Heart Opening Experiences

Have you ever wondered why we feel certain emotions in our heart & chest areas? This is known as the heart chakra (one of seven primary energy centers in the body). One of the greatest challenges about love, is to keep our hearts open to love, to giving & receiving unconditional love.

When we "choose" to love someone, we are giving ourselves & desiring that the love energies will be reciprocated, but this is not always the case. Have you ever noticed how animals & children seem to love joyfully, endlessly & unconditionally, but that teenagers & adults have more difficulty expressing & feeling love?

And why is it harder to love after we've been hurt or rejected by someone else - even though the current person we are interested or involved with had nothing to do with our past experiences?

It truly is a challenge to love like we've never been hurt before. When I feel those familiar feelings, those pangs in my heart chakra, it is important for me to connect with myself & try to understand what is happening on a deep level.

This is what I have learned... Love is energy, truly the most powerful energy in existence. When love energies are activated within us, our heart chakras begin to become very active. In order to send & receive love, our heart chakras need to be open, the more open & clear they are, the more love we can send & be open to receiving.

But, here is the dilema: When we experience painful love or disappointing love or unrequited love, we have a tendency to try to protect our hearts, our feelings, our egos & we begin closing, restricting, punishing our heart centers.

How many people do you know that have forsaken love, given it up, locked up their hearts & thrown away the key? Are these people happy? Are they a pleasure to spend time with? Do you feel sad or depressed when you are in their company? Does it appear to you that they have moved out of their hearts & into their minds, pretending & fooling themselves into thinking they are happy?

When we restrict the energy flowing into & out of our heart chakras,we also hold onto the painful love experiences that were stored inour hearts, because we closed the door & trapped them inside.

So in essence, we have become prisoners who are slowing beingpoisoned from the inside out by the very same people & experiences we chose to protect ourselves from. Many addictive & self destructive behaviors are triggered by the poisonous energies we have stored within ourselves.

We are actually trying to self medicate & find an outlet for the festering material wreaking havoc within us, but have inadvertantly chosen a labyrinth with no exit. Then, when someone who piques our love interest happens along, ourhearts begin to open, the energy centers in our chakras become moreactive & we begin to send (& hopefully receive) love energies.

But there is a catch: if old, stale, stagnant, negative love experiences & energies have been stored in our heart, they need tobe cleaned out to make room for fresh, vibrant, new love energies.

So whenever I begin to feel unusual or unpleasant feelings in my heart area, I find it is important & beneficial to focus on releasing any negative experiences or impressions or feelings.

Since energy follows intent, we do not have to be metaphysical or spirtual masters to clear our hearts. Here are some very simple techniques:

1. Recognize that every person, every Soul, every heart, wants to give & receive love. It is a large part of why we are here on this earth to begin with.

2. Decide to release any negative love experiences, forgive ourselves & others for these negative experiences & recognize them as opportunities for Soul growth.

3. Realize that the mind & the heart are often disconnected & are at odds with each other. When we become more centered within ourselves, our minds & hearts feel safe enough to be honest with each other, thereby assisting in their abilities to share love with somone who is beneficial for us.

Every person can benefit from opening & clearing their heart energies, even if they are in loving relationships. It is amazing that our hearts have an unlimited capacity to love & they do not like to be restricted to loving just one person.

Ultimately, one of the greatest challenges is to love everyone -our family, friends, neighbors, enemies, even. On a more advanced Soul level, I know that I love everyone & everything in existence; but to incorporate this Soul love to a physical love is something that I am just not prepared to do in this lifetime. Fortunately, more advanced Souls like Jesus have demonstrated this for us.

So, for now, I'll just focus on clearing & cleaning my heart chakra, forgiving myself & others for any unpleasant or negative love experiences. I know that by listening to my newly cleansed heart, I will be guided to postive love experiences that are better than I ever imagined would be possible in physical reality.

When I began writing this, my heart chakra was in a state of imbalance, I felt pressure on my chest, a heaviness that needed to be released & expressed. By focusing on myself & my feelings, by recognizing & releasing my fears of unrequited love & traumas of my heart; by sharing this with you, I have cleansed my heart & I feel much lighter, happier & balanced.

This is not to say that the process is complete, or will ever be complete, because as we traverse the uncharted waters we call Life, we are bound to have many more love experiences that test our hearts again & again.

Cleaning our hearts is more important than cleaning our homes, most people don't like a filthy house, so why should we be living with dirty hearts?

Now is a perfect time to do some Spring cleaning!