I no longer have that hole in the center of me that aches for the comfort of feeling loved. That hole of need -- that no partner or lover could ever really fill -- is where these pieces that I set aside belonged. It was so very simple and elegant in the rightness of it all.
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A year ago, I began a journey home -- to me, to myself. It was time. I was tired of feeling the way I had been feeling and behaving the way I had been behaving. There was a sense of a "repeatedness" to my life that had me heart-tangled and soul-mangled. There was also a sense of knowing from long ago that was tugging my spirit and calling my name. Memories and soft-aching signposts from the edges of a past "me" were reaching out to make themselves known. So I began walking the days of my childhood -- days I thought were done and gone -- with an open heart and a searching soul. There was work I needed to do. There was sorrow, pain, confusion and loss I needed to claim and make whole.

Why? Because I had left pieces of me in school hallways and in my childhood bedroom, in events large and small. Bits of me got hurt, and I shut down. Silent times, quiet aches and tears not shed caused me to run for cover in my brain and put a shield around my heart. I did not know how much of me I had set aside in "it doesn't matter" statements and shrugged shoulders of "Who cares?" I do now. It is so much more than I imagined. I did not know that a child's defense mechanism to not feel can so easily become an adult's "normal."

In this past year I have looked clear-eyed and heart-brave at my past, my feelings and hurts, what I have done and what was done to me. I have cried, seen the truth and let go of illusions and make-believe. The pain of this work has literally brought me to my knees at times. There has been yowling grief and the torched need of my blown-apart soul as I have screamed for my God. There have been the gentlings of remembered times of goodness and joy that got squashed, too. There have been tear-stained smiles as times not held as dear come rolling back -- newly felt into my heart.

These feelings and emotions, these memories and tears have filled a place in me that I did not even know was empty. In owning and honoring these dropped pieces of me, truth now holds my hand, and self-love and compassion anchor my soul. There is a fulling of my spirit and a deeper knowing of a somehow bigger and more-settled self.

I no longer have that hole in the center of me that aches for the comfort of feeling loved. That hole of need -- that no partner or lover could ever really fill -- is where these pieces that I set aside belonged. It was so very simple and elegant in the rightness of it all. I have searched so many years for the "perfect" companion and I have begun to know her -- one re-found piece of me at a time.

Robin Korth enjoys interactions with her readers. Feel free to contact her at info@robininyourface.com or on Facebook.

To learn about her new book, "Soul on the Run," go to: www.SoulOnTheRun.com

You can also download her "Robin In Your Face" free daily motivational app by going to www.robininyourface.com/whats-new/

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