Beyond having an open heart, another essential aspect of self-love is to have a clear heart. If you consider the open heart the heart of your Divine inner child, consider the clear heart the heart of your Divine inner adult.
To have a clear heart means to step away from the confusion and fog of drama and self pity and look at life objectively. A clear heart allows you to engage in life with objectivity and reason. When your heart is clear you don’t take life personally. Rather than being victims reacting to life with the question “why are you doing this to me?” you simply study life, asking “Why are you doing this?”
Unless you have a clear heart, it is very difficult to love yourself because you are too busy being victimized and abused by those around you, and suffering for it.
A client, Dennis came to see me for a reading, utterly distraught because his wife of ten years recently underwent gastric bypass surgery, and lost 125 pounds of extra weight. But rather than this being a good thing, she immediately started acting out her addictions in other ways, taking up drinking and doing drugs in its place. She went from being a stable albeit obese wife and mother to his two children to becoming a five night a week party animal who could barely find her way home at night she was so wasted. Dennis was beyond furious and betrayed. “I paid for her surgery, I took care of the kids when she recovered, and I’ve been a great husband. How could she do this to us? To her kids? To me?”
His suffering was palpable, and his life was suddenly in a shambles, but his heart was not clear, taking her behavior to heart and internalizing it as a rejection of him, or a failure on his part to be a good husband. After all, if he was good enough, she would love him enough not to self indulge”. Right? Wrong.
What Dennis, in his cloudy confused heart, utterly failed to understand, even before his wife’s gastric bypass, was that she was a highly addictive out of control woman whose behavior had nothing to do with him.
She was an addict. Her surgery simply forced her to replace food with alcohol and drugs. But she was there and now an addict. Unless he could see that, his personalizing of her addictions only made it worse. He couldn’t self-love, let alone love his suffering wife or children until his heart cleared. Quite simply, her struggles weren’t about him, and so therefore, he couldn’t fix them or her.
Fortunately their struggles drew him into counseling where slowly his heart began to clear. The interesting thing in all of this came when he said to me, “for the longest time I resisted getting my heart cleared up about my wife’s problems. I took some sort of sick pleasure in believing it was about me, and kind of refused to get clear. What was that about?”
I know what that’s about. I’ve done it myself. It’s about the ego getting in the way and blocking the Spirit from taking you to higher ground and better clarity. You cannot get to a clear heart through the ego. You must decide you are not going to be a victim of anyone’s behavior in order to access the clear heart. Once you make that decision, not to be a victim, the heart automatically begins to clear.
You begin to understand that your boss is insecure and therefore acts like a bully, and not because you are doing a bad job. You understand your child is angry and defensive because he is neglecting his responsibilities and not because you are a bad parent. You see that your neighbor isn’t feeling well, and doesn’t have adequate insurance which causes him to be curt and rude, and it’s not because he resents you as a neighbor.
Having a clear heart is an enormously self loving choice to make because it frees you from suffering everyone else’s misery and lets you enjoy your peace.
To have a clear heart is simple-take nothing personally. Whatever someone does or doesn’t do is not about you. And secondly – don’t be a victim. Remember that you can’t control others, but you can choose how you respond to others.
Once Dennis’s heart cleared up, he chose to divorce his wife, seek counseling for himself, and assume full time custody of the children. It was clearly the only road to self-love, love of his children and ironically love of his wife was when he stopped reacting and saw for the first time perhaps how profoundly she suffered from addictions, he found detachment and compassion for her. They boxed out a fairly messy divorce, but even that he didn’t take personally. Now that he’s on the other side of his fiasco, he can also see how his own insecurities drew him to someone with addictions. The more out of control she was, the more usefully in control he felt.
Yet as we know, the minute you connect to control you are squarely back in your ego, and doomed to find any genuine love or peace ever.
One tremendous self loving benefit to cultivating a clear heart is that you begin to see just how life is a classroom where our soul’s come to learn, and how every choice has an outcome. Life stops being random chaos and drama, and settles into a far calmer, clearer creative endeavor. A clear heart is a creative heart. When your heart is clear you can see subtle connections, and hidden relationships you automatically sense, and intent how choices unfold and therefore save waste by making better choices.
You remove the wear and tear that victim hood brings with a clear heart you take your power to choose and to create back.
To clear your heart is simple. Just change the question from “Why is this happening to me?” to “Why is this happening? What is the relationship between cause and effect, choice and outcome?” and even better “What can I learn from this?”
Study, rather than react, unplug from drama, and breathe through your challenges with an objective eye.
Want to get away from drama. Do not let your ego seduce you into suffering.
