So how do we keep the heart energies open, balanced, and moving? By taking care of the other four energies - those of the kidneys, liver, spleen, and lungs. Those organs receive and interact, enabling the heart energies to give. That means that if your inner needs aren't met through the other four energy systems, your heart won't be able to pour out love.
Feeling gratitude and reverence is another way to keep the heart energies flowing. Yet, because we work hard for what we achieve, have, and eat, we tend to feel entitled, rather than grateful, for all the things in our lives. When we are able to feel and express gratitude for what we have, things get even better and creativity in all forms abounds. Being grateful keeps us open, receptive, and full of joy, and let us give ourselves completely to life.
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Each day, first thing in the morning, I take a few minutes to connect with life and express the energies of my heart. Just before l get out of bed, when my awareness starts coming into focus, my natural tendency is to rush into the concerns of the day and forget the real reason for living. So, before I allow myself to get out of bed, I connect with the inherent joy of life. Keeping my eyes closed, I quiet my mind and bring my awareness deep inside my chest and my heart. Doing this for just a few moments puts the rest of the day into proper perspective and, no matter what deadlines I have or what dramas arise, I continue to experience the joy of being alive. When To Fall Pregnant
Many women find keeping a gratitude journal to be another way to tap into feelings of love and appreciation. It's as simple as writing lists of things that you're grateful for: a person, a day, your work or family, or even your current surroundings. Start with easy topics and then see if you can find things that you're grateful for in more challenging relationships. Remember to consider the basic things that are so easy to take for granted. For example, where would we be without running water and electricity? On days when you feel less connected to your heart energies, looking through your journal will remind you of the many things that you are grateful for, enabling you to easily reconnect.
Body movement is another way to align energy. As discussed earlier, dancing lets you move to your own song and know your true inner nature. Dancing also balances the heart energies and helps you to live with excitement, passion, affection, and enthusiasm. When I conducted a retreat in India a couple of years ago, in fact, a yogi told us, "Women open up through dance." So move to your own beat. Dance into your temple.
In addition to dancing, try to be mindful about the many types of other movements you make throughout the day, and express and take pleasure from them whether it's painting, playing a guitar, walking, working out, biking, dancing, planting a flower garden, or making dinner. Our bodies were meant to move and every movement is an opportunity for pleasure.
To balance your fire energies and find stability and calm, it is also important to stay nourished and eat healthfully. Drink plenty of liquids and avoid overindulging in hot, spicy, or drying foods such as fiery Mexican, Indian, or Thai foods. Avoid coffee, caffeine, natural or artificial stimulants, and, of course, tobacco. Eat foods that nourish the blood and the yin, such as mung beaus and beefs. Several supplements, such as omega-3 fatty acids, pycnogenol, grape seed, pine bark, and bilberry extracts, can support smooth blood flow. Talk to a naturopath or other person knowledgeable in herbs and supplements to explore what might help you.
It is also important to take time for yourself, to go within for solitude and restitution, and to preserve your boundaries. This includes not feeling obligated to take on other people's burdens and refusing to let anyone else tell you how to live your life. Every day, make time for rest and deep relaxation. Practice the meditative breathing exercises taught throughout this blog, especially before going to bed. During the day, practice expressing yourself and speaking your truth.
From your sense of the Divine, practice loving unconditionally. Ordinary love is rooted in desire and satisfaction, but divine love has no boundaries and no conditions - nothing stands in its way. There is a difference between unconditional love and need. For example, if you can't love your husbund or partner when he betrays you, that isn't love; it's need, need for another person's love in order to feel whole. Need is based in the other organs, not the heart. Need is an inward movement; love is an outward expression, like forgiveness. Yet, love isn't only something we exchange, it is what we are: and when we know this, we radiate it in all our encounters, even to those we don't particularly like. When To Fall Pregnant
Most love in this world is conditional and requires love in return. One of the most conditional relationships is that of the traditional husband-and-wife arrangement: I will love you and spend my life with you, but you in return must love me and be devoted to me and agree with me and support my desires and wishes. Love between a parent and child is the next most conditional relationship: I will love you and take cave of you. but you in turn must love me and respect me and do what I tell you to do; you must receive gratefully all the love I give you, all the education and opportunities I bestow upon you, and you must perform and become a respectable young lady or gentleman in return.
But true unconditional love requires nothing in return, not even consideration. The trick to this: you have to love yourself unconditionally as well. When you realize that your longing for love can always be satisfied by the devine you, it releases your dependence on others and your need to control them in order to feel good. You may still need to express emotions about the behavior of those close to you, and adjust your own, but these actions do not alter the state of love. If you'd like to love purely, ask yourself if there is anyone for whom you can't feel love.
Write down his or her name and journal about the feelings you have surrounding him or her. There is usually another emotion like fear, anger, worry, jealousy, or grief that inhibits the ability to love. Pray for or meditate on this person once per day for two weeks, asking that he or she be forgiven, and that all good things come their way. And then, see if you can send them love.
I try to parent my children by example, not through instruction. My children see me living my own passion - I have released them of the burden of having me live through them. I give them limits and try to guide them and be there for them, but I don't feel I own them and I do not need them to perform for me. What they accomplish will be their own and whatever it is, I will be proud of them. When I am anchored and healthy I am able to extend my love and goodwill without expecting return. And they can live freely. Children naturally want to do well for themselves, their friends, parents, and teachers. They learn a deep sense of independence when they follow role models rather than act out fear of not meeting someone else's expectations. And they approach life with an inner directive, an inherent sense of responsibility for their own actions and consequences.
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Relationships with animals are a wonderful way to stimulate feelings of unconditional love. Petting a cat or dog can immediately flood you with love. Nature can also do this: take time to appreciate how the wind blows through the trees, the way the air smells after a rain shower. Appreciating fully and purely is the same as unconditional love, allowing you to connect with life and joy.
Susan was a sweet, authentic woman who enjoyed the life she was leading, sharing it with two cats and a dog. Then she fell in love and married a man who was the only son of Greek immigrants, who felt it was his duty to produce a child to carry on the family name. But this wasn't Susan's path - her body, mind, and soul rejected participating in the process. When she came to a retreat, Susan had suffered through many in vitro procedures and had not become pregnant. She had, however, developed a lifethreatening autoimmune disease.
As I worked with Susan, she discovered she had adopted a false identity for her husband and that she was not living her own truth. Her real passion was not to mother a child but to care for animal habitats in the wild. As she came into the strength of her own intention, Susan separated from her husband and found great joy on her new path. She also rekindled her relationship with her sister, who shared Susan's interest in working with animals. Susan also eventually rekindled her relationship with her husband, who found during the separation that Susan was his true love and that he belonged at her side, rather than meeting the obligations that his parents had laid on him. As she healed her life issues, she was able to wean herself off steroids as her autotmmunity went into remission. To learn more, you can check out When To Fall Pregnant.
