I am feeling a little tender today.
It happens. It’s life.
It’s part of the human experience.
Emotions are what bring a sense of wonderment and beauty to our lives. They infuse life with meaning and enable us to live a full and rich life.
Our emotions enable us to connect with others, build communities, create careers, care for our children and drive us to be kind, compassionate & loving people. Conversely, emotions allow us to feel intense grief, loss, sadness & heart-breaking pain. Without the full spectrum of emotions, we would not be able to experience the full tapestry of life. Without contrast, how would we consciously experience happiness if we had never experienced sadness ?
I used to try and fight my feelings of sorrow . I would push them away, use mind over matter, pretend it wasn’t happening to me. I would continue on with my day with my ‘happy face on’ and you know what, it would get me through.
But…
On the inside I was a bit of a mess. I would beat myself up for feeling sad or anxious and then feel even more down on myself that I couldn’t embrace ‘think positive thoughts’, ‘fake it to you make it’, ‘this is all just an illusion’…. all which weren’t very helpful to my current situation.
The irony is not lost on me at all… the endless cycle of beating myself up for not being positive enough, to then be down on myself for beating myself up, to then being down on myself even more for being down on myself in the first place for beating myself up etc etc… Sound familiar ?
There is of course another way.
Falling into your Heart
In my tearful emotions of today, rather than force my mind into a state of positivity, I am bringing my awareness down deep into my heart. Taking deep breaths in & out, feeling into my Heart and listening, sensing, become aware of the present.
Just try this for a moment, particularly if you are feeling stressed, anxious, worried, emotional… or just out of kilter today….
STOP what ever you are doing in this moment & give your self the gift of being fully present. This could be 30 seconds or a few minutes. There are over 86,000 seconds in a 24 hour day… love yourself enough to reserve a mere 30 of those seconds just for you… just DO IT.
BREATH in and out of your Heart. If you have never done this before it may feel we weird at first, but the more you practice it, the easier it gets. Take your thoughts, your awareness, your breath and allow yourself to fall deep into your Heart. Really sink into it, don’t hold back, even if it hurts.
FALL even deeper into your Heart if you can and find a place of forgiveness. It is OK to feel the way you do. Feelings or eMotions are our body’s signposts. Rather than judge the message, welcome the message and really feel into it. Yes your day maybe going to shit around, maybe your boss has yelled at you, the kids are being ratty or you are anxious over not being able to pay the rent… these things happen, this is life. But how will you choose to respond to your situation ? Falling deeper into your Heart isn’t about pretending that life is all rosy & you must think positive about the crisis at hand, but rather falling deeper into your Heart is about opening to a force greater than you… an intuitive awareness, an all-knowing, an all-loving presence.
Now LET GO and allow your Heart to take things from here. This is probably the hardest part and where many people become unstuck. However, this is the essential stage, so don’t pike out on me now. Did you know your Heart has a BRAIN ? HeartMath calls this the Heart-Brain. In fact your Heart has over 40,000 neurons and can thus sense, feel, learn & remember. When you let go, you let the intelligence of your heart do the talking. Rather than letting your cranial Brain tell you to be better, think better thoughts, pretend to be happy… let your Heart-Brain do all the talking.
COMPASSION will then flow from your Heart when you let go. Your Heart-Brain intelligence is an all-loving gentle guiding light. Your Heart doesn’t move you into a space of berating yourself, the should-haves or could-haves, or the need to hide your true self. Your Heart seeks to serve, to find balance, to discover peaceful solutions, to bring awareness of the present moment.
EXPANSION of your Heart’s field is then the key to engaging with and ultimately shifting your experience. Did you know that you Heart has an electrical field that is 60x greater than your cranial Brain ? PLUS, the magnetic field of your Heart is 5,000 times stronger than your cranial Brain AND it extends 2 to 3 Metres (6 to 10 feet) around you. I know, amazing huh! When you let go, embrace compassion and sink into the wisdom of your Heart-Brain… a higher wisdom through you expands. It doesn’t necessarily mean in that moment everything around you will change (the kids may still be manic), but your awareness, observation & perception of the environment or your situation certainly shifts gears.
PRESENCE of body mind & spirit is then the result of your Hearts Expansion. When you are stressed, in a state of anxiety or gut-wrenching fear, your Hearts energy field contracts. The result ?… the inability to perceive your current situation from a higher state of coherent awareness. Which means you fall down the rabbit hole of victimhood, blaming, or deepest depression about your circumstance. However, when you fall into your Heart and EXPAND its electro-magnetic field you accept the moment for what it is and give the circumstance or feelings your LOVE & COMPASSION and just be with it. From this place of presence & BEINGNESS, change begins to take root. Your Heart-Brain intelligence offers solutions, guides you on how to move forward in the present, or helps you to see and experience gratitude for the gift this current situation is offering you.
So for today, I am breathing. Taking regular breaks from my computer to Breathe, Fall, Let Go and Embrace Compassion, Expansion & Presence.
Falling into your Heart is a practice of diligence, a desire to be more than your thoughts and a yearning to live a fulling and vibrant life with meaning. Falling into your Heart enables you to find deepest meaning in your life, to enrich your relationships, to receive a greater sense of satisfaction from your work and to foster an ever expanding presence of SELF LOVE.
OmAhOm
Simone M. Matthews
Interested in Falling into your Heart ? Or helping others fall into theirs ?
Inviting you to join me at one of my upcoming live Workshops or Retreats, or even study online via eCourse… and learn how to embrace the depth of Wisdom that lies within your Heart.
