Ah. It’s you. Yes you. I am glad you have finally arrived. The world has been waiting for you. And so have I. Let’s think for a moment about you. Beautiful, magnificent you. The you that loves the starlit sky at night and the sound of your child’s voice. What were you feeling or thinking about in the moment before you began reading these words? Where were you? Were you deep inside the song of your beautiful beating heart? Were you traveling the looping highways in your magnificent mind? It doesn’t much matter, because you are here now. But I am wondering where you usually live. If you are like most of us, you don’t live in a place where you are always in touch with what you love. You might not be connected right now to what makes your heart sing and your toes tingle. But, oh, it is there. It’s there because it is the reflection of who you are in your most beautiful and magnificent self. What have you done for love today? Or have you forgotten like a lot of us have that what you love is what makes you who you are? When you think about yourself and what you love, what do you see? Remembering who you really are and what you love starts with a choice. A choice to be well. A choice to own your life. And a choice to believe in your own light.  What makes your heart sing? Look for truth of who you are there first. What we love is our key to wholeness. Do you love to sit by the window in the sun early in the morning with a cup of coffee and a newspaper? Do you love to take pictures of the sky at sunset? Do you love to make the world’s best apple pie from scratch and bring it to your favorite neighbor under a checkered cloth? Find ways to bring these experiences into your daily life. These miracles of beauty that speak to you at your core are the answer to everything. They are your touchstones for living the life that is yours to live. They are the pebbles of light that have the strength inside of them to heal us from the inside out. It may sound simple to attempt to heal our pain and the pain of the world with apple pie and sunsets, but truly, what we love is what makes us who we are. The doorway into wholeness begins with our ability to recognize who we really are and we can always find who we are in what we love. Our hearts talk to us every single moment of every single day. They speak to us of who we are and where we belong. Their constant thrumming is our map to our truest self. Take a moment to notice your heartbeat. Notice it often throughout the day. Now notice what you are called towards. It might be a song on the radio that you can’t stop singing in your head. It might be the moon shining through your bathroom window. It might be your child’s laugh or your husband’s capable hands. When we take time to honor what we love we are acknowledging the rush and tumble of our own heartbeat. We are connecting to the rhythms of life that we are always a part of. It’s time that we honor what we love. The world needs us to notice its beauty. Make a commitment to notice the thing that calls to you again and again. Make the choice to move toward what you love.

This piece was originally published as a Vital Signs column in the Daily Progress in June 2014. You can find Vital Signs here.