Opening the Heart

Elka and I had been seeing each other for about seven months. We both realized that we were in very different places in our lives. It was clear that we wanted different things, so we decided to break up. Elka was angry with me, but after six months we came back together as friends.

Elka eventually met someone else and I was initially very happy to learn that she had someone in her life. But then all of a sudden Elka stopped returning my calls. I didn’t know what was going on. I learned months later that Elka’s fiancé was very controlling. The fiancé told Elka that he would leave her if she chose to continue the friendship with me.

I cared a lot about Elka and I really valued her friendship. I always enjoyed seeing Elka and hoped that she would always be a part of my life. I felt a lot of sadness over the loss and I noticed after some time that I was feeling a sense of deadness in my heart.

I was living in Albuquerque, New Mexico at the time and I worked in Santa Fe a few days of the week. I would usually drive home late in the evenings after finishing my work. The desert in New Mexico is especially beautiful. Those late night drives through the desert were a time of reflection for me.

One night I began to breathe with my attention focused in the middle of my chest. My heart felt very numb or deadened in the beginning, but I continued to work with this practice during my late night drives back to Albuquerque. I began to experience a faint itching sensation in the middle of my chest during the second or third night of practice. The feelings and sensations gradually grew stronger and became more accessible over the coming weeks. Layer after layer of old emotional residue began to dissolve and flow through my body and mind. Powerful feelings of longing, loneliness and emptiness began to emerge. Sensations of warmth spread throughout my chest and then I began to feel these powerful emanations emerging from within. I would experience these euphoric moments of transcendence where I felt deeply connected to the source. The feelings grew stronger as I continued to breathe into them.

We will experience hurts, losses and setbacks at various times in our lives. Our true feelings will reflect what we are actually going through. Most of us have never really learned how to work with our own feelings and emotions. We busy ourselves with our work or find other forms of distraction in an attempt to avoid the pain. We may numb ourselves with substances or other addictions. The hurts may never heal, and many of us just keep accumulating more as we go from one relationship to the next. Painful feelings never just go away. The hurts, losses and betrayals continue to live within us. They make us bitter, angry, suspicious, guarded and resentful. Buried hurts and resentments can also cause us to attract more hurtful people and experiences into our lives.

Unresolved issues and emotions cause our bodies become very dense and armored. Parts of our consciousness begin to shut down. The barriers created by the hurts that we hold within can make it very difficult for us to allow love in. These barriers may also prevent us from attracting a loving partner.

Sufi Master Hazrat Inayat Khan once said "The path of the broken heart is the path of the expansion of the heart". We need to digest our heartbreaks and all the subsequent feelings and emotions that we experience. We initiate this digestive process by breathing into feelings that emerge. Our feelings will often intensify and they may even become excruciatingly painful at times. Many people cut and run at this point, but we really need to stay present by breathing into all the feelings that surface. It will take some time, but the hurts will gradually dissipate as we continue to breathe into them. Our body will become more alive as our armor dissolves. Our heart will begin to awaken and that will allow us to experience true compassion. We will move beyond the superficial and that will enable us to experience the true depth of our being.

It’s very easy to become so caught up in our story that we lose any kind of healthy perspective. We need to take breaks at times, to go out, do things, to interact with people and be engaged in life as much as we can. It’s important for us to develop a level of self awareness that allows us to know when we need time to do our process and when we need to participate in what’s happening in the world.

Chi gong and tai chi practices will help us to draw more of the universal life force into our bodies and minds. Chi or universal life force will help us to lessen our identification with the "small me" dramas and to feel our connection with the universe and the force of creation.

Experiences of heartbreak can become deeply ingrained within our makeup. Parts of the body-mind consciousness become habituated to heartbreak and then it feels as we cannot break out of the mold. We may sometimes need assistance to heal. Deep tissue massage will help us to move the grief that gets trapped within our bodies. Healing sessions, yagyas and vision quests will help us to digest the losses and create the kind of presence that will enable us to attract more loving companions and experiences.

Focus your awareness within the middle of your chest. Breathe softly and deeply into any feelings and sensations that emerge. Allow the feelings and sensations to be what they are without trying to change them. The feelings will often change on their own as you continue to breathe into them. Follow the feelings and physical sensations that you experience and go where ever they take you.

Feelings of loss can be torturous during those times in your life lives when you are in the middle of a breakup or enduring some other form of heartbreak. Your entire body may ache and you just want to get relief from the pain. But you can only heal the hurt by remaining present in the midst of a loss.

I normally encourage people to sit down when doing these practices, but in this instance you can either sit or lie down. Picture your present or former partner and then breathe into any feelings that emerge. The feelings can become very intense at times, but keep breathing into them. Go out to walk if you feel overwhelmed by the feelings that are emerging. Let down all resistance. Dive way down deep into the feelings and experience them as fully as possible or feel yourself becoming permeable and then allow the hurtful feelings to just flow through you. The process takes time, but intensity of feeling will gradually soften and dissipate as you continue to breathe into them. This practice can often help you to resolve the issues that are preventing you and your partner from connecting so that you can heal your selves and your relationship and really come together. It can also help you to get over your losses. You will find it easier to let go and move on in your life when necessary.

Breathing into the feelings pertaining to what’s happening your present relationships or heartbreaks can evoke feelings and memories associated with past loves and losses. Again, follow the feelings and go wherever they take you. This is an opportunity for you to go to the underlying source of the issues that have plagued your life. This will often help you to dismantle the dysfunctional dynamics within your mind or consciousness that have caused you to repeat unhealthy patterns in your relationships and other parts of your life.

You will experience what seems like an absence of feelings at times. The heart may also feel very flat or neutral. Some people mistakenly assume that nothing is happening when that occurs. You may notice more subtle feelings of tension, constriction, heaviness or feelings of emptiness if you’re really paying attention. You may also discover a number of other subtle lingering feelings operating in the background. All of these feelings and sensations are valid. It’s important for you to understand that feelings are often subtle. Go ahead and dive in. Explore everything that you feel. Immerse yourself in the subtleties. Breathe into the flatness, neutrality or any of the subtle feelings or sensations that I’m describing. Feelings will go through a progression where they change from one thing to another. Follow the progression of feelings and go where ever they take you. You will be developing your body-mind consciousness every time that you work with this practice.

Breathing into the hurts, losses, numbness, deadness, stress, tension or the millions of other feelings and sensations will awaken your heart. The hurts will soften and dissipate as you continue to work with the practice. You will become softer and develop greater compassion. You will feel more connected to the higher power. You will exude greater emotional warmth and this will make you more attractive to the kind of person that you desire to be with. Working with this practice will increase your capacity to give and receive love. Love will flow more easily to and from you.

I’m truly happy for those of you who are fortunate enough to find yourself in a loving and supportive relationship. Breathe into the love that you feel for your partner. Breathe into the feelings of being loved and supported. These loving and supportive feelings will nurture and nourish you. You may also find that your love grows stronger.