“Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth.”
 - Naomi Shihab Nye

Six months ago I packed up my 2001 Toyota Camry with clothes, hiking boots, a yoga mat, a stack of books and a lamp and started driving across the country alone. I drove to a farm in Asheville, North Carolina to work and stay for two weeks, not knowing where I would go next. I began slipping into the abyss of this vast country with no weapons but a sorely broken heart.

 I had reached that point in life where you feel you have nothing: no home, no meaningful job, no one waiting for you to return somewhere. Many of us find ourselves in that place, whether through our own will or at the mercy of another’s. In that moment you can choose to say one of two things about your situation; “I am alone” or “I am free.” I chose freedom.

I camped, couch-surfed and farm-hopped for three months, receiving room and board in exchange for work. I made detours for must-see cities, friends and national parks: North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and California cradled me with their people, food, culture and natural landscapes.

It was humbling to heal a broken heart in the constant company of strangers. All my life I’ve had an innate need to be generous and at the service of others. For the first time I found myself with nothing to give and what felt like barely enough strength to crawl. I was empty, worried that my inability to give would leave me rejected. Instead, strangers were filling me up with love.

Could I ever, in my wildest dreams, have foreseen what would occur? Standing alone on the edge of an enormous canyon one day, with a view of  infinite red rocks gently draped with snow, my hair blowing in the wind and sticking to teardrops on my cheeks, hungry and thirsty, having hiked endless miles alone through the canyon to reach this summit, I took a deep breath and felt alive. I had surrendered my plans and the universe brought me here. This was no accident.

The people I met along the way showed me the beauty of real, selfless kindness. They are the ones I have to thank for an unforgettable journey. A humble grocer gave me twenty dollars when my car broke down in the grocery store parking lot. A farmer I stayed with saw me off with eight mason jars of goat cheese and two pairs of wool socks.

“Any girl traveling alone in the mountains of the West should have at least one pair of wool socks,” she said.

I showed up at a stranger’s door on Thanksgiving night to couch surf and was met with a meal, an endless supply of wine and a house full of jolly, Amarillo, Texas musicians.

In a parked car in Nashville an Alabama-born farmer -- a girl younger than I -- asked if she could pray for me. She clutched my hand as if I were her daughter and proceeded to pray out loud for several minutes. It took my breath away and healed me a little bit.

That’s how healing happens, I found: in tiny increments, through simple acts of love. There’s no “aha moment” where the dam of your despair breaks and the pain floods out of you and you’re suddenly back to normal. Being run down to emptiness is the most incredible gift because when you’re empty, life and real love will fill that space if you let them. You can chose to let life’s betrayals crack you open, or dam you shut. All the things you are afraid of losing are merely distractions from what is actually available to you.

The mind is great at rationalizing why we can’t have adventure or take risks. Our perceived limitations keep us from diving into the fire of the unknown, which is where the true richness of life lies. It doesn’t have to be a cross-country trip that opens you up to the wonder of uncertainty. Ask what is the longing in your heart that gives you a knot in your gut when you think about it. The path that scares you may be the one you’re meant to take.

And if you feel like your heart might explode, don’t worry: it will. And it will be great. The universe is waiting with open arms.