Today at brunch a child wearing pink Converse sneakers caught my eye and when she looked at me, her eyes were stunning and her gaze captivated me for a moment.

I came to tears instantly and felt the gaping hole in my insides where the love of my life and a family should reside. Most of the time this gaping hole is obscured even to me, I cover it with suit jackets and pearls or, with the turn of fall, my favorite red cashmere poncho.

It's a cozy and fashionable disguise for a mid-thirties woman walking around with a gaping hole in her heart and calling it a modern inconvenience.

And I'm not one to ogle over babies and children.

In fact, the majority of my experience with little ones tends to be of the excruciating kind on six hour cross-country plane rides where I contemplate the amount of energy expended by something that small to keep up screaming and wailing for the entire duration of the flight. I'm not sure I could cry for two hours straight without passing out, not to mention keep it up for three, four, five hours.

I realize the café I'm having a late Sunday brunch at is hosting a pumpkin carving party. I consider joining, as only a week ago I wanted to have my own pumpkin carving party but had no takers from my short list of adult acquaintances I've made since living in Seattle.

I watch the kids pour in and let myself tear up. One wearing a green and purple Hulk costume picks up a pumpkin by its top and the top pops off and the bottom smashes to the floor. He is undeterred, flashes a look at me from his green mask, and I get the sensation of wanting to eat him.

I wonder if his parents would mind much if the stranger at the table next to them, wearing her new bright red cashmere poncho purchased the day before on a heated retail therapy trip, dripping tears into her coffee cup, picked up their little Incredible Hulk and proceeded to gobble him up.

I'd start with wrapping my arms around his little chest and squeezing his little stuffed muscle shirt and then proceed to kiss his little red apple cheeks until he would inevitably start to scream and cry, for wanting to get back to carving his pumpkin.

I imagine this is the heart breaking fate for most affectionate parents when their little one has decided they are independent and don't want to be cuddled in public anymore. I imagine this gobbling desire is what sustains your sanity after a six hour bout of screaming on an airplane with one hundred other passengers.

I bet gobbling and cuddling my own child would be all that much more tasty and satiating than a fantasy stolen pumpkin kiss from that intriguing little green Hulk at the local cafe.

"The planet does not need more successful people. The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers and lovers of all kinds." – Dalai Lama

So what is the price we are paying to be modern successful people in the world?

Connecting with your deeper desires does not involve knowing the answers to all of our questions. It's only in not knowing that we can be truly receptive and it's only in being receptive that we can truly discover, learn, and evolve. When we shift into wonder and curiosity, there is an opening to a deeper wisdom. Listening to our Inner Wisdom is a shift from outside or external indicators of success, where not knowing is a source of weakness and powerlessness to our own internal compass. It is here that we can be vulnerable and open to wonder and curiosity, the ultimate sources of our own power and strength.

Do you have a deep longing in your heart, a craving for deep connection and intimacy?

You are not alone, by letting ourselves be seen and vulnerable, we open up to a greater experience of love, of friendship, of life experience and wonderment.

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Chloë Rain is The Human Experience Artist, CEO & Founder of Explore Deeply™. To read more about how turning left instead of right can change everything, including how just being nice can get you far in life and in bed, and what to do when heart break doesn’t kill you, go to ExploreDeeply.com where Chloë shares stories on the search to find true love, life purpose, and a reason to get out of bed in the morning. To read the original post about living in Paris and having a love affair go here. For more inspiration and to like Explore Deeply, go here.

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