HEART OPENING

by Nicholas de Castella

I am sitting outside, the sun is shining, parrots chirping, it is cool and fresh - what a great day to write about heart opening! - the second step on the journey to living a Heart centred Life (last week I wrote to you about the first step - 'Tuning in').

As I sit here I close my eyes and tune inside. I take a deep, slow gentle breath in and fill my body with awareness. I can feel my heart radiating and my whole body tingles with aliveness. I feel blessed to be alive, my heart fills with gratitude and feels even fuller.

I let the breathe fall out and let go. I rest in stillness for a moment before I breathe in again. Breathing deeply and easily I can feel myself dropping inside, connecting and coming to inner peace. It is good to be alive. I can feel the flow of life gently flowing through my body.

My heart feels open, my chest feels full. I feel refreshed and alive.

Our hearts is like a pipeline that carries life force energy - emotion through.

Our heart starts out very open as a child and usually closes down as we get hurt growing up. With the shutting down we lose passion and aliveness, we become stressed and anxious. lose connection to who we are, lose direction and passion, have relationship difficulties and can even become ill.

Though opening and contracting are a natural part of life (this happens in your heart abut 70 times per minute) it is staying shut down that is unhealthy for us.

Here is a quick Heart Open Test:
How long since you had a good belly laugh where tears came out your eyes?

Why shouldn't this happen at least once a week?

Breathwork is by far the most powerful heart opening process I know of. During a breathworks session people breathe in a relaxed, gentle, flowing style into their bodies. This has the effect of raising energy in the body and facilitating the release of old incomplete emotional baggage we have been carrying. After a session people feel more at peace, more relaxed, more open connected and alive. If you haven't experienced this you are in for a treat when you do. If it's a while since you had a 'breathe', maybe its time for an emotional 'tune up'...

In our Emotional Intelligence Training's (the Passionately Alive seminar) people learn a multitude of ways to open their hearts and they learn skills to live with an open heart.