If you want to feel love, stretch out your arms

If you want to feel love, stretch out your arms.

The keyword here is you.

YOU have to do it, literally.

Nobody else other than you. 

You are the one that has to do it.

It seems simple but in practice is difficult.

Why? Because the act of reaching out requires great courage. Courage to connect to the present moment, the territory of the unknown where love blooms and your personality dies.

All sorts of scary things might happen. They may flinch. The moment may turn awkward. You may get embarrassed. Look stupid. And so on. Such outcomes are so potentially damaging to our false sense of self, our egos, that we avoid reaching out altogether.

The impulse to reach out is primal and we feel it almost every time we are in the presence of a fellow human being, as if we are hardwired to connect to one another.

How often we override the impulse, missing an opportunity to connect, to feel love, to feel alive and vital.

The challenge is to act on the impulse without hesitation, as if you have nothing to lose by doing so. 

And doing so requires daily practice and a willingness to be emotionally uncomfortable.