When the shifts came, everything in my life was uprooted. In one way, it reminded me of a time where I burned down to the ground…but in another, I knew it was something completely different. I knew all those months ago that I wasn’t falling apart, but I was falling together. I was falling into something great. No one else could really see it but me, but there was that deep feeling in my gut that this was different. I wasn’t going to be in pieces stringing one day filled with impossible emotions to deal with after another. I knew that despite the anxiety of my situation at that time…all of the tectonic shifts happening…that everything would soften.

It did.

All of the pieces came together and I found myself rooted…belonging…and having a place in this world. I went from being an imposter and a stranger to someone that was meant to be here. I felt like I had a home. Not because I had a location called home, but because I found home where my heart was. I could make any place my home. I belonged exactly where I was…because I was there…and because I was there…I was at home.

That’s a very very different place from where I lived before. I lived in the place of always trying to get to the next place because I didn’t feel like what I had right now was good enough. Deep down, I didn’t feel like I was good enough for all that life had to offer me. That’s a pretty open and honest moment right there…for me to fully admit that. But it’s the truth.

The past few months have been titled “Reclamation of Heart.” I’ve gone in, searched through the shadows…become really close with things that terrified this soul…and done it over and over and over again until I could go there with love, compassion, and courage every single time. But I struggled at the beginning. I suffered in those months that I went there time and time again. The anxiety of being in that place was unprecedented…but I knew I had to do what I was afraid to do. I reclaimed my heart…my home…and changed my world because of it.

But here’s what I learned about love.

You have to love people in such a way that they are free. You can’t hold them too tight. That doesn’t mean you don’t love them with your heart…or pour out the unconditional love that you have access to…it just means that you have to finally grasp the fact that there is a natural coming and going of life and you can’t control when people decide that they need to leave. You have to love them when they arrive, love them when they are with you, and love them when they are gone. The one thing that remains constant through all of this…is your love.

When you love people and life in such a way that it can come in and out of your life at its own pace…in its own unique way, you are open to everything. You can soak it all in. The good. The bad. Everything. Then you’ve really learned how to cherish each and every aspect of this life. Because deep down at the core of it…the thing that runs everything – at least in the world I live in and the worlds of many who I revere…is love.

Love passionately. Love deeply. Learn to love without conditions.

When you get to this place, you finally start living instead of surviving.

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project