Listen to your Heart

At the core of your heart is your True Self, the spark of Love and Light. It is your true identity of who you really are at the deepest level of being, beyond all boundaries of space and time.

This spark is the purest aspect of our deepest self and is directly connected to the ultimate source of all Love and Light, our True Source.

We prefer the term ‘True Source’ because it is a neutral term which does not have a charged history. Feel free to replace the term True Source, with whatever phrase for you represents the ultimate source of Love and Light.

Our heart is therefore, the:

• Centre of peace
• Centre of calmness
• Centre of true happiness/joy
• Centre of love
• Centre of heart intelligence
• Key to our physical, mental and emotional health
• Key to our spiritual and personal growth
• Key to our connection to True Source
• Key to our sharing love with others

Why listen to your Heart?

When you listen to your heart you can begin to utilise your hearts spiritual intelligence, which is the innate loving wisdom of your heart. This is the deepest level of intelligence that supersedes both intellectual and emotional intelligence.

Our heart can guide us to make choices which allow us to fulfil our deepest purpose and to learn lessons in life that we may have been failing to integrate. When you listen to your heart it takes your needs into consideration, but it is not self-centred, for it accesses the bigger picture that is often beyond the perceptions of the brain and guides you to make the wisest of choices.

Beginning to open and listen to your Heart

As you strengthen your heart this helps you to have greater clarity and awareness about any situation you find yourself in. Your heart gives you new insights, perspectives and attitudes about efficiently managing whatever challenges come up in daily life.

While our mind/brain often just react to situations, your heart can respond in ways that can turn stresses or obstacles into learning opportunities. However, that does not mean that you stop using your brain or are being emotional/irrational, instead it means that our brain is under the guidance of the wisdom of our heart.

Life without listening to your Heart

When we only allow the brain to dominate this results in our actions, behaviour and responses being influenced by our mind/brain preconceptions, our emotions and our ego. When our heart closes life is experienced more superficially.

When the brain is dominant, one of its tendencies is to judge everyone including ourselves into categories that often fall into ‘good enough’ or ‘not good enough’, ‘like’ or ‘dislike’, ‘approve’ or ‘disapprove’, ‘worthy’ or ‘unworthy’, and other dualistic concepts. As a result, our life and our relationships with others lack substance, quality and authenticity, and our happiness is greatly limited.

Life when you listen to your Heart

When you open and listen to your heart, you are not bothered by problems or differences in people. Relationships bring great joy, we are more accepting of others short comings, we easily forgive, and sharing love becomes our greatest treasure.

An open heart lives authentically and genuinely with love, humbleness and gratitude.

The more you are able to open your heart, the more you can share and experience the love, peace, joy and connection with the True Source of All.

Why is the heart so important?

When we feel most happy these happy feelings come from our chest and not our head. This is because our heart is our center of loving feelings and how we are able to feel and experience joy, happiness, peace and calmness. Our heart is also how we share and feel love which is important for everyone to have for a good quality of life.

How do I feel my heart?

It is very simple: while sitting comfortably just relax and close your eyes so your brain is less active. Touch the center of your chest with one or two fingers at the level of your armpits to bring your awareness to your heart. Smile freely to your heart and follow your feeling without thinking how to do so. The best attitude is to not expect anything.

Continue to relax & smile and after a few minutes of following your feeling without any effort you can feel the peace and calmness in your chest and you may feel how your chest expands. This is the feeling from the heart.

What does it mean to be able to feel with our heart?

The feelings from the heart do not originate from the five physical senses, which are related to and controlled by the brain and body. The feeling from the heart arises quite naturally and can be subtly felt when we are relaxed, calm and peaceful and in situations where we are most happy and loving.

This feeling can spontaneously happen, for example:

• When we first meet up with our friends we haven’t seen for a while, or
• When we are with a close partner we dearly love, or
• When we are out enjoying the beauty of nature, or
• When we are joyfully playing a musical instrument, or
• When we are gladly helping others in need.

We don’t have to think about it for it to happen, but when we do notice it happening it is often hard to describe exactly. Most people say it can be felt as pleasant warmth on their chest or something nice is happening that feels most satisfying.

What is the difference between feelings and emotions?

Many of us do not realise that there is a difference between emotions and the subtle feeling of our heart. The feelings from our heart are the natural by-product of love, whereas emotions are created from our reactive responses to the environment or to situations encountered. Examples of emotions that erupt are things like anger, sadness, frustration, envy, hatred, irritation, arrogance, selfishness etc and are centred on the solar plexus.

