Messages from the Heart

Are you able to acknowledge all that your heart wants to share?

Can you love the sea when she’s dark and stormy? Can you love the sky even when it flashes with lightning and stings your skin with rain drops?

Or are you a fare weather friend, only able to see the beautiful when the sun is shining and the waves are placid?

How about yourself? Can you love all of you too - even when the lightning of anger rises to wake you up, the tear drops streak your cheeks, and the seas of emotion feel stormy within?

Or have you told yourself that parts of you aren’t welcome; putting out your own fire and intuitive guidance, and withholding the tears that cleanse your body of sadness?

We have been taught wrong. Emotions are a text message from the heart that something within us needs tending to.  All emotions are valid information and have purpose, the true skill comes in understanding how to acknowledge, be grateful for the message, and observe what’s happening within us before responding (if at all).

Not every message we receive requires action, frequently just acknowledging its receipt with a few deep breaths and feeling where it shows up in the body is enough.

All too often we react to a feeling and push it off to someone or something else to make the discomfort go away, rather than taking a deep breath and sitting with it as if we’re reading a message from our heart.

Our Inner Child/Heart wants to be heard: “I hurt here”, “I am excited about this”, or “I am unsure”. It’s really asking us to help attend to something within, just as if a small child were asking for our attention.

Pay attention to the lightning, the stormy seas, and the sunshine. They’re all an important part of our human experience.  Each and every one of them help us to know ourselves more deeply, and authentically.

This originally appeared on The Alkhemaerie.