“When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it’s bottomless.” ~Pema Chodron
I know all about closed heart stuff. Yes, and not even apologetically, I do. Grief slammed my heart nearly closed…not completely…it seems to be quite selective. I had had my heart so open with my soulmate. That was new to me because I had been so cautious all my life. The hurt was so horrible when he passed in five weeks, that my heart was suddenly slammed shut with grief and a sense of abandonment, and a sense of betrayal by some unseen god, and even a sense of being not good enough to be able to have him in my life as if I was somehow deficient and he was too good for me. My emotional heart closed on its own. I did not slam the door. My heart and soul went into defensive mode immediately.
Only, these years later, I realize I did have a choice. I could have stopped defending and simply surrender to life as it is. That’s life. We live until we die. Our loved ones live until they die. It has nothing to do with how good we are, how open we are. Nothing. It is that we are born to die and we, as a culture, I believe, have not accepted this. Remember, we are not our thoughts and emotions. We are only the one who notices them.
When our hearts are closed, we feel bitter, judgemental, jealous. We stop experimenting with life and having adventures that fill us with awe. We feel stuck, angry, and find we feel a meanness within that we guard carefully, most times. It does not mean we do not have mean thoughts. I work hard to swat those thoughts away the moment they come. We are unable to fully love and receive love. So, typically, our Ego says it is other’s fault, or we let our ego/critical voice say we do not deserve such and we do not let others love us. Some isolate.
When our hearts are open, we feel at ease with the world and those in it. We get disappointed but we do not let that hold us back – we have a strong resilience. We are demonstrative. Our arms are open, our hands expressive and we easily show affection. We focus on the positive. We are grateful and experience every emotion to its fullest. We accept that it is what it is. We know that disappointments, etc. do not last forever and we seek the rainbow after the storms.
How do we reopen our heart? Work at it. Feel the love from others, the companionship, the laughter, the memory-making. Focus in on your heart Be open to messages from your intuition, from a place of love and light, not from a place of shadows and hardness. When hurt emotions come to visit, know them for what they are, feel the sensations of grief, of anger, on your body. Distract yourself with positive things that will help you tolerate the painful feelings until they pass. Be in the service of others so that you get out of your own head and open yourself up to receiving. Find something wonderful to be involved in, be passionate about, and dive in and do that art, that art journal, that baking, that comfort stuff that soothes you in positive healthy ways.
How do you express a closed heart? How do you express an open heart. If you are an art journal or artist, or creative of any kind, show us the difference. Help yourself while helping others who walk the valley’s shadows.
©Carol Desjarlais 4.27.23
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