Learning to Love Without Holding Back

Dear friends,

It’s astonishing how quickly love can arrive and completely rearrange your inner world.

In less than a week, I’ve fallen head over heels for two pounds of fluff and heart. And somehow, this tiny being has cracked something wide open in me.

I feel called — deeply called — to let my natural maternal, nurturing side be fully in bloom. Not just for my family, not just for this little soul in my care, but for myself too. In a way I don’t think I’ve ever fully allowed before.

This love feels different. It’s uncomplicated. Unconditional. It doesn’t ask me to prove anything, achieve anything, or be anything other than present. And in that simplicity, it’s been profoundly grounding.

I’m noticing how this love is driving me — guiding my choices, my pace, my softness — in a way I haven’t felt before. It’s opening more compassion for myself. More patience. More grace. And unexpectedly, more compassion for other humans, too. Their messiness. Their tenderness. Their longing to be seen and safe.

Animals have a way of teaching us what we often forget: that it is safe to love. That loving fully doesn’t make us weak; it makes us alive. That vulnerability is not something to fix, but something to honor.

I feel humbled by how much this tiny presence has already taught me. About care. About trust. About allowing love to move through me without armoring up.

Maybe this is the invitation, for all of us, to notice where love is quietly asking to expand. And to let it.

With so much love,  

Ali