Here’s the thing about the human heart… the amount of pain and suffering it has withstood, will never diminish its ability to express love. Though the experience of pain and “heartbreak” might lead one to believe otherwise, this is a false belief and comes from the confines of the mind. The heart has no limit. No matter how many times one faces pain, sorrow or suffering of any kind, the power of the heart to generate love is never diminished or destroyed. Even during the aging process, when most other human organs begin to weaken, the exquisite function of the heart, in terms of its ability to love will never fade.
Here’s the thing about the heart…it continues to strengthen and increase its capacity to express love from the time the body takes its first breath, until its last. The ability within every human heart to experience love – to give love and to receive love – is infinite. Only one thing prevents this truth from standing the test of time…human choice.
When heartbreak strikes, the temptation often arises to close the heart and prevent this pain from occurring again. This choice is understandable. We’ve all been there, and we’ve all faced this choice. It is my belief that “protecting” the heart by making this choice, is a true travesty. Why? Whenever we choose to place constrictions of any sort on our heart, we greatly diminish our ability to access its wisdom and to connect to our true essence – which is love.
I believe that our heart, is our life-line to the source of all life (whom I choose to call “God”). It is my belief, that when we choose to constrict or ignore our heart, we are choosing to ignore the divine wisdom within. Whenever I have made the choice to stifle pain by stifling my heart, more suffering is usually the result. Whenever I have made the choice to ignore the call of my heart, it often leads to costly detours that could have been avoided had I only listened. Though in the moment, it may seem like a good idea to “shut down” the heart, this temporary fix stems from one thing only – fear.
Here’s the thing about the heart…it is not capable of fear. Love is the ONLY expression that stems from the heart. The mind is the creator of fear. Every choice that takes you out of alignment with joy, love and peace stems not from the heart, but from the mind. Every man-made dysfunction stems not from the heart, but from the mind. Ponder this thought the next time you are faced with the decision as to whether to barricade your heart. Ponder it by asking your heart what it desires. Then listen. Be still and listen to your heart’s wisdom. Its wisdom will always guide you back to love…to your soul’s desires and to your purpose for taking on this earthly body that you find yourself in.
You will know that you are following the call within your heart as you will feel energized, passionate, and truthful. You will know that you are following the call of your heart as you feel expansive and free. When you close off the flow of love to and from the heart, you feel constricted in more ways than one. You become almost robotic in your experiences. You lack passion, drive, inspiration, creativity…and the list goes on and on. Sure, go ahead…barricade that heart. Close it off in service to the “master” you call the mind. Will your suffering end? Will your heartache ease? Maybe you will find temporary relief by doing so, but that peace will be fleeting.
Most everyone has experienced those moments in life when the pain just feels too unbearable. The easy solution in those instances – at least what appears to be the easiest solution – is to “shut down the heart valve” and turn off those feelings. This never works to ease the suffering. Quite the contrary happens, in fact. The pain, never allowed release, simply gets buried where it will resurface later. When this happens, it is often felt even more deeply than the first time ‘round. The better solution, which admittedly requires strength, is to allow the feelings to flow through the heart. Feel the pain and acknowledge its existence so that it can be released. This experience of feeling the pain, is a unique experience for every individual, and there is no “one size fits all” here. The most important factor is the allowing of the experience, without resistance and without judgment. Then when the painful feelings have been released fully, the process of introspection can begin. This is an important step in healing from the pain or trauma that has been experienced. And again, there is no “one size fits all” when committing to this step.
It takes courage to allow and ultimately embrace the feeling of pain and heartbreak. It takes even greater courage to explore the source of this pain for that can only be found within. It takes patience and faith in oneself to uncover the core issues that caused the pain to surface in the first place. It takes accepting responsibility for one’s own emotional state. This can be a “hard pill to swallow.” Many find it so much easier to put the blame and/or responsibility onto someone else.
Yes, there will certainly be the experience of pain and trauma that stems from outside factors, and from things out of our control. There will be pain and suffering experienced because of another’s dysfunction or ignorance. Sadly, this is part of the human experience…at least up until this point in time in our collective human evolution. And as impossible as it may seem, there are even lessons of the heart that can be found here.
But the suffering that I am mainly referring to here, is the result of placing restrictions on our heart. There are so many ways we do this. Numbing or denying our pain, ignoring our heart’s desires, dimming or hiding our light – these are just a few examples of the way in which we deny our truth.
I believe the heart is the ultimate master and holds the key to our expression as a divine being. The heart has the power to transmute pain and fear back to love. The mind, in service to the heart can create miracles. When you choose to stifle pain or hold onto fear, rather than allow it to be transmuted through the heart, you create more debris that covers its sparkling, magnificent essence. If you continue to make this erroneous choice, soon enough you will create quite a pile of dung to sift through when you later decide you’ve had enough of the “mind as the master.”
The heart, when fully allowed expression, is God’s masterpiece waiting to be discovered. Don’t restrict this masterpiece for the sake of lessening pain. Don’t bury this masterpiece for fear of any kind. Choose instead, to allow the heart its full potential to guide your life. Choose instead to allow its power of transformation to wash away the debris you have created. It takes strength, it takes courage, it takes introspection, it takes persistence and it takes brutal honesty. But then there’s always the alternative… and for that you’ll need a VERY large shovel.