You may think of Opening Up the Heart as just being more open to good feelings, Love, Peace, Acceptance. Which is a large part of it. However, Opening the Heart is about allowing yourself to feel all your feelings. Feeling all the feelings we pretend don’t exist… so we can stop carrying them around and make room in ourselves for the good stuff…the great stuff.
When we are children no one teaches us what to do with our emotions. From early childhood we are directed to keep our disappointments in check, with the ever present “If you don’t quit crying I’ll give you something to cry about.” To the other extreme of don’t get too excited about your accomplishments, “No one likes a bragger.” We spend our whole lives closing off our hearts, blocking everything, good and bad, from coming in and going out, being stoic and solid. However, if we never allow ourselves to feel our feelings we continue to bury them and never get through them.
One important thing we need to know… but are rarely taught is “What you feel in your heart is what your mind thinks about.” Not only thinks about but, plans for, anticipates, worries about, and even obsesses over. Our minds clear focus is “what would make me feel better? Or worse?” Should I punch that person in the face? Honk my horn really long, flip them off and swear? Maybe have a drink, cigarette or over eat? That may make you feel better temporarily, but it doesn’t get rid of your bad feelings, it temporarily masks them until you need to have a drink, a cigarette or a pizza again.
The answer to heal an emotional wound is to open yourself up, feel it and let go.
First step- Intend to release yourself from the power of these negative feelings. Once you recognize that you have suffered from this incident long enough, when you realize that the weight of this hurt no longer helps you, set your intention to release it’s grip on you. Write it down on a small piece of paper to burn after the meditation. Say it aloud to yourself looking in the mirror, say it to God or the Universe, or to the higher power within. Whatever you need to do to commit to letting it go. “I am ready to let go of the pain that (my parent, child, lover, boss, situation) caused in my life. I understand that they were only doing the best they could according to their abilities and holding onto this pain is only blocking myself from enjoying all the other great things in my life. I am willing to let this go.”
Second Step- Find a place where you won’t be interrupted for 20-30 minutes and quiet yourself as if going into meditation. State your intention of being willing to feel these feelings one last time and let then allow yourself to feel your feelings of anger, sadness, disappointment, jealousy….there are so many options, one last time.
Feel that feeling, you know what it is. Really feel it. Sit for 5-10-20 minutes fully focused on that feeling. You don’t need to act on it. There is absolutely nothing you need to do, but feel it. And let it go. This sounds so simplistic, and our conscious mind wants to make us believe that our pain is much bigger than this. There is no way our giant wound could be healed in 10-20 minutes. It has taken years to fester to this point there is no way….Trust in the process. Even Layers and layers can be released with love and diligence. Once you clear the space in your heart there is room for all the Peace and Love we want to fill our lives.
Hypnotherapy is an amazing tool to move you through these feelings and Open your Heart to all the good that can be in your life today and always. If you find anything you are still holding onto give me a call and we can work together to free yourself from the past and Open the path to the future.
Get rid of what doesn’t serve you to make room for what does.