Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it. – Rabindranath Tagore

Space is defined by a continuous area or expanse that is free, available, or unoccupied. There is always something waiting to be occupied; whether it be a ditch, a vessel, or a container; space was created to be filled.

But how can you fill something, if no space has been created?

For some strange reason, my mind thinks of a cantaloupe. The inside of the melon is composed of a hollow cavity containing seeds encased in a web of netting. Before you can consume the melon, the “insides” must be scraped away and removed.

It’s kind of like the heart. If the heart is calloused, then there is little room for love to consume it. Before the space can be filled, the “insides” need to be scraped away and removed.

For some strange reason, (I don’t expect anyone to understand), I have found healing from reading the 50 Shades of Grey Trilogy. I have never been more captivated and moved by such a dark story yet filled with love, redemption, and more importantly, letting it all go.

In some bizarre way, I was sent soaring back into my own dark, unwelcomed past and given a first hand view of how the past can choke the life out of you. It robs you, it calls all the shots, it’s the one who is in control. It builds walls to high to climb and too thick to bust through. It leaves no space in your heart to love or be loved.

As I poured myself into the pages, the story of the two lovers became the story of my own. Processing my own buried feelings as the words on the page came to life. The feelings I have of myself…

I’ve seen the weighty evidence of his goodness – his charity work, his business ethics, his generosity – and yet he doesn’t see it in himself. He doesn’t feel deserving of love. Given his history and his predilections, I have an inkling of his self-loathing – that’s why he’s never let anyone in.

…and finally deciding to let it all go and move on.

He’s an angry, frightened, brilliant young man, who was dealt a shit hand of cards when he was born. We can all beat our breasts about it, and analyze the who, the how, and the why to death – or Christian can move on and decide how he wants to live.

Move on…they key word here.  He can spin his wheels beating to death all the questions that remain unanswered or he can move forward into something new, yet terrifying and truly begin to live.

With every word that is absorbed, I feel just like the cantaloupe with the “insides” of my heart and the web of netting, protection, I’ve created being scraped away creating the capacity to receive.