However, feelings and emotions are related: Every time we have negative emotions we diminish our heart and feelings and therefore we don’t feel so good; whereas when we open our heart we let go of the negative emotions so they are pushed out of our heart, resulting in us feeling happier, lighter, calmer, peaceful and more joyful.

What do you mean by the spiritual heart?

Many people have a sense that they are more than just a living body with a thinking brain and physically beating heart. You also have a feeling heart, which is the center of good feelings and love because within your heart there is your spirit, or true self.

The only way to know or understand more about your heart and true self is to use your heart and feelings to discover it for yourself. Your heart cannot be experienced or understood by reading or hearing about it from other people.

What are the benefits of opening my heart?

As your heart opens and becomes stronger, positive heart felt feelings grow and this automatically reduces any negative emotions. You are better able to deal with stress, and in daily life are much calmer, more peaceful and happy.

You can better follow your positive feelings and heart guided wisdom to be able to make wise decisions and communicate well with others rather than being misguided by your emotions. Additionally, you are better able to feel and share the love you have with others which makes life more fulfilling.

These are all things that are priceless in life and cannot be purchased from anywhere. Instead it is something you can do that requires no special talent, it can be freely obtained in a simple enjoyable way, anytime you want and all by yourself.

Once my heart is open will it stay like that?

Your heart and feeling are affected by and diminish whenever you have negative emotions, unfortunately this can be hard to avoid in our stressful lives.

Can other people directly affect or close my heart?

Not directly, but whenever you react to situations in a negative way even though you may not show it externally to others you put pressure on your heart and this always blocks and closes your heart.

As you begin to open your heart your level of awareness increases enabling you to choose a different response and so not get affected by other peoples emotions or any difficult situations that you find yourself in.

What does it mean if someone is heartbroken?

What people refer to as heartbroken is actually a word to describe unresolved emotional pain. The solar plexus is the center for emotional pain and trauma and can be mistaken for our heart because it produces strong emotional sensations and is located just below the heart. Some people even refer to it as the ‘emotional heart’.

Whereas our heart is the center of feeling peace, calm, love, gratitude and joy and only produces gentle positive feelings. If the emotions are left unresolved or not let go of then this negatively effects us and diminishes our heart.

Can other people notice that I have an open heart and what effect will it have on my environment?

Having an open heart does not mean that you will be more emotional, appear dreamy or have inappropriate feelings towards others. On the contrary, some people may notice and even say that you are calmer, more patient, less emotionally volatile than before and that you smile more now. You may also notice the positive changes about yourself and other peoples reactions towards you.

When your heart is more open you will be more aware of what is really going on around you and so be able to make wiser decisions about how best to react in any situation that you find yourself in.

I feel that my heart is open, but I have become more sensitive to other peoples emotions & problems, how do I deal with this?

As your heart opens your awareness increases so you are better able to notice other peoples problems and emotions than you did before, but also with an open heart you can feel the presence of the True Source of love and light supporting you all the time, which is how you were able to open your heart.

So the best thing to do is to be more aware of the love within your heart, connect with your heart and direct your heart towards True Source and not other peoples problems and this helps you be emotionally unaffected by any situation you find yourself in.

Will opening my heart mean that I will re-experience old emotion, pain, hurt and past heart break again?

Some people are often hesitant to open their heart because there is a concern that it will make them vulnerable or they may get hurt again like in the past.

However, opening and strengthening our heart does not mean that you will be easily exposed to negative emotions. On the contrary, as your heart opens and becomes stronger, positive heart felt feelings grow and this automatically reduces and removes any negative emotions.

Your heart cannot hurt yourself because it is the center of loving feelings. Completely opening your heart heals on the deepest levels so you can feel whole, complete, satisfied and fulfilled from moment to moment in your life.

Do I really have to smile to open my heart?

Opening your heart and smiling are directly related so smiling needs to be done all the time for the heart to open even though you may not initially want to smile that much. Opening your heart is an enjoyable experience and something that naturally makes you smile freely and happily and you will probably not notice that you have been smiling for such a long time without any effort when you have the right attitude.

As opening the heart is a gradual process your smile improves naturally and this makes smiling easier each time you practice with the heart. Some people have problems with smiling because they may be taking it all too seriously or are trying to force themselves to smile when instead they just need to allow themselves to relax and enjoy the experience to be able to smile freely.

source: http://www.open-your-heart.org.uk/open_your_heart/listen_to_your_heart.html

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