Listen To Your Heart
Take a moment to become still. After reading these instructions, close your eyes and turn your attention inward to your heart. Imagine yourself sitting inside your own heart. Breathe normally. Notice any sensations and just feel. Now, remember one of the most favorite moments of your life. Continue to keep your eyes closed. As you revisit the memory, notice how you feel emotionally. Notice any physical sensations, especially in your chest.
Now ask yourself, if you could have more moments like this on a regular basis, would you choose to? If you could feel what you felt during that exercise, even in the midst of a challenge, would you welcome that? In essence, all spiritual paths are about aligning with stillness, going inward, and connecting to your heart. The most profound teachings have two components, depth, and simplicity. More often than not, the most profound teachings come from within.
The most significant leaps in my personal evolution took place not in my mind, but in my heart.
It is no surprise that the heart is the focal point of the spiritual path. An excerpt from this article says:
“Because the heart plays a central role in creating physiological coherence and is associated with heartfelt positive emotions and intuition, it is not surprising that one of the strongest threads uniting the views of diverse cultures and religious and spiritual traditions throughout history has been universal regard that it is the source of love, wisdom, intuition, courage, etc. Everyone is familiar with such expressions as "put your heart into it," "learn it by heart" and "speak from your heart." All of these suggest an implicit knowledge that the heart is more than a physical pump that sustains life. Such expressions reflect what often is called the intuitive, or spiritual heart. Throughout history, people have turned to the intuitive heart – also referred to as their inner voice, soul or higher power – as a source of wisdom and guidance.”
I highly recommend reading the entire article at some point.
Some camps give more importance to the body and others to the spirit. The brilliance of the studies conducted at Heartmath Institute is that they provide evidence of the interrelated physical and nonphysical heart. Their research and experiments clearly demonstrate the communication between the two. Our nonphysical and our physical heart are always in communication. What we can hear and what we listen to are in direct proportion to how open or how shut down we are.
The Importance Of Listening
How many times have you heard yourself say, “I wish I would have listened to myself“? I am highly intuitive. It took me many years of mistakes to learn to trust my intuition and to listen to it. I could have avoided relationships that went south, a couple of car accidents, money that went down the tubes - the list is long. In the end, however, costly as it was, these mistakes and life lessons were my path and training ground. I now trust my intuition implicitly.
One of the most important lessons I have learned in life is this. If my inner voice instructs me to do something (or not do something) that makes absolutely no sense to my rational mind, it means I must listen. If I do not listen, there will be a small or large price to pay. Cultivating my intuition was worth the price of admission, but it is not a fee I wish to pay over and over, now that I know I can count on it every time.
The logical rationale mind is limited by what it already knows to be true. It is also limited to the confines of time and space. Intuition is not logical or rational, nor is it limited to time and space. To paraphrase an excerpt from the article mentioned above; non-local intuition refers to the knowledge or sense of something that cannot be explained by past or forgotten knowledge or by sensing environmental signals. It has been suggested that the capacity to receive and process information about nonlocal events appears to be a property of all physical and biological organization. This likely is because of the inherent interconnectedness of everything in the universe.[235-237] Examples of nonlocal intuition include when a parent senses something is happening to his or her child who is many miles away.
From Lessons To Blessings
Some of the best and most important decisions I have ever made were made from my heart. Life is akin to reading a Choose Your Own Adventure book. As you read, you arrive at a place in the story where you are given a set of choices. Based on your choice, you turn to a certain page and continue reading.
I remember as a child, sometimes I did not like the outcome of my choice. I would return to the page that presented the original choices and make a different choice, to see if I liked the outcome better. Unfortunately, life is not like that. Although you can’t rewrite your story, you can choose to make different choices going forward, which in turn directly affects how your life unfolds.
It is important not to judge yourself for the choices you have made in the past. The less baggage the better - travel light. Remember, that every choice you have ever made, has made you the person you are today. Many of your lessons become blessings in the form of wisdom. The magic happens when you spin your lessons into gold.
Think of how many people you love and respect, or from whom you have gleaned your own wisdom. Oftentimes, they are people who have been through many struggles. I am not speaking of martyrdom here, but of becoming an alchemist. By that I mean, you take your experience and transform it into something that is useful, rather than burdensome. It is possible to step out of a victim mentality into empowerment. This happens when you embrace the realization that everything is here to help. Things are not happening “ to you”, they are happening “for you”.
This does not mean staying in an abusive relationship. The acceptance of abuse in any form is often a reflection of one’s own lack of self-love and acceptance. When people leave abusive relationships and take the time to heal, they often move into the deepest state of unconditional love they have ever accessed. This is what I mean by spinning lessons into gold.
