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DOORS OF THE HEART Chapter 10 LOVING FROM YOUR SOUL Creating Powerful Relationships Channeled from Michael by Shepherd Hoodwin |
Sometimes people take mind-expanding narcotics; this is occasionally productive, but usually not, because there is not commensurate expansion of the heart. There are no drugs for this. The heart opens when it feels safe and when there is something it can open to. Because their spiritual faculties are relatively shut down, most people have seen the opening of their hearts only in terms of other people. When people fail them, sometimes there is a substitute such as a beloved animal. However, everyone can learn to open his heart inwardly. This is an essential skill for those on the spiritual path.
The heart has two doors: inner and outer. Sometimes, when you open the outer door of your heart to something external, such as another person, your inner door opens as well, but if you do not learn to keep your inner door open, it will likely slam shut when you close your outer door. On the other hand, if you open your inner door first, your outer door can open and close as it is appropriate with no effect on the inner door.
One way to learn to keep your inner door open is to feel it fully when it is open and imprint that feeling vividly in your consciousness. Let the intensity of that moment grow. Close your eyes, perhaps, and let it envelop you. Ask yourself to learn to let that experience come more and more. You might assign it a tangible symbol, such as the sun, an ocean wave, a cloud, or something else you love. Later, when you wish to reopen your inner door, ask it to open, and use your image to help you remember the feeling. You can do this any time: while driving, getting ready for sleep, or waiting for something, as well as in meditation or other more focused times of opening. Acknowledge whatever amount of opening that occurs, and know that it will grow.
If your inner door is not open, you are likely to be dependent on others for love. When you share love with others, love expands, but the basic knowledge of love is available to you at any time through your inner door. In fact, you cannot receive more love from others through your outer door than you receive from within through your inner door. Part of opening your inner door is loving yourself. Those who have difficulty loving themselves have difficulty receiving love from others.
Opening your outer door to love from others may inspire you to open your inner door, but your primary experience of love comes through your inner door. Love is already your reality, but if your inner door is closed, you do not know it. When you are joyously in love with another, there is a wonderful expansion of energy, but your partner is not the primary source of the love you feel. You primarily feel the love you are, coming forth. His love may help remind you of your potential to experience it, and your sharing with him may provide a larger space to contain it, but your experience is primarily of yourself. Your ability to have that experience is not dependent on any other person.
We suggest that you not give others or circumstances undue power over you. Take responsibility for having the experiences you choose to have. This includes making choices about what you open the outer door of your heart to. If it is not appropriate to be miserable in a particular situation, do not open your outer door to people or things that would bring misery to you. If, on the other hand, misery is appropriate for you, own your choice to feel miserable rather than being a victim of others or of situations.
There are times when it is appropriate to feel misery, such as, for example, if a loved one were just killed. However, if while feeling misery, you keep your inner door open to love, your misery will pass as quickly as possible under the circumstances. Many people do not fully feel their misery when it is appropriate to feel it. They close both their inner and outer doors. As a result, they carry the misery with them longer than otherwise would be necessary. Receiving love from others through your outer door can also help heal you, but your primary source of healing is through your inner door. If you are stuck in blaming others or circumstances for your experience, making them the primary source of your misery, you are not taking responsibility for being your own primary source of healing.
If a loved one were killed, it is not his death per se that causes you to feel as you do, but your experience of loss. Often people feel the need to rationalize their pain to make it more acceptable: "I feel bad only for others." When you truly feel for others, you feel for yourself, and you know that their pain is also yours.
There are those who are constantly feeling bad for others. Such people usually have open wounds in themselves that they have not yet taken responsibility for and allowed to heal. They project their pain onto others' pain. Conversely, those who feel little for others are not in their emotional bodies, and so feel little for themselves.
To feel is a gift. Be thankful for every feeling you have. Acknowledging your feelings, whatever they are, is the beginning of healing or expansion. Acknowledging confusion, for example, is the beginning of clarification. Acknowledging happiness causes happiness to increase in you.
It is truth that sets you free. You cannot become free on lies--for example, telling yourself that you are happy in a relationship if you are not. Nonetheless, there may be elements of the relationship that are good for you that you can acknowledge. Acknowledging them can help them expand.
The great goal is agape, unconditional love. A higher understanding of truth allows you to experience more love. Truth sets love free. Sometimes people feel that they are being truthful when they are merely being honest. Honesty is a part of truth, but truth is greater than honesty. People who say "I'm just being honest" may be missing other facts about the situation. The truth gives a balanced picture from a loving perspective. To approach the truth, honesty must be coupled with humility. Honesty with humility states, "This is how I see things right now. I'm open to seeing more." Honesty without humility imposes its view of the moment as being the final word. There is no final word. Reality is alive and ever-changing.
If you knew how much love is with you in every moment of your life, you would never again say that you are seeking love. You would instead say, "I am learning to open myself more and more to love." Love comes into your experience primarily through the inner door of your heart. It moves out through your outer door in fitting ways to those in the world with whom you have heart connections. It comes back in through it, not always in the ways you expect, from the heart response of others. In this way, a circuit of free-flowing energy is formed, making your heart healthy.
Heart disease is a leading cause of death. One reason is that love is not allowed to flow freely. When your heart is open and healthy, the rest of you tends to increase in health as well. Your body, for instance, feels better and tends to move toward greater health. You may, for example, have a desire to exercise because of the sense of vitality that arises from your heart. On the other hand, when you keep your body healthy and vibrant, your heart tends to feel safer to open. An open heart also gives rise to healthy thoughts, including greater understanding of why it is safe to open your heart. That reinforces the opening. Spiritual practices can fill your heart with a sense of peace, again bringing a greater sense of safety and well-being, causing it to open more, which in turn increases spiritual manifestation.
Everything you do can help you open the inner door of your heart--not just attending spiritual meetings, meditating, or reading metaphysical books. Playing a sport freely and joyfully can be just as effective. Spiritual teachings and practices can remind you to open the inner door, but they are not your source, any more than a lover is.
If you are in doubt as to what to do in any situation, look with your heart for what is true. You know if something is true because the truth sets you free. You experience a release, and your heart feels safer to open.
The highest truth is the simplest, and the truth is not merely an intellectual explanation; it resonates from your heart with your whole being. There is no need to take someone else's word for it when he says that something is true. You can validate it for yourself through your heart.
Your heart is beautiful. It is not merely a perfect heart that is beautiful. An imperfect heart seeking greater openness is beautiful, too. No one has a perfect heart, in the sense of having no unfinished business. This is not expected of you; you are not being "graded lower" for not having a perfect heart. You are not being graded at all.
There is much beauty in the imperfection of humanity seeking perfection. It is a long road, yet there is a part of you that is already perfect. It could be called your inner heart, that which is behind the inner door of your heart. It is perfect in the sense that it is not designed to have agendas or business to complete. The perfect part of you is not "better" or more valuable than the imperfect part. If there were not both a perfect and an imperfect part of you, you would not move or grow. The imperfect part of you is your raw material for expansion. Maybe you have more troubles and a larger backlog of issues to deal with than you would like, but you will catch up. You can take your time and enjoy the process. It is all right to be exactly where you are. You are in good hands: your own, to start with.
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