OPENING + CLOSING THE HEART

As I prepare for our upcoming women's circle on the topic of heart opening, I’ve been reflecting deeply on what I’ve learned over time. In light of everything that I've been shown over the past few years from a larger spiritual perspective, I wanted to share some thoughts.

On some level, this is just a conversation about boundaries and protection.  Our response to being hurt is obviously to self-protect, and this often creates a closing of the heart, which is a perfectly natural and intelligent response.  The problem, of course, is when we build a fortress around our heart that completely shuts us off from any outside connection for too long, even when it's not necessary for actual protection.

Some people are more conscious of this than others.  If a person does this unconsciously, they can walk through life for years and years without opening to the nourishment of human connection, and then they start to become malnourished.  This deficiency can show up as any number of physical, emotional, mental and spiritual ailments, and the person may not be able to make the connection as to why this is happening.

Additionally, beyond just cutting ourselves off from human connection, we unintentionally shut off our heart's ability to guide us internally, and this is equally as damaging.  It also cuts us off from the ability to love ourselves, as well.  When operating optimally, our heart generates the ability to give and receive love both with other people and with ourselves.

[By the way, if you would like to practice opening your heart to yourself and others in a safe space, try working with this on an energetic level through my heart-opening breathwork meditation. Make sure to read the whole page for instructions on how to do the breathing technique.]

What I have found through my own healing of the heart, in addition to working with others to do the same, is that a certain amount of energetic agility is beneficial to develop with regards to our hearts opening and closing.  

If we walk through the world with our hearts completely open all of the time, the reality is that we will be hurt.  Forcing yourself to keep it open anyway is not safe.  It is our birthright to know how to protect ourselves when necessary, and I believe that this is part of the spiritual development that occurs as a result of having experiences where we are hurt.  

However, I do see some spiritual teachings and communities (especially those of the 'love and light' variety) where keeping the heart open always is encouraged, with no mention of the importance of energetic boundaries and protection.  While some of these teachers may just be misguided, there are others that are unfortunately doing this on purpose.  When you intentionally encourage people to dissolve their boundaries and train them to stay open even if they are being attacked, you are dismantling their internal guidance system that is supposed to keep them safe. 

This leads to manipulation and predatory tactics that can unfortunately be quite common in new age or spiritual communities (especially cults).  I saw this firsthand in many of the masculine/feminine polarity and tantra circles here in Los Angeles, and in these particular communities, the women were the ones being manipulated.  Unfortunately, many of these women were desperate for love and acceptance, often carrying love and sex addictions, with prior trauma and wounding that made them susceptible to this type of influence.

This is where it can be helpful to understand the basic tactics of dark psychology and manipulation.  Of course, this kind of mind control programming is being used on a larger scale through advertising, media, religion, etc. and is not new to the human experience.

On top of how this can play out in certain spiritual communities, there is the energetic component where the charisma and attractiveness of these 'leaders' can actually feel hypnotic, as I just mentioned in my post here.  In this case, it's actually quite easy to control another person unless they are very aware.

The key here is discernment - to be able to develop the ability to sense or pick up red flags in others/situations and to energetically close and disengage when required.  And, to build the internal safety to be able to open to connection and exchange with others when it is safe and beneficial.  In other words, to be open as your default mode unless your intuition tells you otherwise. This takes the development of self-trust, which is facilitated by sharpening your discernment and knowing how to create healthy boundaries.  It is the middle way between being perpetually closed vs constantly open.  

Because many people habitually close as their default mode, bringing conscious awareness to when it's actually required to close vs open, and then doing the self work to build that internal trust to know when to flex that muscle in either direction is helpful.

Additionally, understanding that life is a school where we learn and grow from every experience is critical, because it isn't realistic to think that we can walk through life always being safe, even if we do build that self-trust to sharpen discernment and boundaries.  These will continue to get refined over time.  So understanding that we will get hurt here and there, and that's okay because we have developed the ability to handle it.  We trust ourselves to have the maturity and resilience to pick ourselves back up, tend to our wounds and continue on, always alchemizing.