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Closing our Heart to Avoid Emotional Pain
Teresa Keast
What does it Really mean to live Whole heartedly...
When we are emotionally hurt and in pain our natural response is to close down, close our heart center to protect ourselves so that we can grieve and heal. Short term, this may be what we need to do.
When we have experienced a myriad of emotional traumas we often adopt a pattern of opening our heart to certain people or in certain situations and closing our heart whenever we are not sure we can trust. But do we realise the price we pay to our health, our well being and our happiness in choosing to live from this paradigm of fear rather than risking the vulnerability of remaining open to all of life's beautiful emotional ups and downs and living an authentic inspiring loving life all the time.
We cannot selectively close our heart to simply avoid experiencing negative feelings such as hurt, anger, grief, rejection or any of the fear based emotions. When we close our heart we close it to all feeling, this is why we feel numb. We feel, safe and strong because we can't be hurt, but after a while life simply loses its colour, it becomes gray and mundane. There is no passion and no enthusiasm and no capacity for self love. We no longer experience joy, freedom, happiness, fulfillment, peace, contentment and all the positive emotions of being alive and human. Often an experience like seeing a sunset or falling in love or being overwhelmed by the kindness of another may temporarily open our heart again and this is the moment when we must decide do we have the courage to keep it open.
Our heart center is the key energy center in the body as it emitts an electromagnetic field every moment of every day that sends waves of communication to every cell in your body. Scientists have confirmed that when we are experiencing positive human emotions we associate with love and loving this energy has a positive effect on our health, our immune system, our vitality and on every cell in our body. Even switching off potentially negative dna and switching on health promoting positive dna expression. When we experience the negative emotional states we associate with fear the waves of communication from the heart center to every cell in the body is protective but defensive. Our body prepares for attack, and goes into survival stress mode and this is not conducive to thriving.
The decision to close the heart to be safe and not get hurt will eventually affect all aspects of our well being.
Physically we start to feel lethargic, loosing our vitality, our enthusiasm and our passion for the things and people that mattered to us. Life becomes mechanical and we feel stuck in a rut. We may experience chronic pain, inflammation or often auto-immune diseases. We don't look after and no longer take loving care of our body.
Emotionally we feel detached, alone, isolated and overwhelmed, often quick to anger and frustration. There may be a feeling of emptiness or that something is missing. We may self-sabotage with familiar coping strategies and addictions to fill this void, such as over caring for others, busyness, eating, shopping, drinking, drugs, or submerging ourselves in television, social media or gaming. It becomes increasingly hard to feel positive about anything and we retreat from others, into a place of isolation and despair. Or we project a falsely positive image out into the world that is exhausting to uphold.
Mentally we allow the fear and doubt thoughts to gain a hold over us, as our mind succombs to old familiar negative thought patterns. We find it hard to concentrate and focus. Our sleep and dreams may be disturbed. We may experience the symptoms of stress and anxiety and if this goes on for long enough, feel we are sinking into despair and depression.
Spiritually we feel disconnected, alone and often loose our connection to our intuitive inner wisdom or feel that life, spirit and our definition of god have abandoned us.
But closing the heart to avoid feeling those painful emotions was simply a survival mechanism there to protect us and keep us safe. Why would this be damaging to our health?
The role of emotions in the body is to emote or allow energy to flow through the heart center and this has a cleansing and healing effect. Emotions cause trouble or dis-ease in the body when they do not flow, but become stuck or blocked because we don't want to experience them, the pain, the shame, the guilt or see and be responsible for our part in the cause. So we project them out onto other people in anger believing this gets rid of them, or we just don't let ourselves feel them. Both of these strategies push these emotions deep into our psyche where we don't have to deal with them and this is when they cause blockages. These blocked patterns of energy can remain for years until they are triggered by a particular event or memory and you are once again given the opportunity to experience and release them.
If we only knew that all anger is a sign that something needs healing. But instead of seeing this as an opportunity for growth, we push them back down to where they came from as we don't know that the only way to be free of emotions is to deal with them, allow them expression. More about this.
