Conditions of the Heart
At the beginning of April at my Integral Breathwork training, I had a huge realization about the condition of my heart. When addressing wounds of the heart, more often the guarded heart is talked about. However the opposite tendency can leave you with a similar inability to feel; I will call it an overextended heart here. Below is a brief breakdown of each and some things you can do to access and feel more of the innate unconditional love that resides within you… always.
Guarded heart: when we put up walls around our heart we are protecting ourselves from potential pain and hurt from the external world however It also prevents our own self from truly experiencing love as well. We are living from a place of fear, what ifs, stories of the past. Essentially saying what has happened before will happen again, so I better protect myself from it. And think about it, if something outside of the walls can’t get in, how can what’s contained in the walls get out? That means the love inside the walls are trapped and one’s own self cannot experience it. Which means we live in a muted experience of love or we act from a place of conditional love. The wholeness is in the totality, so when we break down the walls we are bound to feel pain, hurt and sorrow, AND it also means we can feel the fullness of pleasure, joy, and love.
If you tend towards a guarded heart:
1) Practice vulnerability through expressing how you really feel to others and to yourself [not in a blaming way, simply express that this is how xyz makes you feel.] You will begin to learn that it’s ok and safe to feel what you feel and that the past is not the present.
2) Physically work on loosening up the chest region- front and back heart openers [resentments and betrayals and the emotions we don’t want to face live in our backs, so they are equally important to release as the protection from the front]
Roll up a towel, place the towel longways along the spine as you lie down on your back [towel along spine] and let the arms come out to the side, palms facing up.
Practice Eagle arms [see images below] for the back side of the heart; seated or standing bring arms out wide to a T, then cross the arms in front of the body right arm under left, either bring palms to opposite shoulders and lift elbows or rotate the forearms up towards each other so that back of hands face the opposite arm.
Yoga mudra is another great one. Standing our seated, interlace fingers behind lower back, inhale gently squeeze shoulder blades together as you slightly lift the chest and on an exhale fold forward then slowly lift the wrists from the lower back towards the ceiling to the degree that is comfortable.
3) Take time to breathe into the heart and let it speak; close your eyes, listen, and allow whatever shows up to be as it is. If something comes up that you don’t like or prefer, just continue to breathe with it and acknowledge it by saying to yourself “I am willing to feel you.” Over time, you may notice that ease and whatever you are feeling can coexist.
Over-extended heart: Ever heard of the phrase wearing one’s heart on their sleeve in relation to uninhibited emotion? The over-extended heart can show up that way [on your sleeve], but it also might appear as “beginners mindset”- a willingness and easiness to love fully, outpouring of big love over and over again, loving with no regard. If my guarded heart friends think: wow that sounds like a great way to live. The caveat is that the heart gives so much outside there is nothing left to give oneself. And it feels so much outside of oneself that it’s exhausted. Overextended hearts can show up as a lack of boundaries, inability to express one’s needs, and placing oneself low or not even on the priority list. Ultimately, the overextended heart does this because it is easier to love others than oneself.
If you tend towards an over-extended heart:
1) Practice expressing your needs [from a loving not demanding place] to others and to yourself. It might even mean starting with allowing yourself to have needs.
2) Physically hug yourself, maybe even add a massage starting from the base of your neck to your shoulders, sides of the arms down to the forearms, hands and back to a self hug.
3) Lie down, close your eyes, place both palms stacked on top of each other on your heart and breath into your heart. Repeat silently “I offer my heart to myself.” Through this you can let your heart rest and be refilled with life force- your breath.
Both imbalances of the heart come back to SELF LOVE. Both imbalances deprive you of the love you deserve- one by not allowing, the other by not having anything left. Guarding is an attachment to the past and overextending is an avoidance of the present. The solution is BEING CONNECTED AND PRESENT TO YOU! Unconditional love always exists within you… and it can only be experienced in this moment. Why? Because this is the only moment we have.
And as I walked away from my breathwork training, I said “I AM WILLING TO BE HERE NOW” and I hope you are too. I offer my heart to you and I can finally offer it to myself as well.