It can be a challenge in the beginning to allow yourself to be open and, to open your heart in ways you perhaps haven’t done before, and it can take a willingness to risk being hurt, disappointed or sad. Too often we focus on this being the possible outcome so why bother trying at all then, preferring to keep our heart safe, closed and locked up, rather than observe what is the potential bonus or reward that may come if we take a risk and open our hearts up to someone or something.
Healing the heart is one of the greatest challenges we can experience as humans, we see so much hate, hurt, pain and negativity around us it is a natural instinct to want to shut this out and protect ourselves from experiencing any of it. Through romantic or plutonic relationships comes often a greater pain as we allow us to trap this inside our hearts which not only contributes to blockages to experiencing love it often causes up to repeat a similar pattern or cycle by calling in what we know and if our heart is focussed on hurt, pain, sadness it makes sense then that without realising it your heart is calling from more of what it knows?
What if we approached it differently and what if instead when we felt the hurt, pain, sadness we sat with it. We let it engulf us, through tears or anger; we allowed the waves of emotion to wash over us for a period of time. To allow our heart and whole being experience the emotions without shutting them down, shutting them out or trapping them inside our heart space.
If we can allow the experience of the emotions it often takes the intensity out of them, after some time, you can start to process through that grieving state and you will quickly find yourself at a point where you don’t ‘feel’ quite so intensely or you notice that you are interested again in life. It is at this point you need to ask yourself what can I learn from this experience….?
As you may have noticed from my earlier blog posts, I am a firm believer in constantly looking for the lesson or growth in each experience in life. I do also believe that this can take some of the emotion out of a situation. The emotions are present for a reason and it is through these emotions that we can follow the roadmap, where is your heart leading you?
Has that relationship ended because it wasn’t actually in line with your heart?
Did you beliefs and values match those of your partner?
Or perhaps were you compromising your own self-worth?
By allowing yourself to really sit with your emotions and really ‘feel’ those feelings, it gives your body an opportunity to catch up to your mind and as painful as it may feel to you, the healing will come if you allow this process to wash through you mind and body like waves.
Honour the feelings, do what you need to do to acknowledge your hurt, pain or sadness. If that is crying tears until you can’t cry anymore, just give yourself permission to do this.
Allowing the waves of emotion to flow through your body is akin to releasing them without you even realising this is what is happening.
Have you ever just given yourself permission to have a good howling cry in the privacy of your bedroom? How good did it feel when the tears dried up?!
Pretty good right!!
Think back, did you also notice that not only did you feel better but you felt a weight lifted from your shoulders and maybe you were also able to look at things a little more rationally, and perhaps you were ready to go back about your day from a new perspective!
Honouring your feelings, giving permission to feel them and really experience them in your body is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself and your heart. This allows you heart to still remain open and ready to give and receive love in all forms without trapping in old pains, patterns or beliefs.
So next time you find yourself in a period of pain, anger, sadness or even frustration, try sitting with these feelings…really sit with them in feel them in your mind and in your body….notice where they are present in your body, what they look like or what you see and just be fully present with it.
This might take you a few minutes and you might need to sit there for an hour but take the time to really acknowledge how you feel, honour this within your body and once you notice a slight shift taking place, begin to ask yourself what is this moment teaching me?
Or perhaps what from the experience or situation can I learn from?
Did I have proper boundaries in place and was I honouring my worth?
Or was it that it just wasn’t in line with my beliefs, values or hearts desires?
In my experience when it is the latter, the Universe has a way of ‘pushing’ us to notice when something isn’t in line with our hearts desires or our purpose. As we can get caught up in the actual moment or experience that we don’t realise or perhaps don’t want to realise it is right for us at all.
I know personally I have lost count of the occasions a door has closed, relationship has ended or not progressed and it took me some time after to realise that there was a very good reason why that had happened and I then became grateful for these opportunities not working out for me.
Which is why I believe we need to alter our perspective in these occasions, everything really does happen for a reason and whether you can see it at the time or not you need to trust that while your wants may not appear or be met, this is often because it is not what you ‘need’ at all!
As one of my favourite Authors and Spiritual Teachers, Gabrielle Bernstein says “The universe has your back” and there is no doubt in my mind that the Universe really does have your back at all times but like the child rebelling the parental authority we don’t always like it!
If you haven’t read Gabby’s book, The Universe Has Your Back, I highly recommend you seek it out as it has really great tools and practices to help you work through this and begin to trust in this support.
Love and light,
