Happy Valentine’s week 💗

I’m sending a little beam of love your way - just in case it feels a bit scarce in your world right now.

Breathe, open your heart… and now let that little beam of love in.

Can you feel it?

Real love isn’t the roses-and-chocolates kind.

It’s the kind that opens your heart wide…and, at times, has made you want to close it again. 💗

For years, I believed that opening my heart only led to pain. I've loved deeply, lost deeply, trusted, and been betrayed. And each time it hurt badly.And without even realising it, I began to close myself down… convinced that shutting my heart was the safest way to stop the hurt happening again.

Maybe you’ve done this too?

We don’t announce it. We just subtly harden. We become a bit more careful. A bit more cynical and self-protective. A bit less available.

But here’s what I eventually realised:

Love didn’t hurt me. Closing my heart did.

When someone left me, betrayed me, or died, it felt like the love had been brutally ripped away. But the love I felt didn’t live in them - it lived within me. It came from my own heart.

Grief isn’t love that's been lost. It’s love with nowhere to go. And when I closed my heart, I didn’t just block love going out - I blocked love coming in.

Life started to feel smaller… and a bit numb.

With less colour.

Less connection.

Less meaning.

Less joy.

This wasn't living, it was surviving.

What I've learnt, is when we get hurt, life hasn’t actually "gone wrong". It’s simply part of the full human experience we came here to have - every beautiful, messy bit of it. Because without contrast, we’d never truly recognise love.

The falling in love.

The falling apart.

The joy.

The ache.

They aren’t opposites - they’re all love, but just different expressions of it.

So when we offer compassion to ourselves and others on the messy days…We are being the highest expression of love.

And when you love yourself fully, and accept all the beautifully imperfect aspects of yourself, something shifts. You stop chasing love outside of you because you’re connected to it within. 

The love you seek has always been beating inside your own chest. 

That’s when healing happens.

That’s when relationships change.

That’s when life opens up to a whole new level.

This is my valentine gift for you this month:

Try this simple exercise and see how easy it is to connect with your love.

• Place both hands on your heart. Breathe deeply.

• Imagine a soft light glowing in your chest.

• Feel it expand as you say:

  “I AM LOVE”

• Repeat until you feel yourself soften and the truth of those words sink in.

• End with a few moments of silence, simply feeling your love.

And now you realise… there’s nowhere you need to get to. Nothing to chase.

You’re already here.

Already whole.

Already complete.

You are Love.

Not because someone chooses you.

Not because someone validates you.

Not because you earned it, chased it, or begged for it.

But because your love is who you truly are - your deepest truth, your pure authenticity. And that’s what draws people to you.

Not the mask.

Not the armour.

You.

Every moment, you have a choice.

To stay open in love…

or close down in judgement.

One expands your life.

The other shrinks it.

Choose the one that sets you free. 🌟

Written with love, Jakkie 💗 x

Are you ready to step into a whole new life this year?

Doors are now open...

https://www.jakkietalmage.com/align-and-rise