Pablo Neruda, master poet of the Spanish language, had a way of making the ordinary seem extraordinary, particularly in his collection Odes to Common Things. Although the English translation can't compare to the original, Neruda's "Ode to the bed" is a gorgeous, poignant illustration of the phases that move us through everyday life. Here's an excerpt:

We go from one bed to the next
in this journey,
life's journey.
The newborn, the afflicted,
the dying,
the lover and the dreamer alike:
they arrived and they will depart by bed,
we have all arrived and we will all depart
on this train, on this boat, down this
river which is common
to all
life,
which is shared
by each and every death.
Love makes the earth
a bed for blooming, mired in blood.*

Those last two lines always strike me especially. Sometimes it seems impossible to grasp the paradox of this, that something could profoundly wound as well as heal. Tim Weber, a mentor of mine from the Leadership Institute of Seattle, often teaches about the life of fear and the life of love. If we choose fear, he says, we invariably choose death, but if we choose love, we cannot help but experience loss.

"Great," I remember thinking. "This supposed to help me help my clients?!?"

Eventually, it really did help, but it took me a long time to understand the significance of his words. The life of fear, one in which we are frozen into chrysalis -- as local poet Tara Hardy so eloquently describes -- always creates a predictable outcome: nothing risked, nothing gained. A dull, constant state of unliving. Everyone experiences these moments, when we shrink into ourselves, grow small, get lost. Some part of us may long to break from the cocoon, but we are afraid. Then, perhaps we start to push a little. There's a seam, a crack. We peel back layers. We open. And it is this open state, the life of love, that makes it possible for our deepest connections and our greatest losses, because here, we can't pretend we don't care. We are no longer frozen but alive and pulsing. "Love makes the earth/a bed for blooming, mired in blood."

Over and over, I have seen clients choose love, most radically a love for themselves. With daily practice, they are able to come to rest within their breath and belly and mind. Even if they drift away for a while, they know how to come back. The path becomes more familiar and comforting each time. It is from this place of hard-won security that they open to the world around them, knowing full well the risk. But by then, they're far too big for the old, tiny, cold space. They can tolerate the paradox of love and loss because they have enough love for themselves to sustain them through difficulty. What once terrified now offers possibility. Things bloom.

*excerpted from Odes to Common Things, 1994, Bulfinch Press.