Removing Blocks
August 17, 2025
There are baby bluebirds everywhere. I have no idea where all these bluebird nests were, as I was only sporadically seeing bluebirds for the last few months. Yet everywhere I look right now, there are dozens of baby bluebirds.
They travel together, no longer supervised by parents who may be sitting on another nest. They remind me of teenagers moving from one area to another all around the meadow, laughing as they go. (You can hear the sound here, it’s the fourth recording on this page.)
The juvenile robins, chickadees, eastern phoebes, and great-crested flycatchers join what seems to be a big, happy party. The robins and bluebirds flutter down near the grass and back up to the branches. The flycatchers and phoebes zip through and above the branches and back to their perch. The chickadees dance between the branches, buzzing as they go.
As I walk today, I’m thinking about a 2020 interview I just listened to again with Jerome Braggs and Dr. Robert Holden discussing his book, “Finding Love Everywhere.” The line rolling around in my mind is Dr. Holden saying, “Self-love is what you experience when you let life love you.”
He talked about allowing love to do the loving, as he illustrates in this poem from the book titled “We Three”:
I used to think it was just the two of us. With me loving you, and you loving me. But now I see we are three. And that love is doing all the loving between you and me.
Dr. Holden postulates that trying to love yourself is hard. It often feels like adding one more thing to your to-do list, yet another thing to accomplish. He suggests, instead, to look at where you make it difficult to be loved and work on removing the blocks so you can feel the love that is already there. I immediately think of the Rumi poem:
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
For about two months, I’ve been working with my fascia to find and gently release adhesions that have formed as my body has worked to keep me upright and mobile. The method I am working with is called “Block Therapy,” and it involves lying on wooden blocks with rounded edges, breathing deeply and slowly, and allowing the stuck places in the body to melt.
Some of these adhesions have formed in my body from the posture I tighten into when I am afraid or overwhelmed. As Dr. Holden talked about the ways we make it difficult to be loved - the ways we hold ourselves apart from feeling love out of fear - I could feel my body tighten into this posture.
These physical barriers in my body begin to release when I bring loving attention, breath, calm, and gentle pressure. The emotional barriers I have built to being seen and being loved also respond to loving attention, breath, calm, and being held.
As I release the physical adhesions and start to realign my body, I often find new areas of pain that must also be addressed with loving attention. As I release the emotional adhesions, I also sometimes find new areas of pain. Some adhesions were protecting me from something else that can now come up to be healed.
I turn back to the bluebirds and I ponder how I have learned to let myself be loved in nature. I have learned I can’t chase after beauty. Rather, it is standing still that allows the birds and the bugs to come close to me.
I have learned that my brain doesn’t know where the best surprises might be hiding on any given day, but if I can listen and let myself be guided, I will be amazed at what I might see.
Some days, I am more receptive than others. Some days, my mind is occupied with all the things that need to get done or all the fears that have bubbled up. Sometimes I notice I am rushing. I am in a hurry to get the walk finished and get to work. On these days, I take very few photos.
Today could have been one of those days, especially since it was hot and I hadn’t even started this post - except for the baby bluebirds. The bluebirds grabbed my attention. It’s as if they whispered, “Let all of that go, just for a little while, and watch us play.” As I stand and do as they ask, I feel my body relax and notice the smile on my face.
Just for a moment, I sense how I am being loved by life. It takes my breath away - and I feel myself contract and pull away from the feeling. Somehow on this day, probably by the grace of the bluebirds, I am able to bring curiosity to the contraction.
I breathe into the contraction and tell myself it is safe for me to feel myself being loved. I thank the contraction for coming up so it can be healed. I turn my attention back to the bluebirds and let my body relax. The feeling of being loved doesn’t return in this moment, but it will come again. Perhaps next time I will be able to stay with it a little bit longer.
I wonder what might happen if I am more and more able to let myself be loved? What would happen if lots of people could let themselves be loved? I imagine it would change the world.
May your curiosity be stronger than your resistance to love.
I love and identify with so many things that I'm sharing it on Facebook. Deep gratitude for your vulnerability and sharing your perspectives and your birds and butterflies and all so beautifully. It all speaks to me and of course it's all about me. 😉
Just beautiful, Karen. I saw an eastern swallowtail butterfly outside my kitchen window the other day, and it felt like a message, but I didn't know what the message was until I read your post today: look for moments of life loving me. Thank you as always for your beautiful words and images.