15 Ways To Open Your Heart (2)

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By Olivia Weil

8. Journaling

The practice of Journaling is an amazing tool for processing. There is nothing juicier than opening up the fresh pages of a new Journal, waiting for you to fill the pages with your story and experiences.

The next time things are coming up for you, consider pouring everything out on the pages of a sacred Journal. Sometimes, we just have to “get it out.”

It doesn’t matter what you write or how you write it, simply getting the words out on to the pages can help you release whatever you are harbouring inside of you at any given moment.

After you Journal, breathe confidently knowing that you have released what no longer serves you and allow yourself to go about your day calling back in all things that are your birthright – love, bliss, abundance, inner peace, and all things in our best and highest good.

9. Living Authentically

When we live authentically, we give others permission to do the same. Some people are not in a place to honor our chosen path, and so judgments, comparisons and the like, can arise.

What is more, is that you are a “secondary character” in the so-called drama or play of their life, and when you begin to change, you no longer are fitting into their box or role you were previously playing for them.

This makes them uncomfortable and so (most times unconsciously), they try to re-correct you back into the character that you were once playing for them. This can hinder your growth and be unhealthy in a number of ways.

All the more reason why having healthy boundaries is imperative.

10. Healthy Boundaries

Setting healthy boundaries is necessary for going forth in our exploration of Self and the Universe. We are the Microcosm to the Macrocosm, and we cannot explore the Macrocosm if the Microcosm does not know it’s Self – it’s individuated sense of Self or Beingness – who has healthy boundaries. It is true what they say, “We are all one”, but many people confuse this by thinking that in some way means we don’t have to, or shouldn’t, have healthy boundaries.
This could not be farther from the truth.

Compassion and healthy boundaries is another place that seems difficult for people who come to me to reconcile. Many times they’ll say to me, “I want to have compassion, be a compassionate person, be there for someone, do the right thing. And yet I feel awful once I have done so because I am not putting myself first.”

We can have compassion, for ourselves and others, and have healthy boundaries. In fact, setting healthy boundaries is compassion. It is a “both/and” situation, not an “either/or” type of thing.

And so healthy boundaries is a must, during the self-healing process, and always.

11. Standing in Your Truth

It is important to stand in our truth, to have the courage to say what needs to be said when it needs to be said.

Speaking our truth is a powerful way to invite others to do the same. This doesn’t mean we are creating conflict or otherwise in some way being mean-spirited, discompassionate, unloving, or disconnected.

All it means here is that we are being authentic to ourselves, we are standing on our own two feet, we are doing our best in any given moment, and we are choosing ourselves – before anyone else. Not in a place from the Ego, but in a place derived from self-love.

It is not selfishness, it is self-love.

Standing in our truth and allowing others to see what we are and who we are gives them the go-ahead to also stand in theirs.

When we are authentic with people, and speak with words of love, our truth resonates with them on a level that simply cannot be argued with. Because it is our truth.

Everyone has a personal dream, meaning a unique way that they see the world. We are all artists painting our realities and co-creating what is before us in every moment. Respecting other people’s dreams – the way they see the world, the beliefs they hold, etc. – is one of the most compassionate ways we can go about our days. Relieving ourselves from conflict, dramas, arguments and battles. Respecting the dreams and visions of others, for no one person sees this reality in the same way.

12. Sending Love, Embodying Love

Sending love, embodying love, is one of the quickest ways to fill your own Self up with love. When we send love, we are connecting to our own individual Source of energy.

When we are connected to Infinite Source Energy of all that is, we allow others to do the same.

The next time you are feeling that tightening in your chest, or perhaps those overwhelming feelings of despair – or any kind of lower vibrations – visualize someone in front of you want to send love to (or better yet, someone you don’t want to send love to).

Set your intention to connect to their heart centre. Imagine for a moment love/light energy pouring out of your heart into theirs. Begin to feel gratitude in every fiber of your being for this thing we call “life”, and then send those feelings of gratitude out through your core to the other person and the rest of the world.

Gratitude is one of the highest vibrations, other than Unconditional Love, and so when we emit these powerful resonances, we can vibrate higher daily and connect back into that space-time reality where miracles are commonplace and magic is real.

13. Listen to Your Heart

Listening to your heart and cultivating inner stillness is a powerful tool in self-healing.

What is your heart saying? What messages does it have for you?
Are you thinking with your head, or with your heart?

Coming to the Present Moment, residing in that still place within you, turning your focus inward – instead of outward – and then quieting the mind long enough to hear what messages are coming through for you. Set your intention that you only hear messages of love and nothing else, that you feel with the mind, and think with the heart. Begin breathing deeply. Focus on the chest rising up and expanding, and then falling down closer and closer to the body.

There is safety in this quiet place of Surrender. There is Expansiveness here. Breathe.

14. Following our Bliss

In earlier articles, we’ve talked about a formula for living life presently and fully. When we Follow Our Bliss, amazing things become possible: We step into the flow of the Infinite Creator of all that is.

Following our bliss, to the best of our ability, in every moment, without attachment to or insistence on the outcome, is the formula. And one of the easiest ways to enact the formula is through passion.

When we do things we are passionate about, we step into that magical Flow, that “zone”. Passion, bliss, love, excitement – or any derivative thereof – is the way to get there.

Love is the vehicle.
Love is the vehicle for all things. The way we love says the most about us. The way we love ourselves and the way we love others.

You can ask yourself, “how are you loving today?”
Have you loved you today? If not, then why not? What is stopping you? If you are not loving you, or are not feeling the love for others, try practicing some of the tools we talked about here today.

And if you are loving you, and are loving others, then relax into yourself even deeper and keep doing what you are doing. Love is the only thing, the every thing.
When we vibrate at Unconditional Love, we are resonating at our true, unique energy signatures.

15. Unconditional Love

Unconditional Love comes from a place of honor and respect. Loving people (or ourselves) unconditionally doesn’t mean the other can do no wrong. It is rooted in that timeless space of honor and respect, where we show up for the person and hold space for them no matter what they are going through. And most of all, we show up for ourselves.

When we place condition after condition on our love for people, this is the farthest thing from love.

For example, “If you do this, then I will love you. If you act this way, then I will give you my love, then I will show you I love you through reward.” Or similarly, “If you don’t do this, then I will punish you, I will not give you my love.”

Placing condition after condition on our love for people, is not love. This is control.

The next time you find yourself in any given situation that doesn’t seem to be going well, ask yourself, are you loving unconditionally? Or are you giving your love conditionally, on a “reward/punishment” basis?

So, too, the next time you are in that situation, ask yourself: Am I being loved unconditionally? Meaning, am I being shown love with honor and respect? Or, am I being loved conditionally, where I am only receiving love from the other person on a reward/punishment basis?

If you answered yes to the latter, it’s time to go back to your toolkit and set some healthy boundaries. You teach people how to treat you by how you treat yourself. And then turn the focus inward. What lesson is presenting itself here? What mirror is this person holding up for us? Because at the end of the day, it has nothing to do with the other person, it has to do with ourselves.

And most likely – (not always but most likely) – if someone is not treating you with love and respect, it may be because you yourself are not loving and honouring your Self. How can someone love and respect us if we are not loving and respecting ourselves?

Bringing it All Together: A Heart-Opening Truth

Sometimes I am asked, but how do we love ourselves? And the answer is, by loving others. Other times I am asked, but how do we love others? And the answer is, by loving ourselves.

How are we compassionate for ourselves? By being compassionate for others. And how are we compassionate for others? By being compassionate for ourselves.

yogaesoteric
October 8, 2019