Create the Life You Imagine ~ April 2019
Entering the Heart Center
“One word frees us from all the weight and pain of life. That word is love.”
~ Sophocles
We are going to hold our focus on the energy of the heart center as we continue to prepare our lower triangle for the entry of our Soul Self. The fourth chakra heart center plays a pivotal role in the transformation of our lives. The heart center is the meeting point between the lower triangle and the upper triangle, and the balancing point for our lower triangle. Last week we locked the handlebar onto our trike by connecting the fourth chakra power center to our lower triangle, and started the process of gaining control over the three energy centers in our lower triangle. This is a critical stage in our spiritual development as we bring our lower triangle into integrity, or into wholeness, through the power of the heart center. We can only access the higher operating system of our Soul Self through the heart center, and we can only give expression to that higher Soul energy in our life if we have a reasonably clear lower triangle, so spending time in the heart center is critical preparation for the rest of our journey.
One of the gifts of the heart center is its ability to hold the experiences of our life with “non-attachment.” Non-attachment means that we do not cling to our past life experiences to define us, to feed our ego needs, or to give us a sense of identity, and we don’t anguish over the future in an attempt to control, defend and protect our small self world. As we have learned, our lower triangle centers have a habit of clinging tightly to our wounds and traumas (to protect ourselves from future injury) or to the external markers of our identity (our roles, titles, status symbols or job descriptions) to maintain a fragile sense of control over life. The heart center has the power to soften our attachment to past experiences and external identities, so we can enter into the flow of our inner life and experience the peace, power and possibilities present in each moment. Non-attachment is the ability to live fully in the present, letting the Mystery of life unfold, trusting that there is an invisible set of possibilities present in every moment that our lower triangle centers cannot access or imagine. When we soften our need for control, for preferred outcomes, for the known, the familiar, the predictable and the certain, we open the channel for our Soul Self to enter and release the stress, struggle, anxiety and tension created by our lower triangle impulses. The heart center is where this transformation occurs.
Spiritually and metaphorically, the heart has always been considered a wisdom center of the human experience and the universal symbol of love. The Greeks believed the heart was the seat of the soul, the Chinese associated it with the center for happiness, and the Egyptians thought the emotions and intellect arose from the heart. Acclaimed neuroscientist, Dr. Candace Pert, described in her work that although we think of the brain as the center of consciousness, tiny bits of brain are located in every cell of the body and each of the chakra centers, especially the heart center, is home to a large plexus of neuro-receptors for the molecules of emotion and consciousness that are traveling around the body. The powerful intelligence of the heart center shines through our ancient philosophical traditions, and now through our modern science systems.
While the energetic heart center is much more expansive than the physical organ of our heart, the physical heart organ provides a marvelous metaphor for the healing and balancing power of the heart center. The heart is the first organ to form in the human body and weighing in at just ten ounces, it is one of the hardest working organs of our body. In under a minute, your powerful heart muscle pumps blood to every cell in your body. Over the course of one day, your heart will beat about 100,000 times, pumping over 2000 gallons of oxygen-rich blood through 60,000 miles of blood vessels linking together the cells of our organs and body parts. During the average lifetime, the human heart will beat more than 2.5 billion times. Most of this activity happens under our awareness and we trust that the heart knows what to do to keep our body oxygenated, healthy and alive.
Let’s consider the heart organ as a metaphor for the healing power of the heart center. In a simple description, the heart has four chambers: Two atria or holding stations, and two ventricles or pumping stations. The right-side chambers of the heart receive and process the blue, oxygen-poor blood from the body, and then pump the blood to the lungs for re-oxygenation. The left-side chambers of the heart receive and process the red, oxygen-rich blood from the lungs, and then pump it out to nourish and restore all the parts of the body. The heart organ stays in complete non-attachment as it does this work. The right atrium does not complain that the blood coming back from the struggling liver or the injured big toe was really toxic, it simply accepts that blood and does its work to receive, revive and rebalance all the parts of the body with life-giving, oxygen-rich blood. Now let’s use this metaphor as we think about the energetic work of the heart center.
