I can’t allow myself to have an open heart, to love myself; to be silent, or not to be silent.

Well, the secret is that you don’t have to ‘allow’ anything. Just be as you are. For example, this evening you are a man. Did you have to do something to be a man?

No, but what I mean is that when I’m quiet I get really silent and it’s very painful. It’s always like that.

It’s painful to be silent?

Yes. I feel like pain happens in my heart. It’s not bad pain or good pain – just pain.

Is it really pain or could you also say that you feel simply touched? Maybe you contact your loving heart and you’re just not so familiar with that.

Yes, it feels a bit like falling into something that’s stopped.

And this stopping you’re calling pain?

Yes. The crying stops and I can’t go deeper. It’s like a shutdown.

Who says what’s deeper and who says whether the crying should stop or not? Can you just accept it as it is?

Thoughts arise and then it’s so confusing and I don’t know what’s happening.

What you are expressing is very common. Unfortunately, in our journey of life, through our upbringing, we very often become divided. We can’t accept ourselves as we are because we have come to believe we are not okay like this and we have to be different. This message comes to us in many different ways from many different sources. That’s why it’s so difficult just to be as we are.
Without even realising, we can’t accept ourselves. We become divided because the judgments that were put on us as children are like voices that become thoughts. These thoughts stay with us. They are no longer coming from parents or society – now they are part of the structure of our minds.
We become our own judge, constantly judging ourselves that who we are is not alright. It’s a funny paradox, because how can we be different? We can only be as we are.

Not wanting to be as we are is like an avoiding.

Yes. We avoid being who we are because we think it is not okay and we should be something else. So the invitation is to discover what is true here and then be that, which is happening anyway but we can’t accept it.
If you could be different, you would be. If this is not the right place, you would be some other place. You are probably just discovering what it is to be free; you are discovering what it is to be yourself. And you are completely allowed, not because you are here in this community, but because you’re running around on this planet.

(From a recent dialogue with a young student)