Living With An Open Heart
“Your visions will become clear only when you look into your own heart.
Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens. ”
I have a head full of blog content ideas that I have been gathering throughout different lived moments in the past months but I wanted to find a title for the last blog of this year that pretty much sums up my year lived in 2024 and the principle teaching it brought me. Who knows, maybe it resonate with you. And in any case it does not at all, well, then maybe it serves as one of many life stories on this planet. :) I truly and deeply believe that life is a school with different assignments through which you have the great opportunity to discover your true self. In case you don’t understand what I am talking about, I am referring to your real essence buried under multiple layers of a false created personality that most of us identify with as the “Me” or the “Ego” - your name, your job, your status, your nationality, your gender, your beliefs, etc. A personality that you believe is you through conditioning and programing in your childhood and all those year’s growing up in a certain environment unconsciously absorbing beliefs, opinions and facts that eventually become your truth, who you believe you are and the way you see other human beings and the world. You probably had to introduce yourself in different occasions for a job interview or social gatherings and when you were asked “Who are you?” How would you usually respond? You only respond in the way and to the extent you think you know yourself but truth is, you probably don’t unless you have done some internal self-exploration. Let’s look at the following:
Try to explain me when I ask you the next question: “No, who are you really behind your identity of the man/woman you think you are?” Without all of this prior information about your identity. What are you in your essence? I almost certainly bet with you that only few people on this planet sincerely question themselves to the point where they go beyond the already known, the masks and what is apparent to the world.
And this is where we enter the door of our hearts.
I have started my self-discovery journey when I was so depressed without knowing it consciously. Being married to a wonderful man in a stable life but profoundly unhappy with myself and what I was living. I was so unhappy that I started making decisions based on what my heart dictated me without rationally understanding one bit of what I was doing and why I was doing it. I didn’t know myself. I didn’t know who I was, what I wanted and what I didn’t want. I followed societal norms and expectations. I didn’t have my own opinions and what I thought was a happy and fulfilling life. I simply did not trust myself.
In my desperation for answers I had no other choice than to give myself over to this yet unknown and frightening process. I was confused and frustrated because I didn’t understand what was happening with myself, I thought I was an ungrateful woman. But in these moments I started feeling a strong force in me that was guiding me, almost as if it took control over me and my decisions. I felt pushed to follow it, I needed to figure things out on my own.
We are not taught that there is a heart that is wiser and more intelligent than anything else inhabiting this earth. Because it’s not just an organ pumping life through our bodies. It’s the reminder that life happens here and now and can stop tomorrow. It houses an ancient wisdom called intuition that knows so much better than our brain what is good and right for us and where we belong. Sadly, the human race has disconnected from this innate intelligence when power, control and status started to take control over the human mind, like a parasite only leading them to suffering and destruction.
We forgot the power of our heart and our divinity residing in this place where we once belonged and come from. We started to normalize living in fear and stop trusting ourselves, we accepted the world’s rules and truth. We closed our hearts, the door to our soul - our essence. We started to believe that happiness, joy, love and freedom can only be found in the external world. We were taught to obey the societal structures and norms and understood quickly the consequences of “disobedience”, thinking for ourselves and doing things our way was not how things worked anymore. Punishment and withdrawal of love was used to control. We learned that in order to receive love, affection and recognition we needed to follow the rules. We unlearned to value, accept and love ourselves without needing others. We slowly but surely closed our doors to our heart to not have to experience pain and suffering in the way we had to experience it in our past. We chose that it was better to fit in and conform even though it meant to live in a constant state of survival, provoking desolation and the risks of different mental and physical disorders and pathologies.
So, I ask you… is this a well-lived, free and fulfilled life that you wish for yourself and your loved ones? To reject yourself in order to fit in where there predominantly rules a sense of self-interest and narcissism due to a society who primarily lives in a sleeping state and narcosis? To avoid the famous “what are they going to say if I say/do this and that…?” I believe it has come the time to choose a new path. A path to more love, more connection, more acceptance and especially a much higher level of consciousness.
I never really openly shared this part of my personal life but today I clearly see that I was deeply traumatized by an unhealed mother wound. I didn’t understand why I was so angry, sad and frustrated on the inside for years until I decided to go to therapy. My neuropsychologist told me I had a profound unhealed wound with my mother. I rejected this statement in the beginning because in my head and narrative I believed I had a happy childhood and it took me time to recognize and accept that I felt this deep anger because I felt alone, unloved and abandoned and where it originated from. I didn’t learn how to love, value and accept myself for who I was. How could I? I didn’t know who I was. I wasn’t taught this in my upbringing with parents who didn’t heal their own emotional wounds and made peace with their past. So how would I be able to do it any better with my own life? This is very important to mention that I do not blame my parents anymore for the emotional pain caused because I know they weren’t aware of it, they didn’t intentionally want to hurt me. They did the best they could with what they had. I am thankful for everything they gave me and did for me and forgive what they couldn’t give me. Because thinking and feeling this way is liberating and shows me everything I have learned and how much I have grown in the past years.
However, I was very afraid to open up my heart and looking at my own vulnerability. I was terrified of being hurt, I didn’t know how it felt to love deeply because I didn’t know how to love myself, set boundaries and take care of my own emotional world & needs. I had my version of “Love” but today I understand that it was what I knew and it was very limited. It was simply what I knew growing up and it seemed normal, it was the reality of things. I didn’t question it. There was no difference between conditional and unconditional love, there was love when you behaved and punishment when you didn’t follow the rules. And this is how emotionally immature adults and narcissists are produced in this world and without deep inner healing work - perpetuating the cycle for more traumatized generations to come. More pain, more suffering, more problems and more instability in this world.
I would lie if I said that this year had been like any other. Every year has its own craziness and uniqueness but looking back on the past months it ripped me open, it confronted me with the fear of being abandoned, feeling the loneliness inside of me, the fear of feeling emotions, feeling myself, looking at the truth of things, recognizing my self-sabotaging behavior, being honest with the stories I was telling myself in my head. Nevertheless, the most terrifying thing of all was opening up to loving deeply and unconditionally someone else but also myself while I was afraid of losing and being hurt again at the same time.
We have the choice of the path we go down in every moment of our lives. Not so much when we are children but yes, when we become adults and can choose differently from what we have experienced in the past. But I can assure you, running away from the inevitable, your pain and your fears will only send you more of the same. The only solution to overcome your own inner war is to relive what you have been avoiding and shutting away all this time. True freedom and fulfillment is found when you dare to walk the path of your own darkness.
This is where you will find your truth and your liberation of a life full of fear and negativity. It’s not the world who needs to change for you to feel better, it’s you who needs to change and take responsibility for your pain. Imagine if we all stopped looking at ourselves as victims and started taking responsibility for our lives, the way healthy and mature adults are supposed to confront the Ups and Downs of life. How different would the world be? How much more loving and full of light would it become?
The world is the direct reflection of unresolved trauma within each and every single human being. If we all went to therapy we would recognize that we are all hurt children on the inside looking for safety and a place we feel genuinely loved and accepted for who we are. Taking off our masks and showing our authentic self. Recently I read somewhere something very important that was a reminder for myself again:
“How about we start to give ourselves what we expect from others?”
Would there be more open hearts? I don’t doubt it a second. :)
