Go gently with your heart
while you are still healing
The White Crown Restaurant, Nikiana, Greece
“I am opening my heart and listening with love”
This is the affirmation card I chose as I guided my student through their own inner journey towards their heart.
We are learning ways to soften our heart, be more mindful, relax and just be. Here on retreat, I am offering a range of courses, and this week we are exploring gentle yoga, mindfulness and relaxation to find balance in our heart, mind and emotions. We are discovering ways to find peace and equanimity, in a world that tries to pull us out of this.
The course started with choosing an affirmation card from the ‘Self Love’ pack by Love Up, Love You. Each one is a beautiful reminder of the love and kindness we hold within, they offer kind words to build self-compassion, help us move into flow and rediscover the positive qualities that rest within our heart.
The first card I picked at random was “I am loving myself more and more each day,” it was as if my heart knew what I needed to hear, revealing the journey I am on to heal my emotional heart.
If you read my previous post, you will know the challenges I faced in arriving in a new country to a new experience, and how I started to soften into all that I am, all of the difficult and challenging alongside the calm and the gentle.
I am learning to heal my wounded heart, years of pain, sadness, hurt, guilt and shame have built up inside, so I feel like I am here to heal, soften and soothe my heart, as I also guide others along their journey. We are doing it together side by side.
Each day as I sink into a morning sunrise or walk along the beach, soft waves lapping against my feet, or enjoy the sight of the most stunning flowers, my heart opens a little more. As I give myself permission to go slowly, gently and listen to the whisper of my heart I learn, soften and love a little more.
When I was struggling to find my softness, when I felt lost, alone and confused, I wrote myself a love note, which surprised me with its clarity, the clear instruction on what I needed to do. It spoke so clearly and helped me take the next step in my healing journey.
Let the light pour in
Dear one
Where is your heart? Is it present in this moment? When it wishes to be elsewhere or to have a different experience, it’s not really with you. Be kind dear one, and invite your heart to join you, to love you and to rest with you in the here and now.
Come back to yourself my little one, you have been fighting this whole process. Just walk gently with your heart fully present and allow the light to filter in.
The answers will arise, your heart will shine again, your energy will return. Gently, gently, slowly, slowly come back to yourself. Find that inner spark, share it with all those who seek their own light, be a beacon and guide them home to themselves. You will be walking down the path to your true selves together.
Please know that full unconditional love is always here, but you don’t always know where to look. Try feeling it in the calm moments, noticing it in beauty, finding it in kind and inspiring words, seeking it in the wonder of each moment and feeling it right there within you.
Let the light shine in, don’t let fear stop you receiving this love. Fear has tricked you into believing that love made you feel lost, alone, confused and anxious. But how could love do that? Love is always here to embrace you, hold you, keep you safe and to ensure that you know you are not alone. You are never alone with love by your side and within your heart. Keep looking and feeling for love and you will find it.
Thanks to this love note, I realised that I needed to bring my heart fully into each moment, to be here completely present, offering my heart to everything I do.
This is the fullness of mindfulness, it is not just being present with our mind, but with our heart as well. The Japanese character for ‘mindfulness’ is called nen, it is made up of two characters - ima, meaning ‘now’ and shin meaning ‘heart and mind’.
Shin is another name for ‘kokoro’, which inspired by previous post and reflections on my own heart and mind.
Kokoro by Beth Kempton & Affirmation Cards by Love Up, Love You.
How many of us are present in our mind, when our heart wishes to be elsewhere? How wonderful would it be to bring both together with love, so that we can feel whole and complete inside? Can you bring your heart as well as your mind into this moment? Can you hold it all with love, even when pain and suffering are arising? This is kindness, this is what we are here to do, to listen, be kind and love our whole selves.
How is your heart right now my friend? Has it been hurt, sad, stressed or anxious? Do you listen to the whisper of your heart and take time to rest and heal, or are you pulled back by the call of societal pressure to return to the world us as if nothing has happened?
Do you rest after emotional upset? Do you give yourself time to recover? Or do you rush back to the usual routine after the first moment of relief, only to feel overwhelmed and exhausted again? As with physical pain, we need time, patience and a little love to soothe our heart, we need time to rest and heal.
Moments of calm that have been healing my heart
As I continued the course this week, we explored the practice of peace and equanimity, and as I read from the book ‘Boundless Heart,’ by Christina Feldman, I realised this is what I had been practising all week.
“In the midst of a life with its “ten thousand joys and sorrows,’ we can simply attend to how we are present just now. Allow the body to come to stillness and the mind to settle, attending to the life of this moment, however it is. In the midst of the lovely, in the midst of the difficult, we make our home in our capacity to embrace, include, and care for the well-being of our hearts.
May I embrace change with stillness and calm.
May I deeply accept this moment as it is.
May my home be a home of balance and spaciousness
Each time we return to an intentional way of being with both the lovely and the unlovely, we are untangling the patterns of aversion and craving that lead us to abandon the moment….Equanimity teaches us to live as if we were a mountain, touched by the winds of the world but unshaken.”
Our hearts hold the answers my friends, if we pause and listen to its whisper, it may just guide you home. Be patient with yourself, the whisper can be very quiet behind the noise of the mind and emotions, it may take time to hear and understand.
Give yourself time and patience, listen as your heart asks you to go gently, and take it easy to ensure that you don’t over do it. This kind of heart-based response can start to calm over active minds, balance the nervous system and heal the emotions.
Let’s start a silent revolution and take time to heal our hearts.
Don’t let fear trick you into feeling guilty for taking the time you need to heal.
Let’s “return to who we really are, which is who we were before we became afraid.” (Kokoro)
As my heart continues to whisper its gentle words of wisdom and guide me along the path to healing. I will try to remember that there is a lot more healing to do, the remnants of sadness, pain and suffering linger and if I don’t take care, those difficult experiences of fear and anxiety will continue to arise and take over, so it’s important that I listen to the whisper that tells me to “go gently with your heart, while you are still healing.”
May you also listen to the whisper of your heart and allow yourself time to heal.
Such wonderful words Anne xx
What a wonderful read and reminder to be kind not only to others, but our own hearts. Beautiful photos too and very precious memories 💕