Compassion (Holding): We can think of the right atrium as holding the energy of Compassion. This atrium accepts, receives and holds the weary, disappointed and wounded parts of ourselves that have become drained, depleted and exhausted by our human experiences in life. The job of this first atrium is simply to hold and receive these struggling parts, these difficult experiences and these suffering stories with compassion, acceptance and understanding. The compassion station of the heart has the power to receive the difficult emotions of the human experience without judgment, knowing that disappointment, loneliness, alienation, vulnerability, grief, despair and dark night experiences are part of the journey as we find our way back to our Soul. The compassion station is in complete non-attachment when we show up in these difficult places. It doesn’t judge, resist, push back, or reject the experiences that are creating distress or struggle, it simply receives them with love and compassion. It doesn’t try to change the experience, the story or the suffering, it just holds it in a caring and gentle way like you would hold a hurting child or a beloved pet. It is like letting your struggling small self come into the arms of a trusted and loving mother, father, partner, or loved one, and simply being held and comforted.
Forgiveness (Moving): Once those parts have been received with compassion, they are moved to the right ventricle where they are processed and readied to move forward. The energy of the right ventricle is Forgiveness. The word forgiveness may be tangled up for some us through our religious training or traditions as something that we do for or owe to another person. But Neil Douglas-Klotz has done some beautiful work with this word as he retranslated the “Our Father” prayer of our Christian traditions from its Greek-English translations, and back to the original Aramaic language of the teachings of Jesus. His work with the original Aramaic reveals the poetic depth of this word “forgiveness” as Jesus would have taught it. Here are a few of his proposed Aramaic translations of the prayer “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,” from his book, Prayers of the Cosmos:
Loose the cords of mistakes binding us,
As we release the strands we hold of others’ guilt.
Forgive our hidden past, the secret shames,
As we consistently forgive what others hide.
Absorb our frustrated hopes and dreams,
As we embrace those of others with emptiness (non-attachment).
From this language we experience forgiveness as a loosening of the cords that bind us. We may have knots of cords from past experiences that cause us to blame ourselves or to blame others for our wounds. But forgiveness invites us to move the energy of non-attachment around that knotted up energy and loosen the energy cords that bind us up inside ourselves or that bind us inexorably to another person. Through the energy of forgiveness, in this right ventricle we can accept difficult or disappointing experiences as part of the risk of living in an imperfect world, surrender the pain or suffering of our small self, and let go of the cords that bind us to the past or to another person. Forgiveness is a radical act of self-love because the knots are stealing our life energy and keeping us feeling stuck and depleted. We don’t have to know how to forgive, we simply need to be willing to forgive; to loosen our grip on the old cords and to surrender the experience to our heart’s wisdom. Our willingness to release those cords and to let the experience move through the heart, allows this forgiveness station to pump that depleted energy forward and into the restorative pathway of the heart center.
Inspiration: In this next station of the heart center, the depleted energies of our small self, filled with the toxins of our difficult life experiences, are pumped into the lungs where the healing breath can move around them and through them. Inspiration means to breathe life back into ourselves. Our small self has been depleted by its small self stories and by its separation from the energy of our true self, our Soul Self. In the inspiration station, we breathe in the energy of our Soul, and we breathe out all that which no longer serves us. As we breathe in and breathe out, we breathe all of our parts back into balance and unity. If we continue to use the Aramaic language of Neal Douglas Klotz’s work, we focus on the power of the breath as a prayer or meditation. The word Shalu in Aramaic means to pray or to meditate; to open oneself to receive; to make space within oneself for the Divine; to come into harmony and flow with Spirit. In Aramaic, one of the words for God is Alaha, meaning Sacred Breath. So in this inspiration station we surround the small self with Sacred Breath, with the energy of Soul and Spirit, so that with each breath in we awaken or arouse or draw in the energy of our Soul, and with each breath out we surrender or expel or release the past and the struggles of the small self.
Gratitude (Holding): From the inspiration station, our energy is pumped into the left atrium where we hold ourselves in the energy of Gratitude. Having breathed life back into our energy system, in this station we can hold all of our difficult life experiences more lightly and take a moment to see them from the perspective of our Soul. From our Soul’s perspective, we can look back and find the lessons and blessings that are buried in every experience of life. With the energy of gratitude, we can see that even the most difficult experiences of disappointment, betrayal, loss or grief, were calling us or preparing us to surrender our small self stories and to remember who we really are. From the energy of gratitude, we can see that although I lost my home in the storm, I was propelled to move to a new town and wonderful things happened there; or although I lost my job, an amazing new job was waiting for me; or despite the end of my marriage, I learned to love myself and opened myself to find a more nurturing life partner; or although l lost a loved one, I had the chance to know and experience love with that person in a deep way. Seeing life from the perspective of gratitude, reminds us that life continues to present us with opportunities to grow in our awareness, to give and receive love, and to serve others by sharing the unique gifts and blessings of our Soul. Through the energy of gratitude, we let go of our need to control life and open ourselves to the Mystery of life moving through us, trusting that we are never alone because our Soul is always leading us toward our highest and most creative possibilities.
