Open Your Heart to Transform Your Life.
It being February, there’s a whole lotta talk about 💛s and love and all things romantic…. but what does it REALLY mean when we talk about opening our hearts? I know I’ve been diving into this topic from a bunch of different perspectives this month in my social media posts and I wanted to pull it all together a bit more for you all here.
I know that the concept of “opening my heart” took a long time to sink in. No matter how I thought about it- it didn’t make sense to m….. And then it hit me one day that the whole problem I was having was that I was THINKING about it instead of feeling it!
Seriously a big “DOH” moment!
Once I got over cursing my own brain for not getting it, I started practicing feeling what opening my heart meant for me. In the early stages, it meant taking long walks in the evenings as the sun went down and letting myself dance along the way to whatever songs popped up on my playlist. Doing this meant I had to let go of how others responded to this woman dancing down the paths as though she was in her own musical… because I WAS!
I had to let myself really enjoy it and I kept doing this, evening after evening until I no longer felt silly or stupid or weird. Once that self-talk fell away I discovered real freedom in dancing and often singing out loud to the Italian pop songs that I only know a smattering of lyrics to so what anyone else heard was those bits and pieces floating through the air as I traipsed past.
That took me a few weeks.
‘Cause my brain is stubborn and didn’t want to let go of all the self-judgy mcjudging it liked doing…
At that point, I got to the sweeter side of opening my heart- which meant that I started to actually like myself a little more. Let me tell you- no matter how much you ACTUALLY like yourself, there is probably ALWAYS another level of self-appreciation you can reach when you really open the floodgates.
So I found a new level of liking who I am in the world because I AM a weirdo who dances ‘round lakes and down walkways singing bits out loud.
Now… once you get to this level of heart opening it’s mere baby steps to the next part. The next level that unlocks is self-trust.
Trusting myself was not about believing that I was able to do certain things and it wasn’t about no longer questioning my decisions. Strangely… it was about shifting from an idea of “belief” into “faith”.
My clients have heard my definition of the difference between belief and faith, so here it is for the rest of you:
“Belief in something implies an end result, outcome, or goal. Faith in something is based on perspective, action, and hope without a goal in mind. Faith is continual seeking, learning and growth”.
Here’s an example:
If I believe that all people are good and kind, and yet I see all the horrid things humans do to one another- I will be disappointed and my belief may be crushed.
If however, I have faith that all people are good and kind, and I see the same poor behaviors, I will likely still hold out hope that people can change, those outcomes can change, and that I might in fact be able to affect some of the changes by my own behavior. Because there is no specific goal in mind- there is only constant growth and transformation that happens and which I can be part of.
As humans, when we see that we can transform our circumstances or parts of our immediate surroundings, we feel empowered, accomplished, and more generous. Feeling generous leads to us acting more generously with ourselves and others. When others feel that generosity it’s contagious and they start being more generous… so now we’ve created a cycle that creates more generosity in the world.
When more people experience the world as being generous, they act with more kindness and that is one way that hearts open.
When we bring this practice back to our own lives, we help ourselves become more openhearted and that allows us to grow, transform and gain perspectives that we could not have had when our hearts, (and minds) were closed off.
One of the most amazing and beneficial aspects of being openhearted is growth and gaining new perspectives on our lives and ourselves.
I find this every day as I continue to practice, and as I experience more perspectives opening to me, along with my heart.
I’m curious about what you find as you test this practice out. What daily actions help you open your heart and what are some of the transformations you experience when you do this?
Drop me a line, DM me on social media, or email me and let me know what you discover in your journey.
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