“You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens.”

~Rumi

 

 

It would be so much more inviting to open your heart without all of the pain that goes with breaking it! However, without fail, Rumi has his finger on the pulse of truth. This concept can be applied at every level of connection: partner/spouse, family, friends, co-workers, community, city, state, entire country…it fits. The challenge is that allowing your heart to break requires courage and vulnerability, with a heavy dose of tenacity and fortitude. It’s about getting back up every time you’re knocked down. It’s about facing the conflict with a renewed sense of possibility. It’s about trusting in love and acceptance over fear and rejection. Ultimately, it comes down to the choices made on an individual level and allowing the ripple effect to spread the message.

 

I am continuing my in depth work with the book Love, An Inner Connection by Carol K. Anthony. As I am rereading it, I am pausing to journal about the nuggets that really resonate with me…and there are a lot of them. My intention is to focus on how the nugget is acted out upon by ME, not if it is a trait that somebody else has. ME. It can be quite uncomfortable to notice the places where I still set up boundaries established in fear. It is even more humbling when I journal and an event that I thought I had healed and released comes streaming out of my pen again. When it comes to the heart and being open, I get pretty scared. I don’t like the thought of putting myself in a situation that could level me to tears and pain. However, I crave a deep connection in my life…with my Self, my husband, my family and friends, my clients and students…you get the idea. The deep connection I crave needs to be able to build its foundation firmly in my heart. There are definitely pieces of that foundation in existence, but the earthquakes of life can shake things up quickly.

 

It is critical to be able to look honestly at me and see how my own resistance, fear and old stories get in my way. We all have the barriers; it comes down to being aware of them and working with them. It is far easier to see the barriers in other people and how their barriers “hurt” me. The tough part is the realization that I allow their barriers to hurt me. I allow the fears and defensive resistance to lay claim on the truth of who I am. Sometimes I feel like I throw myself back into the cage of hungry tigers without even offering myself a chance to protect myself or to make a different choice. The unhealthy habit becomes so familiar that inviting myself to STOP and breathe has a difficult time entering the picture.

 

I am currently in the process of releasing some old hurts. To most effectively work with the information, I tend to start with journaling. Journaling allows me to clear the chaos in my head and reach a different point of clarity. There is no healthy way that I could work on healing without having an understanding of what is really going on. The journaling usually starts with a spewing of thoughts and ideas in stream of consciousness writing. I don’t stop to analyze, deal with semantics, judge or anything else. I just write…and it can be quite “colorful” at times. I allow the raw emotions of the situation to move through me (and my pen) in this process. Again…no judgment. Once that wave passes, my writing shifts into self-reflection. How did I contribute to this situation? What could I have done differently? How did I allow my own fear to be my guiding response? What am I really afraid of? This is the least comfortable part, but a deeply essential part. I want to be able to see what is getting in my way and gently and compassionately work with the information.

 

After journaling, I tend to take the situation to meditation, be it a sitting meditation, working with crystals, running, doing yoga or walking my dog. I allow myself to continue to hold space for the healing and see what else comes up. Sometimes there are more nuggets of information to release or to work with and sometimes there is a sense of peace and connection. If there is more that comes up, I ask for Divine guidance to help me use the information in a healthy, honest and loving way.

 

The current place of healing for me has strongly encouraged me (talk about a tough Universal love nudge!) to start a conversation and share the vulnerability of what I am experiencing. The potential result from this carries deep healing and connection…for all involved. My fear response has certainly kicked in, but I am grateful for my awareness of this response. I can use this knowledge to continually and gently remind myself to stay in my heart and allow the process to unfold.

 

This same space of openness is what I offer to all who come across my path in the course of a day. There are definitely days when I find this to be easier, but it doesn’t deter me from continually finding a way to accept and allow others to live in their own personal truth, especially when it is different than my own. May you all allow your heart to ‘break’ in order for it to open. It starts with one person…