear comes in.

This is the work. Just because we acknowledge our insecurities and the stories turned beliefs about our place in the world, doesn’t mean they just disappear as soon as we name them. This time has been for me to really face this story, give it a big ass hug [with only minor resentment most days], and be kind as I navigate the waters of emotional healing. It has been a blessing, and a lot of lessons and humbling to say the least.

Who he and I were together is over and will never be again, it’s impossible.

Because even if we were to be led back to each other at some future point we will be different; we are different. But despite this fact, this love— for me— was and is Truth. That never changes, no matter how much time goes by. Real love never truly leaves; people part ways and relationships move from lovers to friendship or to no connection whatsoever, but true love never goes. It just shifts. And there is plenty of room in my heart for all of it and more.

This is why I publish this now, because hindsight is such a powerful teacher. To know I still stand by this, something I wrote at the very beginning with all the possibilities ahead of us, and a year later it still rings true in my heart. And whether we find our way back to each other at a later point in time, or this was all that it was meant to be in this lifetime, I am forever changed by being loved by him.

No matter how painful it has felt to let go of the attachment of what could be, and the void I still feel at times in the absence of that powerful connection, I would do it all over again in a heartbeat— even if it meant going through the exact same pain that I have encountered. He was exactly who and what I was meant to experience at this point in my journey and it was through my willingness to be vulnerable, to relinquish to and receive him, that I saw vital pieces of myself in his reflection; in his love I saw myself more clearly than ever before. I allowed him to see me and in that, I saw myself. It’s truly unsettling for someone to be both a mirror of the pain and wounding I carry, and the catalyst for my deepest healing to date. This I suppose is the paradox of love.

Allowing myself to love him at the capacity that I have has led me to this place that I currently reside: in deeper love and alignment within my Self. Healing.

Showing up more and more, everyday, in the world unapologetically as the most authentic Me. Learning and growing and expanding, and giving other’s the courage to do the same as they cross paths with me. Love is a beautiful beacon to guide us and a profound teacher. My purpose in life is to bring more love into every space I occupy and help others see that within themselves. Experiencing a love like this— that reflected the depth of healing and fulfillment that comes from being in it’s presence— only solidified the importance that it holds to me.

This journey of ‘Coming Home’ I have come to realize is more than just a philosophy or a process; it’s a spiritual practice.

One that asks of us only that we honor Love and Self; trusting in the knowledge that is within, and walking out into the world in our individual truth to serve our purpose to the highest capacity we are capable of and along the way being offered the grace that comes from the understanding that we are all doing the best that we can.

I am fully aware of the idealistic nature of this entire expression. And to that point I will agree and say that I am just that, and it’s just who I’m meant to be. I have been told that it’s impossible and we are all doomed when I challenge people by saying that in order for us to be able to truly connect in beautiful partnership, friendship, business relationships— any type of relationship really— we have to individually find our way back to the deep love we have access to within, and be willing to show up in the world unapologetically as our authentic vulnerable selves; be willing to allow ourselves to be seen. And in order to thrive in this life, and be deeply connected in the way we desire, we must stop projecting outwards and take responsibility and ownership of our own emotions and individual healing; getting to know deeply and intimately that which is already within us and who it is that we truly are.

It’s possible. It’s uncomfortable, it’s vulnerable and sometimes it feels like it may kill you…

It is the greatest adventure there is.

It is everything.

It is love.

❤︎

Thank you, thank you, thank you, from the bottom of my heart for coming on this journey with me. I’m so freakin’ grateful for your presence here!

I would love to hear your comments below; what love and coming home means to you. And if you have questions for me or a coming home story of your own that you would like to share privately, please email me info@nicolettebernardes.com. Subscribe below to get my newest posts and insider info + follow my journey on IG.

With gratitude, and always LOVE,

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