Heart Chakra: Compassionate Connection

At the center of the body, the heart chakra brings everything into balance through the frequency of Love.

*To get an overview on the seven chakras, you can visit my earlier post here: Chakra Crash Course

THE HEART CHAKRA

This chakra is located in and just below the chest.  This is the seat of self-compassion, acceptance, and unconditional love. The heart chakra governs the heart, lungs, upper back, thymus gland, and our immunity.

FAST FACTS:

• Color: Green
• Essential Oils: Rose, Geranium, and Marjoram
• Music Note: F
• Element: Air

LESSONS FROM THE HEART CHAKRA

The heart chakra is the meeting place between two worlds: the higher realm (crown, third eye, and throat chakras) and the lower realm (solar plexus, sacral, and root chakras). This is significant, as our heart chakra is the bridge between our spiritual and earthly connection.

Those with a healthy heart chakra are in balance with their higher awareness and physical vitality.  These individuals are mission-oriented, practicing compassion for themselves, others, and the world at large.

A healthy heart chakra is an integral part of alignment (mind, body, spirit, and emotions).  In particular, I have found the heart chakra to balance out heaviness and overactivity in the mental body. The heart has a language all its own. When we can come out of the head, and approach situations and people from the heart, we change the paradigm from duality (right / wrong) to a higher frequency of unity, love, and peace.

Think about it, Dr. Martin Luther King lead from the heart, unifying opposition through compassionate, nonviolent activism. Mother Teresa became a Nobel Peace Prize winner through her loving service to others and Mahatma Gandhi said, “Where there is love there is life.”

Profound shifts in the paradigms of humanity reside in the heart.

PATTERNS OF IMBALANCE

Patterns of imbalance can happen on a continuum.  I tend to describe this as leaking or stagnating energy in our chakras. As a facilitator, these are some of the heart chakra imbalances in both of these extremes:

If you are spilling out energy in your heart chakra, you may notice in yourself or in others:

• A constant need to rescue others
• Attachment to crisis situations
• People pleasing
• Over-mothering
• Love that becomes destructive
• Nurturing / giving as a form of control
• Overly sweet (think of sugar and its effect on the body)
• Desperation / need for approval

When we are under-energized in the heart chakra, you may notice in yourself or in others:

• Holding grudges
• Blocking the flow of love
• Inability to give or receive words or acts of love
• Abandonment
• Orphan energy
• Hopelessness / apathy
• Dispassionate with self or others
• Self-betrayal

HEART CHAKRA & HEALING THROUGH FORGIVENESS

Heart chakra healing is integral to every emotional healing session. Each session offers an opportunity to move to a place of forgiveness, and to understand the loving intent of an experience. This component of an emotional healing session opens the heart chakra to the flow of love through the doorway of forgiveness.

When we forgive others, we become free of our own attachment to people, situations, painful experiences, and belief systems. This brings the mind, body, spirit, and emotions to a deep place of healing. We no longer need to cope with the pain through negative behaviors.

Where there was isolation, we can now find connection.
Where there was grief, we now find understanding.
And where there was fear, we may return to love.

FORGIVENESS OF SELF

Every act of forgiveness is also an act of self-forgiveness.

This is worth repeating...

Every act of forgiveness is also an act of self-forgiveness.

I am proposing that every time we are in a place of forgiveness, we are also in a place of forgiveness towards self. Though we may feel we are only offering forgiveness to another, we are in fact at the same time offering forgiveness within. This can take many forms, a few examples may include:

Forgiving self for…

What might have been
What has been lost
Self-betrayal
Blocking the flow of love
Holding on
Inward-directed anger

The process of self-forgiveness is life altering. I truly believe this is one of the greatest acts of healing we can perform.

HEALING WITH THE HEART CHAKRA

A common theme I see with my clients is conditional love towards self.

Does your inner dialogue sound like this?

“I will love myself when I have the perfect body / relationship / job.”
“I will love myself when I achieve this goal or level of success.”
“I will love myself when I make the money I want, have the ideal relationship, or am the perfect parent.”

This is conditional love towards self; and you are not alone.

Based on what we were taught by society, our primary care givers, and educational / religious institutions we may carry the belief that love is a byproduct of what we DO in the world. As children, we are often rewarded by love for good behavior, a game well-played, or a good grade. Hugs, high-fives, and affirmations are given for our acts. We are told that love acquired through acts of service and kindness to others.

While much of this is good and well-meaning, it can also inform the false pretense that love may only be gained through acts of doing and/or accumulated from others.

The truth is, we are worthy because we exist.
We are lovable and loving.
The essence of our existence is Love.

The truth is, we can love ourselves now.

Healing with the heart chakra is as simple and profound as loving ourselves unconditionally. By continually forgiving ourselves, practicing total self-compassion and self-acceptance, the greater the Love we may know. This love is not behest to circumstance. It is unflappable. It is the loving Mother / Father there to catch us when we fall, breathing words of belief into our core, and cheering us on as we return to our feet. Wherever you are on the journey, it is available to you at all times and all places.

The greater our ability to cultivate our own self love, the greater our ability to forgive, accept, and love others.

A RETURN TO LOVE

When healing the heart chakra, one piece of guidance I tend to offer is to re-imagineer our source of love. Our ability to love ourselves is often related to our relationship with Mother / Father / God (Source, Creation, Allah, the All and All). (For simplicity’s sake, I will refer to this as Mother / Father / God.)

When I say re-imagineer, I am asking a client to access the most loving potential of Mother (yin), Father (yang), and God (all and all) energy fathomable. For some of us, this may have been difficult depending on the experiences in our youth.  So using our imaginative faculties, we can build a new, greater version of these all-loving energies:

Mother: perhaps you can use your own mother, or aspects of your mother that felt loving, nurturing, and kind. You can add in other Mother-type examples, maybe an aunt, grandmother, or mentor. Perhaps you can call on Kuan Yin, Mother Earth, or Mother Mary to experience the unwavering support of archetypal All Mother, yin energy.

Father: again, perhaps your own father, or aspects of him can paint the All Father, yang energy - our great Protector. You can add in other examples such as uncles, grandfathers, or perhaps a teacher. You can call on Archangel Michael, Father Sky, or Jesus to experience the total solidity of the archetypal All Father, yang energy.

Can you feel that? It’s powerful.

This becomes the new channel through which we can have our inner dialogue.

If we could hear through the perspective of Mother / Father / God what would it sound like?
If we could see ourselves through the eyes of Mother / Father / God what would we look like?
If we could know for ourselves what Mother / Father / God knows for us, what new awareness might we arrive at?

This is a wonderful process to move through in times of difficulty.  I might also recommend using this methodology as often as possible, in any and all of life’s circumstances, without condition.

The beauty of this exercise is that while it may feel foreign at first, overtime we begin to form the habit of speaking, viewing, and knowing a higher frequency of love. Eventually, we fully integrate an ability to speak love, see love, and know love.  

And what we extend to ourselves, we more freely give unto others: forgiveness, acceptance, and compassion.  By knowing the good in ourselves, we come to know the good in others.