Limitless Love (Lotus House #4)
Audrey Carlan
Dedication
To my sister Denise Pasion.
* * *
The woman who taught me…
The love of a good book.
It’s okay to cry during movies.
Sisters are God-given best friends.
To follow your heart in all things.
And so much more.
* * *
My love for you is limitless.
Note To The Reader
In previous Lotus House books, I’ve focused on both yoga and the chakras. Since this couple is driven by the heart chakra—in my opinion one of the most important—I felt it vital to focus on the chakra teachings, versus the practice of yoga. The chakra teachings were part of my official schooling with The Art of Yoga through Village Yoga Center in Northern California. Every chakra fact has been personally written by me and comes from my perspective and personal understanding of the teachings through hours of study and research.
I hope Limitless Love teaches you more about your heart chakra, the best ways to open it and prevent it from being closed, and how to experience each day keeping love and kindness at the forefront of your mind.
* * *
Namaste,
* * *
Audrey
Chapter One
The Heart Chakra is the fourth of the seven primary chakras in the body. It represents our ability to love, the quality of our love, our past loves, and our future loves.
MONET
“There is no love without pain, for we wouldn’t know the beauty of one without the other.” I sat in my quilted leather chair, crossed my legs, and looked over the rim of my glasses at the man seated across from me.
He sighed, eased his broad shoulders back against the couch, and stretched out his arms. A rather open gesture for someone so jaded.
“That’s deep, Doc.”
I half smiled, set my legal pad across my thighs, and shifted forward to rest my elbows on my knees. “There is a natural yin and yang to all things in life. Love, pain, joy, grief. The universe organically seems to balance these things out.”
He huffed. “Oh yeah? And what does it say about my cheating wife?”
“What does it say to you?” I bit the inside of my cheek so I didn’t react the way my heart wanted to. I had been in the same position once. It hurt like hell. As this man’s therapist, though, I needed to sympathize with him, not empathize, or we’d both go down a dark, winding, jagged path of grief.
He scowled. “That she has it coming to her?”
“And you don’t believe that you leaving and walking away without so much as a discussion didn’t hurt her?”
“Not even close. She fucked my best friend.”
His words hit like a thousand tiny icicles across the bare skin of my arms. I swallowed against the dryness that suddenly took over my throat.
This is not your life, Moe. Don’t put too much of your own experiences into your response.
“That’s got to be hard to get past,” I voiced sympathetically.
“You could say that again.” Dave clenched his jaw and glanced over his shoulder. “I don’t even know why I’m here.”
That caught my attention. “Yes, you do.”
He shook his head and placed his fists on his knees. “How could I ever trust her again? My best friend.” Dave rubbed at his chin. The sound of his callused hands rubbing across his prickly jaw triggered an unwanted memory. Kyle used to rub his jaw in that exact same motion when he was hiding something. Turned out he hid a lot—the most unsettling of which was the long affair he had with my baby sister.
Moe, this is not about you. Let it go…
I inhaled and exhaled slowly, giving Dave and myself a minute to calm down.
“I thought maybe if I laid it all out there, you know, told all the gory details to a professional, I’d feel better.” Dave sneered and picked at his fingernail.
“And do you?”
He shook his head. “No. Not at all. I’m still angry. So angry. I’m not sure if I can ever get past her betrayal.” His jaw seemed to tighten when he continued. “Do you think it’s possible? To get over it, I mean?”
No. I didn’t, but I wanted to. I desperately wished my own circumstances were different. That I’d been different. Better somehow. A better wife. Mother. Friend to my husband. Then maybe he wouldn’t have left me high and dry. Perhaps my sister wouldn’t have looked like the perfect escape from a life he didn’t want. A woman he didn’t want. A child he couldn’t even look at.
I pushed down my own secret desires and plastered on a smile. I looked at Dave with as much generosity and compassion as I could muster, and lied. Lied, because in this instance, my job was to be objective. “I think anything is possible.”
Big. Fat. Lie.
After years in this line of work, I’d seen many cases of betrayal. Having gone through it myself made me feel like an expert on the subject. In my experiences, I’ve come to realize a person may forgive a transgression because of the love they have for the individual, but they never ever forget. I most certainly have not. Kyle leaving me the way he did still plagued my dreams. Sometimes I thought he might have taken a piece of my heart and destroyed it forever. If that was the case, I had a hole in my heart—one I wasn’t sure could ever allow me to truly love again.