Heart: Open, or Closed?
Sometimes, I still get mad. Frustrated. Impatient.
In these moments, I try to remind myself to feel where this is coming from. Where in my body do I feel it? Where in my psyche did it become activated? Is my heart open, or closed?
When I’m angry, it usually starts in my hands. They start to tighten, contract. And then my abdomen, as my breathing becomes shallower, and my blood flow starts to get restricted into my fight or flight organs. My vision starts to get myopic, my jaw starts to clench. Noticing is the first step. I can consciously try to relax these body parts, and breathe back into them to relax the tension.
The psyche is trickier, because this one takes a bit more digging. And usually, there isn’t much time between being triggered and reacting to dig. And so, if I can help it, I breathe, I respond (or don’t) and take a step back to really ask myself what the hell just happened there.
When we’re not aware of where our emotions and actions stem from, we can, as Neil Strauss puts it, “spend our lives running in circles like dogs chained to a stake in the ground. And that stake is trauma.”
While we might not all agree on what constitutes as trauma, I think it’s safe to say that none of us have gone through life unscathed. What if we were simply to replace the word with pain? How often do you let yourself feel pain? Pain from the past often shows up as depression. Pain experienced in the present often shows up as reactivity or closing off, depending on what behavioural patterns were taught to us in childhood. Pain anticipated from the future often shows up as anxiety.
When our heart is closed, it’s often because we’ve armoured it very well to protect ourselves from this pain of the past, present and future. An armoured heart can feel like judgment, criticism, defensiveness, pessimism, and cynicism. Ultimately, it’s an act of self-preservation. Keeping our heads down, shoulders hunched forward, hands cradling a phone like a squirrel with a prized acorn (or Gollum with the Ring- “myyy preciousssss”), it’s no wonder that most of us are so checked out with what’s going on in our bodies, our minds, our hearts. When everything is designed to keep our attention for 7 seconds or less, how do we find the time to be with ourselves, to really determine what’s going on inside our bodies, minds, and hearts?
To further the problem, most of us sit for most of the day - at our desks, in our cars, on the couch - which exacerbates the hunched, slouched, defeated postures that keep us in a closed off state.
When I first started doing yoga, heart-opening poses sucked. They were so uncomfortable precisely because my chest, shoulders and neck were so used to being pulled forward, and precisely because I had been in a cycle of depression, reactivity and anger. But as I kept going, particularly to yin classes, I slowly found my front body opening up more, my chest and heart expanding, my lungs and airways having more space, my mind and voice finding more clarity. Tears would often come, rinsing off the disguise of anger until it showed me its real name was grief, loneliness, and fear.
So I became obsessed with heart-opening. Rolling my shoulders back, standing up straight, ready to face the world. Confronting my demons, loving those around me in the way they needed to be loved, including myself. And just trying to let my heart make the decisions, rather than my suffering mind, with layers of conditioning and pain that I’m still learning to shed. Heart open doesn’t mean I don’t get angry anymore, it just means I’m aware of the anger, where it’s coming from, and how to deal with and metabolize it in a way that’s healthy. Rather than push it down or deny it or chastise myself for it, I ask what it’s trying to tell me, what needs to change? Emotions, especially strong emotions, can be the best guides when we let them, when we’re in tune with them. Heart open means we allow our emotions to come and go, even the difficult ones.
And lately, I’m also seeing the value in heart-closing.
Heart-closing doesn’t necessarily mean we’re closing ourselves off to the world. The difference is in awareness. Anything prolonged can become problematic in our bodies. As much as it’s beneficial to face, confront, and charge forward with a brave heart, sometimes it’s just as important to know when to rest, retreat, and restore that heart. Just like it’s important to connect and enjoy time with others, it’s equally important to connect and enjoy time in solitude, where I can reflect on what the next step is. Silence holds all the answers, even if we’re not ready to face them. And that’s okay too. To just be able to listen is enough sometimes, until our heart is ready to open again.
Ultimately it’s that checking in with our heart that will keep us soft when we want to harden, kind when we want to lash out, compassionate when we want to judge. When my heart is closed now, I feel it, and rather than forcing it wide open (cue people pleaser), I honor it for where it’s at today. If it’s feeling closed, maybe there’s a reason. And maybe I need to sit with that reason, or write about it, or talk about it with a friend. And when my heart is open, it can feel so utterly vulnerable, exposing myself to the emotions and expectations of others. Yet I know now that I can always trust myself to say “no” if that’s what my heart wants, and “yes” if that’s what my heart needs. There is no right or wrong when it comes to our hearts, nor is there much we can do to control it. There isn’t a need to either. Every moment in life gives us the opportunity to choose. And only you can know if in this moment your heart needs opening or closing. Love is felt in the heart. Fear is felt in the belly. So even with our hearts open or closed, we can always send that energy back up into love, into peace.
So maybe today, or tomorrow, or the next, you might find some time to simply place your hand over your heart and ask it, “What do you need? Is it rest, or reception? What do you want? Play, or pause? How do you feel? Heavy, or light?” And wherever it is today, or tomorrow, or the next, it’s exactly where it needs to be. Everything in your life happens for you, including the state of your heart. So see if you can welcome that state with curiosity. And with this connection, maybe we’ll start to see that we can slowly begin to expand our consciousness and possibilities, explore our limits and options, and exhale everything your heart has been meaning to let go of. And that’s all your heart asks for.