This is not to imply you cannot feel. Feelings are good and inform you about your choices. When you feel bad there is something to learn.
The clear heart is the detective heart; it asks what the lesson here is? What is the opportunity for my soul to grow? And also, do I want to learn?
Do I want to be peaceful rather than dramatic?
The benefits of a clear heart are many. It is the heart that reduces stress, improves vitality, and restores energy. The clearer your heart the less draining life is. It also is the heart that empowers you and restores creativity. If your heart is clouded and confused you cannot find your way to solution. You just spin around in suffering circles. Though it’s seductive to your ego, it’s actually a waste of time. Nothing positive or good comes out of a clouded, confused heart. Ever.
Nothing clouds your heart and interrupts your ability to self-love more quickly and thoroughly than fear.
The minute we feel afraid the heart clouds up and confusion sets in. What I’ve discovered however is that we don’t have to overcome fear to have a clear heart.
We simply need to recognize it when it shows up and acknowledge its presence.
The great revelation for me is that it isn’t fear itself that confuses the heart, so much as it is the effort of hiding our fear, or denying our fear that is so self abusive and destructive.
Being afraid is normal especially when facing the unknown. For example, I’m writing this before an all day workshop. All day I have felt tension and anxiety. I slept all afternoon. I found myself restless and slightly irritable. Then all of a sudden it occurred to me why I was feeling so out of sorts. I am afraid of tomorrow. Once I acknowledged this a whole constellation of fears unraveled. I’m afraid I won’t connect with the audience. I’m afraid I won’t be effective. I’m afraid my guidance won’t be working well. I’m afraid the audience won’t respond to my music selection. I’m afraid in general. The more I acknowledged my fears, the more they began to subside and the more clarity returned to my heart.
At once it did and it said, “Yes, anyone of those things may happen. It’s not likely, but possible. And so what if it does. It wouldn’t be the end of the world.
And that was true. It could possibly be uncomfortable even unpleasant, it’s unlikely, but could happen. And it wouldn’t be anything more than a temporary slight to my ego if indeed the worst came to pass.
That thought made me laugh. So many of our fears really are nothing more than threats to our already insecure ego. If we remember we are Spirit, however, we get free of the ego’s freak outs.
Even as I write this I feel clearer and far less afraid. It makes me realize that it’s not actually fear that clouds the heart; it’s our attempt to hide our fear that clouds it.
The more we simply acknowledge our fears with love, and a dash of humor, the more they subside and unfog the heart.
Besides, there is a big difference between feeling vague generic fear and actually being in danger. Most of the time when we feel fear there is no danger, other than to our fragile ego’s. So it’s important to make that distinction.
And even when you are in danger, it’s far better to acknowledge fear’s presence, so your heart will clear up and your guidance comes through to help get you out of danger.
I recall once as a young student in France, I accepted a ride home from a man I met at a party because it was late, and the trains were no longer running, it was cold outside and I had no money for a taxi. Stupid I know but I was young.
The minute I got in the car with him I felt afraid. So I acknowledged it to myself. The minute I did my Spirit said, ”you should be. This man has bad intentions.”
The minute my guidance said that, I turned to him and said, “Oh my goodness I have to get out of the car now or I am going to be sick all over.”
He was shocked and suddenly I saw fear in his eyes. Eyeing his expensive car and suit I knew why.
When I start to get out, he screamed and I jumped out. The fear subsided and I was filled with relief in its place. I even laughed a little as I safely, but freezing, walked home.
Whenever you feel afraid, acknowledge it out loud, if not out loud, at least to yourself. Be as specific as possible about what you fear. Say you don’t know why if you don’t.
Notice how the more you articulate your fear the clearer your heart becomes.
Once it’s clear ask you Spirit is this a real or imagined threat? Listen to the answer.
If real, ask the clear heart to guide you quickly to safety. If it’s imagined, ask it to step aside. The more often and more quickly you confront fear the more quickly your heart will clear and remain clear.
And a clear heart is a self loving heart because only a clear heart can see and guide you to creative expression and solution.
What fogs and disturbs a clear heart are strong emotions of any sort. Whether it’s intense anger, strong infatuation, overwhelming grief, or unbelievable ecstasy, strong waves of emotion temporarily distort the clarity of the heart and interrupt our ability to love self or others.
This is not to suggest we must attempt to block or distance ourselves from our emotions. Not at all. In fact, blocked emotions close and clog the heart and shut it down altogether. No, it is important to feel our emotions, all of them, fully and completely and recognize them for the messengers that they are. Our emotions inform us about the experiences of our lives. It’s just that we need to recognize that our emotions are like the weather. They come and ideally, if not blocked, they go. And we learn from them, but do not act on them. It’s best to wait until their intensity passes, then choose our actions.