Blocked emotions cause energy blocks in the subtle energy of the body. Subtle energy is not the energy derived metabolically from the food you eat but rather the chi or prana that naturally flows into your body through energy centres we call chakras, and flows along energy pathways we call meridians and nadii's. This energy is responsible for the vitality and health of your physical body. We could call it your life force energy. When it is high you are full of abundant good health, when low your health is compromised.
When this natural flow of energy is blocked by blocked unexpressed emotions it can eventually lead to physical symptoms if not released. Have you ever found yourself crying after a particularly deep massage or after a yoga class or energy healing session. Your mind may be taken back to an old memory or event that was painful in your life. This crying is a natural release of that old blocked pattern of emotion and energy. If you simply surrender to it and allow its expression you will realise that the relatively short term discomfort of releasing this pain was well worth the feeling of relief and the return of lightness and clarity that followed. Often great insight and understanding follows this release and we know we can move forward and not be defined by this emotional event any longer. This is true healing.
So what is the alternative to closing down when we have been hurt.
If we can allow our heart to stay open and just allow ourselves to truly feel all of the emotions of life this allows the heart center to work its magic. If you have the courage to be open and honest about how you are feeling and allow the emotion to flow you will find peace and resolution quicker than you imagine. Your heart is designed to feel and to heal and it has a tremendous capacity to allow the energy of any hurt emotions to be transmuted and returned to love, acceptance, compassion and forgiveness. This takes practice and you may need to put aside some time when something comes up to be by yourself, either out in nature or in a safe environment where you can allow your feelings to flow. Standing beside flowing water or on top of a hill or mountain is an excellent way to help this flow. Surrender to the feelings and go with them rather than spending enormous amounts of energy avoiding them or pushing them away. Some people find that journaling or writing down how they are feeling from a non-judgemental stream of consciousness point of view helps this flow. Talking to trusted others who listen to understand not advise can help. Listening to music or watching movies that evoke strong emotions, doing yoga that works on releasing emotional energy blocks or simply sitting in silent meditation all can help. It doesn't matter what you do so long as you allow yourself to feel and acknowledge those feelings.
Once you have released the emotions you will find that if you can spend some time in quiet contemplation, your mind joins your heart in healing. You come to see the situation differently, there is understanding and a change of perspective. Often there is a desire to forgive another or more importantly to forgive yourself and accept the situation as it is. You may want to make amends or re-connect with someone or some aspect of yourself that you lost in closing off to healing. See my blog on the benefits of Makarasana the crocodile yoga posture in helping emotional release and returning us to inner peace and harmony.
This process can take time and there is always a need to be lovingly kind to yourself as you heal.
But this natural process of growth and greater understanding and increased self-awareness is why we are here. Every time you heal and move forward you help others around you to heal and move forward without doing anything. They intuitively sense the process and change in you and it sparks the natural healing process in them. When your heart is open you naturally encourage heart opening in those around you. This is why we are attracted to and like being with open-hearted people. They feel safe.
To be open-hearted is to be vulnerable. But we don't realise that this vulnerability is our greatest strength, it is the essence of what it means to be human and prepared to connect even if you have been or might get hurt. Because love is connection and an absence of love or fear is to experience dis-connection with your Self, with others, with Spirit, with God, with life.
The human heart was designed for connection. Our heart was designed to love.
To open your heart as soon as you realise you have closed down is to show up in life as your authentic self and acknowledge that life has presented you with some challenges for your growth and understanding and face them head on with courage and kindness. The beauty of this is that you may think that others will take advantage of your open heartedness and hurt you more but in my experience just the opposite happens and you experience the amazing capacity of others to care about how you are and love and support you.
We have an intuitive sense of who we can trust and who we cannot when our heart is open. We listen to the feelings that say go this way and not that way, this feels good for me and that doesn't. We self love and self care and set strong healthy boundaries with others that enable us to be safe.
To choose to remain open is to stay in the flow of joy. To remain open with a heart full of compassion both for yourself and for others and in the flow of joy regardless of what is happening to you is to live a truly inspired life.
Namaste Teresa
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