My heart was broken last week. A friend of mine experienced a significant loss that so touched my inner self that I sobbed and sobbed for days. The sobbing came with the simple thought of this family’s pain. The pain became mine in the way I could best relate and feel. What I have realized since this moment is that this pain opened my heart in a very beautiful way. My heart became soft, malleable, I was punchy and juicy, I felt things more deeply… not outer irritation but inner moving. I really felt alive.
I believe that one key to being Human is to be so aware of what opens our heart so that we can expand the openness and bridge all situations. Heartbreak can occur in Joy as well as sadness because both emotions crack the shell that forms over time and complacency. These emotions and circumstances become Gifts from the Divine because they allow our hearts to be moved and grow. Hearts grow through compassion, service, and gratitude as well as sadness, pain, and hurt.
To answer the question of “Why do Bad things happen?” one may respond that it allows that person and all others to be present with the potential of an expanded heart. WE CHOOSE whether our hearts expand or contract. WE CHOOSE whether we feel rejection, anger, blame or guilt and close the door on future heart experience. WE CHOOSE a reaction of patience, peace, hope, strength and connect to ourselves & others intimately. It is our free will to respond to any given situation. How do we want to respond and how do we want our responses to shape the development of our heart?
Our suffering often comes through our resistance to the pain or Joy. This suffering is why we need to develop bridges of awareness in between the heart moving moments. Suffering is a natural tool and teacher, yet when not managed with Loving awareness, suffering distances our attempts at Love. Suffering echoes blame, resentment, unfairness, entitlement, and anger that is untethered and wild. The suffering can become so loud that it blasts out the heart’s still and soft voice. The suffering can become so loud that we do not want to listen to it nor entertain its existence. Then both the suffering and the heart become lost.
The heart is THE place where the Spirit communicates with the Human. We are both. This center of mastery and connection must be open to Receive in order to sustain the health of both the body and the spirit. When your heart is broken, hold it and cry whether in Joy or sadness because it proves that you are alive.
A translation of Rumi follows:
Keep Your Heart Awake
There are many whose eyes are awak
And whose hearts are asleep;
Yet, what can be seen
By mere creatures of water and clay?
But he who keeps his heart awake
Will know and live this mystery;
While the eyes of his head may sleep
His heart will open a hundred eyes.
If your heart isn’t yet illumined
Be awake always, be a seeker of the heart,
Be at war continually with your carnal soul.
But if your heart is already awakened,
Sleep peacefully, sleep in the arms of Love,
For your spiritual eye is not absent
From the seven heavens and seven directions.
My personal prayer is that I can maintain and be grateful for moments when my heart is open. For me to remember what it feels like to feel juicy and alive. I know not what tomorrow brings and my prayer is that I can bravely know my heart and what it requires from me to bridge the suffering and blessings that I may experience and how all in my past can release its hold on my hearts evolution. May I be free to love, free to feel pain and free to expand my True heart.