My gut aches with a pang of knowing the inevitability of loss. And maybe this is why I fear so much the abandonment that I know is going to come. It is inescapable. Death is unavoidable.

A friend, a lover, once told me that the reason I fear loss so much is because I fear death, and therefore, I need to die more. But what they didn’t see is that I have died. So. Many. Fucking times. I have died. Right here. Right before my eyes, I have slain myself for the hopes of being loved and chosen by someone else. I have stepped out of my truth and sat beside myself—chaotically searching who it is I need to be in order for them to see!

So what is the fear then? The fear is walking on fragile grounds built by someone else’s needs and someone else’s truth that I have claimed as my own, but my body knows. And so the pain starts seeping in through the cracked ground and shaking me at my root, and I fear my every step because it is so damn unclear. Here is where I must remember. Remember who I am, my own voice, and the ground for which I must stand.

Choosing. Love is a choice we make. Every single day. We awake. We make a choice. Do we reach for the phone or do we sit at our prayer altar? Do we journal or do we distract with the millions of options we have? Do we drink coffee or tea and what are we going to decide to eat?!

Do we show up in full transparency or are we stuck in the grab of ego hide tainted with so many of the lies we tell ourselves? Do we shame our truth and then shame someone else?

Do we show up in the search of self and in the school of life to learn what it is to really love,

or do we continue to live our lives blind to all of our subconscious motivations that live inside?

The greatest lesson I have learned recently, after going through a lot of turbulence in my life, is this: Sit. Sit with thyself for as long as it takes, no matter how uncomfortable it is, to regain thy center. Thy center is the place in which our power lies, our truest of truth lies. It is where we take responsibility for our thoughts, our behaviors, our motivations, our pain and we rid all of the rest. Simply put: Get Real.

Get fucking real.

Get real with yourself about all of it. What you want, what you need, who you are, what you believe.

And then, once you’ve regained your center, and clarity has come knocking on your door, open it, and continue to choose love some more. Continue to choose yourself day after day, moment by moment. When we experience loss and grief and we find ourselves praying for the relief, the moment of peak when we see the light at the end of the tunnel; and right now you may not yet see that Life will not leave you living in scarcity. That Life is unfolding for you to remember the truth of why you are here.

So, ride the waves of grief. Ride the pains and the dis-ease, and give yourself space to breathe it all out. We deserve to stand up and speak our truth. We deserve respect. We deserve love: to love and to be loved. We deserve to listen to our inner voice that guides us to enriching lands where we fill our cup in the crystal clear stream, splash water onto our sun-kissed lips, and surrender into the peace and ease of abundance that is continuously flowing toward us.

And when we arrive in our center, and we choose to love from that place…Heaven becomes more than just a word in the sky. It becomes your life, and you’ll be gifted a beautiful surfboard for which you will learn to ride all of the waves of life.

Here’s to choosing,

Alex