Self-Love Brings Fullness to an Empty Heart

“In a full heart there is room for everything,

and in an empty heart there is room for nothing.”

Antonio Porchia

There is great truth to Antonio Porchia’s observation. A full heart is a heart graced with love. It is a heart that has learned how to expand with each and every breath. It is constantly opening, growing and welcoming for its essence is layered with love.

Love is ever expansive. There’s no containing love and so a loving heart must constantly breathe and open to all new opportunities to love. A full heart has enough love to stretch around the world; enough love to share with anyone who needs a smile or a hand to hold, even for just a little while.

But an empty heart is a love-less, abandoned place. It’s filled with silent screams. It screamed each time love left and the echoes of those screams continually ring through its hollowness. It screamed when mom and dad’s love left, it screamed when God’s love seemingly left, and it screamed and wailed the loudest when it’s owner’s love left.

Love died and the empty heart, like a continually empty stomach, shrank and shrank and shrank until it had no room for anything or anyone. Sooner or later the empty heart withers away and it’s owner dies from alienation of self-love, unless…

Unless what? Unless the owner of the empty heart chooses to re-enter his/her heart. The owner of the empty heart always has the option of returning, of choosing to no longer abandon him/herself. He/she can shine the light of kindness into the tiny darkened space inside the nearly lifeless heart. In doing so, in practicing kindness and gentleness with him/herself, the owner can relight the fire of love, self-love, inside his/her heart. All it takes are small sparks of kindness to help the once-abandoned heart to stir and expand once more.

Eventually, with time, the once empty heart will find room for the love of God and of persons it comes to trust. It will then become ever-expanding, making room for more and more love from familiar and trustworthy hearts. And one day, this once empty heart will find it is blessed with fullness while still having room for so much more, for everything.

Any time we are feeling empty hearted, it’s because we have abandoned ourselves. If your heart is feeling empty, it’s time to remove it from it’s loveless starvation diet. Return self-love to your heart by practicing kindness toward yourself each and every day until the emptiness subsides and the glow of self-love invites your heart back into an expansive mode.