Joy (Moving): After holding our stories with the energy of gratitude, we are naturally propelled into the right ventricle energy of Joy. When we come into this joy station of the heart we are fully infused with the energy of the Divine through the connection with our Soul. When we look at life from the perspective of our Soul, we see the light of Spirit glimmering in all things. We are liberated from the burdensome energy of the small self, and with the energy of our Soul Self we are able to be fully present in each moment. From this joy center we notice the sky, the breeze, the rays of sun, the laughter, the kindness, and the beauty beaming from people’s hearts. We experience the presence of Spirit offering light to all the darkest corners of life and we feel light, energetic, free and joyful. And now the magic of the heart center pumps that joy energy out into and through every cell of our body, literally changing the chemistry of our cells and then transforming the quality of our life.
This is the sacred dance of the heart center. Our blood flows through our whole body, communicating from cell to cell the life that we breathe in, and the blood brings back to the lungs that which we no longer need and that we breathe out. Notice that this is a process of holding and moving. We need to momentarily hold these experiences in our heart and in our awareness, and then we need to do our work to move them. Just as our human heart gets stopped from restoring our bodies by narrowing and blockages in our arteries, our energetic heart center gets stopped from restoring our body-mind-spirit connection by narrowing and blockages in the energy of our lower triangle. So when you feel the energy of resistance, struggle, worry, anxiety, or suffering, remember that this is part of the experience of every human being. But remember also, that you have the capacity to change your experience in every moment by using your breath to access the healing and transformational power of the heart.
Every minute our bodies are engaged in this dance of transformation through the miraculous power of the human heart. Energetically the same process is underway. In five minutes of conscious breathing from the energy of your soul, you recharge the blood in your body and infuse it with soul energy five times over. Remember that the energy of your Soul is what animates your breath and your beating heart, and by focusing on the healing power of the heart center, you can restore yourself to balance in any moment by simply returning your awareness to the breath and to the healing power of the heart center.
Wishing you the blessings and light of the Soul, as you create the life you imagine.
Tracy
Stepping Stones:
This week practice the healing power of the heart center. During your meditation time, bring to mind a difficult experience from the week or that you continue to hold from your past, and think about or journal about that experience with complete acceptance and compassion. Don’t ignore it, talk yourself out of it, or resist it, just give it expression.
Next ask yourself who you would have to forgive to soften that experience. Remember that forgiveness simply means being willing to loosen your grip on your own regret or struggle, or on your disappointment in or judgment of another, so that those cords can loosen. Often, we are harboring self-judgement for a past experience and we need to give ourselves a break and remember that we did the best we could with the resources, choices, awareness and insight we had at the time of the experience. Sometimes we are harboring judgment about someone else, and again we can breathe and remember that they too were probably doing the best they could in the circumstance. Regardless, we can become aware that holding the old knotted up energy no longer serves us, and we can begin to let it go, just like we expel the used up energy from our blood with every out breath.
Now begin to focus on your breath. Imagine with each breath in you are drawing down light from the crown of your head and into your heart center, until the experience you are working with and all the people connected to it are bathed in warm, golden sunlight. Continue to breathe in and around the experience until you can feel your energy shift or soften. Sometimes it is helpful to have a mantra to remind us to just breathe when we feel the restriction of our small self. One that I like is “All is Well.” This reminds me that despite the instincts of my small self to react and restrict, I can breathe into the power of my Soul and know that all is well.
Now see if you can see the experience from the perspective of your Soul, and ask what is the lesson, or the blessing, or the opportunity for awareness or growth that is buried inside this challenge. See if you can write down something that you can be grateful for that might arise out of this difficulty.
Finally, notice your body and your awareness as this experience lightens. Notice how you have more ability to be present in the moment. Notice how you can look at yourself and others with more love and compassion. Notice that you have more capacity to see the light and beauty that shines through in every moment. Consider whether you want to pick those old cords back up, or whether you are ready to release them with the next breath and continue your work to remember who you are.
When we invite our Soul into the heart center we transcend the small self and know that in our heart there is quite enough love and quite enough power to heal ourselves and the world. To inspire you this week, click below to find Kate's In This Very Room to remind you of the power of the heart, by going to the Products Page on my website and just scroll down to the Transcendence CD and click the track. Both of Kate's CD's are available for purchase on that page.
