The Heart Chakra, is known in Sanskrit as “anahata” meaning un-struck. Essentially it is living as if your heart has never been broken. The truth as we know, is that all of us have had our hearts broken. We wouldn’t be alive and truly living if we had never experienced loss or sadness from grief. Yet the point is not to gaslight ourselves and pretend like nothing bad has ever happened, but rather to allow the grief to move through us, for the grief to remind us of all the love we have experienced.
And so, part of the work in balancing this chakra is to simply love for the sake of the experience of love. To love because we can, and we should and because it makes us feel whole and alive. Sure, romantic love is part of this, but so is the love within our families, our friendships, our animals and truly all of nature. The heart chakra wants us to love from an open heart, to love with a forgiving heart. We love others, but part of this equation, and just as important is the love we have for ourselves. We must turn this light back on to ourselves.
How can you forgive others, if you can’t forgive yourself? How can you develop a deep respect for others, if you can’t do the same for yourself? Love is not putting someone up on a pedestal and pretending they cannot fall, so why do we do this with ourselves?
You may have heard that you can’t love another until you love yourself, and I know there are differing opinions here, but in my experience, this is what happened. When I finally learned to love and respect myself, all the parts of myself, was when I was finally able to ask for what I needed in my friendships and my romantic relationship. It was my love for myself that allowed me to create boundaries and to know how I deserved to be treated.
The golden rule – do unto others as you would do unto yourself. Except that I was always bending over backwards for others, living to make others happy, but at the sacrifice of myself. Doing everything that I could for those who would never lift a finger for me, only to be left feeling depleted, undeserving and unloved.
It is through my Yoga practice, the movement and the meditation and in particular watching how I speak to myself, how I treat myself, how I show up for myself, that my patterns slowly began to change. I love helping others. I love being there for my friends and the people that I love, and I still do this all the time, and not for anything in return. But knowing when they can, they will do the same for me. On the days I can’t, I’m honest with myself and them as to why. My self-care practices and letting my friends show up for me and help me when I’ve needed it, also boost my self love.
Sometimes taking care of yourself, is letting others take care of you too. We aren’t in this alone, and we should never think that we are. Live from an open heart, love yourself and you’ll be amazed of the love you attract back.
