In Chinese medicine the heart is the controller and contains the essence of who we really are. When the heart is open and balanced, this sends a ripple effect out to the rest of the organs, bringing them in to alignment and making us less likely to react to stress in our environment. As the hearts electromagnetic field stretches for around 3 metres around the body, the heart also has an effect on everything around us.
The heart is connected with high vibration emotions such as gratitude, empathy, compassion, kindness, forgiveness and peace and when it is open you will be able to feel these emotions regularly. An open heart chakra also allows a good connection with others and healthy relationships.
The heart is also the connection with the higher self and gives us guidance on making decisions by making us feel excited or passionate about going in a certain direction.
On the other hand, when your heart is closed this can lead to avoiding people and relationships, being disconnected from intuition, feeling resentful or not able to forgive and finding it hard to give or receive love. When the heart is incoherent this also makes the brain less coherent and decreases our vitality.
The main reason the heart closes is because of bad friendships or relationships where we have been criticised, judged, disappointed, gave more than we got back or were not shown enough love. This can make us want to avoid people or relationships as we are scared of being hurt again.
We might close our heart after a bad experience but this stops us from being on the best path as it prevents us from being our true selves, makes it harder to connect with our intuition and other people and also affect our physical health. The more that we can step fully into our true selves, the easier life will be as we will start to feel guided and everything will start to fall in to place. The following ways can help with increasing self-love and opening the heart.
Drink Cacao
The spirit of cacao is a gentle, supportive, feminine energy which holds the vibration of unconditional love, joy, peace and gratitude.
Cacao is also a stimulant and increases production of dopamine, serotonin and phenylethylamine which can cause feelings of euphoria and allow us to drop in to the heart so that we can stop over thinking and get more in touch with our emotions.
Before preparing the cacao you can create a sacred space with candles, crystals and burn some palo santo or white sage. The ceremony can be done on a solstice or full moon etc to make it even more powerful.
- To prepare the cacao, first of all you slowly heat up the milk without letting it boil
- Add 42g of cacao (this is a ceremonial dose)
- You can also add other ingredients such as honey, vanilla, rose petals, ginger
- As you are preparing the cacao, you can set your intention and give gratitude to the plant.
Once the cacao is ready, you can then open your space and invite the plant spirit in.
While you are drinking the cacao, think of your intention and how you would feel if it you received it
You can play some music or Tibetan singing bowls to amplify the energies or draw, journal or meditate.Thank the cacao and close the space
If you want to connect with cacao on a deeper level, you can also choose to do a cacao dieta which involves eating very simple foods, limited contact with people and drinking cacao regularly for a certain amount of time such as a week. This creates a sacred space which can allow deeper connection with your intuition and can be useful for gaining insights into certain situations.
Nurture yourself
Doing something every day that makes your heart feel alive is one of the best ways of nurturing your heart and feeling more connected with your true self.
Here are some ideas:
- Flower and crystal bath
- Walk in nature
- Go to the beach or river
- Get a beauty treatment or massage
- Eat only nourishing food
- Burn a candle or some essential oils
- Make a crystal elixir or crystal infused oil
- Do some crystal healing
- Place rose essential oil on your heart
- Face mask
- Journalling
- Meditation
- Shamanic journey
- Gratitude
- Drink herbal tea
- Read a book
- Buy yourself flowers
- Go for a day out or a holiday
- Do an oracle card reading for yourself
- Go wild swimming
- Go to see some live music
- Meet up with friends or family
- Drink cacao
- Listen to singing bowls
- Make a smoothie
- Read some poetry such as Rumi
- Write a card or letter to yourself showing appreciation for everything you do
Working With The Rose
Rose has a soft, feminine energy and is a powerful heart opener and healer.
In the book The Way Of The Rose by Ishtara Ammuna Rose she writes that the path of the rose is the worship of the great goddess and the embodiment of divine feminine energy. The path is based on self love and using meditation and intuition to raise the vibration of yourself and the planet. One of the ways its possible to do this is through chanelling light frequencies in to water and oils. Transforming the shadow is also important and this can be done by using guided meditations to clear the womb and the chakras.
There are many ways of working with rose petals to heal and open the heart, such as:
- Infusing them with oil to rub on the heart
- Making them in to a face mask
- Making them in to an elixir with gin and honey
- Preparing them as a tea
- Adding them to honey or cakes
- Adding them to the bath
Forgiveness
Ho’oponopono is a spiritual practice from Hawaii that was created to resolve issues within a family or community. It can help with transmuting resentment, negative memories and beliefs in to love. In the Book of Ho’oponopono , the authors talk about a famous case involving Dr Hew Len, a doctor who worked in a high security hospital. It had a heavy negative energy with lots of arguing and the staff turnover was very high. Every day he would shut himself in his office, looking at their files and repeating Ho’oponopono rather than seeing patients. After 3 months the atmosphere had improved massively. After 4 years the ward closed its door as the patients had either been cured or moved to a less severe ward. He explained that by repeating Ho’oponopono for each patient, he had healed the part of himself that had created them as everything we perceive has been created by us.
The physical reality is a creation of our thoughts and beliefs. There is nothing on the outside that we haven’t caused to be there, everything on the outside is a reflection of subconscious beliefs and other people are really only a reflection of ourselves. All of this can be cleansed with Ho’oponopono especially if there are people from the past who have hurt you and find it hard to forgive.
Just repeat the following:
I’m sorry (because you were unaware that you carried that memory within yourself)
Forgive me (you are saying this to yourself for creating the beliefs that caused the situation to appear on the outside)
Thank you (you are thanking yourself for the memories being brought to your awareness)
I love you (to transform the situation as love is the most powerful healer)
10 Crystals For Self Love + Opening The Heart
The following crystals are perfect for releasing blocked emotions, increasing self love and opening the heart. You can hold them to the heart while feeling high vibration emotions such as love, peace and gratitude and visualise breathing these emotions in through the heart.
Rose Quartz is a stone of love and peace and can open and purify the heart chakra, bringing healing, self-love and acceptance. It helps with releasing unexpressed emotions and works on a cellular level to reprogram the cells for love and happiness.
A powerful healer, larimar is especially useful for healing past relationships and the ability to speak from the heart.
Pink Tourmaline has a powerful healing effect on the heart chakra and can help you feel that its safe to love. It can also be placed on the heart to fill the body with a powerful feeling of love.
Rhodonite has a balancing effect on emotions, especially in times of shock or trauma and can bring up blocked emotions to be healed.
Rhodochrosite’s healing energy can repair energy around the heart, bringing up past emotions to be released and allowing you to trust in relationships. It can also help with self love and feeling as though you deserve to be loved.
Mangano Calcite is a stone of unconditional love and helps with increasing self esteem.
Cobalto Calcite is a stone of unconditional love and one of the most powerful stones for healing the heart chakra. It has a powerful soothing energy and can help with healing the soul in times of grief or trauma. Perfect for healing blocked emotions, cobalto calcite can also allow the release negative patterns related to love and can allow you to love yourself and others. It also helps with forgiving yourself and others for past mistakes.
Green Kyanite is a powerful heart healer which can open to your heart and allow you to become more aware of your emotions. It can also help you to see through any illusions in your life which may be blocking you from finding your true path.
Pink Aragonite has a soothing, calming energy and can encourage you to make time to nurture yourself. A powerful heart healer, it can help with reconnecting to the heart chakra and can benefit relationships creating stability and peace.