Beacons Of Light
As you transform, heal and integrate or release your personal history (neutralize or take the charge off) you become a beacon of light for others. When you allow yourself to be vulnerable and transparent with others, you are transmitting a very important message. You are saying. “I am human too. “ You are saying,“ You can do this“. You are literally allowing your lived experience and transformation to inspire others. It becomes the fuel that helps them keep going.
My dearest and closest friends have been my most precious beacons and inspirators. They have seen me through states of suicidal ideation and relationships that left me feeling broken. They have seen me struggle to find a sense of purpose. They have been there through the death of my Father and StepMother. They have witnessed me in deep states of victimhood and feeling completely lost. They have witnessed me being way too hard on myself. They encouraged my gifts, even when I didn’t believe in myself. In a myriad of ways, it is my closest friends who have been my lifeline. I owe them my deepest gratitude for always supporting me, loving me, holding space for me, and believing in me.
Never take for granted those who love and support you. Never think for a moment that your care and compassion do not have a huge impact on others, whether they tell you or not. I remember a very brief friendship I had. It only lasted a few days, until they moved away. Later, when they returned to visit, they told me that the day they met me, they were considering suicide. They shared that after spending a day with me they changed their mind. Had they not told me, I never would have known. Sometimes just being your kind and loving self is a powerful healing elixir.
Aligning With Love
Every day I am moving into relinquishing my free will to the will of love. What does that even mean? To me, it means that I am an individuated expression of a force that is greater than myself alone, but from which I am not separate. Some call it source, God, or love. It is beyond concept, yet it is a palpable force behind everything and even nothingness. It is an all-pervasive energy that resides everywhere and infinitely. It is ineffable. You can find it by observing nature or the stars in the night sky. It is behind the rise and fall of your chest as you breathe. It is what makes you smile when you are in the presence of a child or a baby animal. It is everywhere you place your attention.
It exists within you, but not because of you. It is the force that animates your body. It is something I align with, that always leads me exactly where I am meant to be. As I move more and more out of my head and into my heart, I see the perfection within and around me. I notice it in people, places, and situations. It is the abundance that arrives exactly when needed and not a moment before.
As I continue to move into this new (to me) way of living, I am more open. I am more present with the signs, symbols, and synchronicities that weave their way through my day-to-day life. Slowly but surely, my fear fades into the background and love becomes the driving force in my life. I am beginning to witness firsthand that alignment and presence wield far more gifts than effort and hard work.
Further Exploration
Within every blog post, I make a point to include journaling prompts (called “creative activations”) contemplations, and tools. For the reader interested in exploring a spiritual path, these inquiries and tools can provide insight and help along the way. Imagine what might come as a result of journaling and contemplation after having read each post. At the end of a month or a year, you would have a whole lot of insight,
Information alone is of no benefit unless we put it to use. Self-inquiry is at the heart of many paths that lead inward. You can learn a lot about what makes you tick when you go inside and have a look around. Always remember, you are not judging, blaming, and shaming - you are inquiring and observing. These inquiries are meant to assist you in discovering ways to love yourself more deeply and without condition.
Final notes: As this is only my fourth post, I am interested to hear feedback. I also want to encourage readers to share their own wisdom both with me and with each other. So please, feel free to leave a comment. You may have noticed that in previous posts you were unable to leave comments. I was previously unaware of that and have since changed the settings. I strongly encourage community interaction as there is so much we can learn from one another. Thank you for being here.
Creative Activations
Do you feel you love yourself unconditionally?
a) If not, what is it that you feel prevents you from loving yourself unconditionally?
What did you glean from this article that you can put to use and how can you implement what you learned in your day-to-day life?
Do you listen to your intuition? Why or why not?
Can you think of an instance when you did not listen to your intuition that you regret?
Do you consciously do anything to cultivate your intuition? Why or why not?
Are you aware of how to cultivate your intuition?
How can you tell the difference between listening to your mind and listening to your heart? Please provide an example.
Tools
Here is a link to an interactive e-book on unconditional self-love. (It costs less than a coffee.)
You may recall that I mentioned neutralizing or taking the charge off past hurts, traumas, wounds, and experiences. In some circles, they call reaching that state, the “zero point”. This method is for someone dedicated to investing some time and money (around $111.00) to garner tangible and lasting results. There are testimonies on the website. You will notice other intriguing offerings too. You want to click on the tab that says “About Zero Pointing “. I know Morgan Lee (the creator of the zero-pointing technique) personally and I can not say enough about her skills and abilities. She is a shining example of dedication to self-awakening and unwavering commitment to self-love.