For example, I have a client named Sally, who is a passionate creative woman with a brilliant Spirit and a volatile temper. On several occasions she found herself losing her temper with her husband and in the midst of the battle told him she wanted a divorce. Once her rage passed, and her heart was clear, she had no desire for a divorce, and in fact, most of her outbursts had little to do with her husband at all. Sadly he didn’t know this, and after one declaration of divorce too many he left her and did file for divorce. Her distorted heart failed to recognize how painful her outbursts were to her husband. She had no idea she caused him so much pain. He refused to stay with her. His own heart had shut down.
Had she simply waited to let her waves of anger pass rather than act on them she might still be married. Her outbursts were her self-undoing, and hurt her more than anyone.
The same held true for another client, George. George lost his wife of 35 years and found himself in overwhelming grief and loneliness. While in the midst of waves of sorrow he met a woman who had newly emigrated from Bulgaria. Impulsively he asked her to marry him and she agreed. He knew his heart wasn’t clear and that it was a bad idea, but he acted anyway. It was a bad idea. The infatuation wore off in less then three months, and resentment kicked in. Not surprisingly they divorced after battling for three years. Now he had that disaster to add to his still unresolved grief.
Committing to have a clear heart is a largely powerful act of self-love. It simply means you decide not to act in the throws of strong emotions. Let your emotions rise and fall and learn from them. But do not let them guide you in life. Emotion is not love. It is response to life and does inform. We need our emotions to guide us. It’s just that we are best able to making sound self-loving choices when our emotions are quiet.
Whenever you find yourself in the winds of strong emotion let them flow and know they will calm down. To help calm your emotions, channel their expression in benign healthy ways.
Journaling is a wonderfully effective way to channel strong emotion and help you regain balance. So is walking, running, talking with a neutral friend, going to the gym, punching a punching bag, dancing, taking a long hot shower, screaming into a pillow, or at the beach.
Let your emotions express. Just don’t act on them. Good or bad wait until they are clear before you make any decisions.
This of course takes discipline especially if you are a passionate person. Yet, if you think about it, some of the worst, most unloving decisions you have ever made most likely have come about while you were worked up.
It is in the throws of strong emotion where you are most critical and judgmental of yourself, or where you tend to be the harshest and most insensitive toward you.
While in clear heart, make up your mind, as an act of self-love that you are going to be aware of when your heart is not clear, and recognize that this is the most dangerous of times when it comes to self-love. Be prepared and have your strategies for self-love in place. Know when your heart is clouded by strong emotion that you tend to make the most self destructive hurtful choices, and have another plan ready to go instead.
For example, when you are really angry go for a walk or to the gym to punch a punching bag instead of screaming after someone nearby. When you feel disappointed or sad, go to your journal or for a massage instead of to drugs, alcohol, or the refrigerator.
When depressed, turn on the music or watch a funny movie instead of commiserating with another depressed person (and if you are chronically angry or depressed realize there may be physical imbalance so check with a doctor so you aren’t fighting a doomed battle.) Get support in the way of therapy. We all could use some help and there’s nothing better for maintaining a clear heart than a good reliable therapist. View a therapist as a teacher to help you maintain a clear heart.
The important thing is to recognize the importance of having a clear heart when it comes to loving yourself. Strive to keep your heart clear. When your heart is clear you can feel your Spirit, and you automatically find great love and appreciation for yourself. But when it isn’t clear, you cannot touch or sense your Spirit because your ego is freaking out. Know that emotion passes. Be patient and let it pass, like rolling thunderstorms across the sky. Decide to strive for a clear heart. Recognize when it is clear how much easier it is to make healthy self loving choices that honor your Spirit. Once you decide a clear heart is important, and essential to loving yourself it becomes easier and easier to keep your heart clear.
*Decide not to be a victim
*Take nothing and no one personally
*Ask “why is this happening?”
*Breathe calmly and slowly in through the nose, out through the mouth for five minutes. This always clears the heart.
*Want a clear heart –make it important
*Be aware that the ego reacts, becomes fearful, goes into drama and confusion so don’t make decisions in this state.
*Take 24 hours to move away from flight or fight responses to life and back into clarity. (with practice it takes less an less time)
*Make being calm a high priority and say so
*Exercise or walk to burn off adrenaline and restore the heart beat
*Realize to every problem there is a clear and loving solution and expect it to reveal itself in time
Congratulate yourself for remaining clear and not taking things personally. This builds reinforcement
Simple Choice- Remain clear of heart
