4th Chakra: The Heart
One of the reasons I’m so passionate about healing grace work is because it’s led me to live from my heart. The many years I spent in therapy helped me process the deep sadness within, but it also left me in a state of resentment and anger. That feeling of victimization was ruining my relationships and destroying my sense of self. It wasn’t until I started the healing grace work that I began to have compassion and eventually forgive myself and others for the past. As a result, I went from living in a state of negativity and fear to knowing how to live in a state of love and acceptance.
The heart chakra is the center that governs our ability to give and receive love, to have compassion, and, in our own time, to have forgiveness for ourselves and others. Carolyn Myss says the heart chakra is the powerhouse of our make-up. It is truly where our power resides. But staying in the heart is not always easy. Fear and the ego can easily take control if we’re not self-aware and make us prefer being right to doing what’s right. My ego felt justified in its anger towards others. My heart allowed me to have compassion for all involved, freeing myself to move forward in my life. The truth is we forgive others to free ourselves. When we give grace to another, we give grace to ourselves. When we judge another, we judge ourselves. And when we cling to resentment and victimization, we keep ourselves trapped in a living hell.
Forgiveness and having compassion for others does not mean we continue to allow unloving behavior. Dr. Bruce Lipton wisely said, "unconditional love does not mean unconditional tolerance". I've always had the ability to see a person's essence and potential. I suppose that’s how I made sense of life as a child. I easily forgave people and would justify their unloving behavior based on the core of who I knew them to be. Obviously, this coping mechanism doesn’t serve me as an adult. I’ve had to learn how to be discerning with my open heart. I’m learning the importance of giving love and compassion to myself first. And I’m learning to give more weight to a person’s current behavior, knowing their potential, but choosing whether their behavior and willingness to grow supports my wellbeing or not.
Learning to live from my heart has allowed me to experience a level of peace and ease within myself and in my relationships that I had never experienced. Love is always the answer, but it has to start with ourself first. Next week we’ll talk about the third charka, honoring ourselves. Using our heart in a balanced, healthy way requires us to feel worthy of giving and receiving love.
Hopefully, you are starting to see how all the chakras work together. When we do the inner work, we free ourselves to align with our spirit (seventh- crown chakra), trust and follow our intuition with discernment (sixth chakra- third eye), and speak our truth while surrendering the outcome (fifth- throat chakra) from a place of love (fourth- heart chakra), life has a way of more joyfully playing out.
