Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” Do you remember that quote?

Does understanding the perfection of our experiences, that everything happens as it does and that we learn and grow from it as we can in the moment, mean that we forgo the shared connection, that we overlook the cry of pain? Even if the one experiencing the loss knows full well that everything unfolds as it must do we sit back and watch the fire burn or are we called to do something else?

Have you noticed a tendency to avoid the words, ‘I’m sorry,’ to jump over the grief to the lesson? Withholding that healing salve doesn’t feel accurate. It is limited, maintaining separation rather than recognizing the perfection of the ever-changing whole.

When another hurts life is handing us the divine opportunity to connect deeply, to tether together in communion and remember there is but one heart. This is true as well when the one hurting is yourself. I am sorry for another’s pain. I feel empathy for their loss. I understand their grief for I have stood in their shoes — perhaps not in the exact same place but in the territory of their impoverishment. To deny that would deny my beautiful humanness. To say I am sorry, to be present and listen, to reach out and allow our experiences to connect us, to remind us of our shared journey, is life’s greatest gift.

To do that for myself as well, is precious beyond words.

Does it feel foreign to tell yourself you are sorry … ‘Oh sweetheart, sweet sweet body of mine, I am so sorry for your pain’ … to then listen, reach out to another, share your experience, and bask in the benefit of theirs? To do this without self-blame?

This basic kindness takes nothing from the fuller understanding. It does not in any way pretend that you are in control, does not imagine that you exist as an individual who made bad choices … or good, or that life should be other than it is.

Quite the opposite is true.

It takes you deep into the true experience of being human and denies nothing, resists nothing, imagines nothing. It is the open heart in a compassionate embrace with life as it is.