Playing devil’s advocate for a moment, let’s imagine what would happen if you simply ignored the pain and heartache and pushed it away, carrying on with life as though nothing had happened?
It’s not pretty.
With consistent suppression and lack of attention, the trauma would retreat inwards, closing your heart and shutting you down. A little part of you inside would die. Using this clumsy method to avoid your heart’s wounding also becomes habitual, and you would continue to die, seemingly tiny little unseen deaths inside for days, months and years to come, until life reflected right back at you this dysfunctional internal state. To put it bluntly, you just start to go numb. A dystopian future indeed, and this really is the rub;
THE MORE YOU DENY YOUR HEART BREAK, THE MORE PAIN YOU WILL CONTINUE TO EXPERIENCE.
Now, in contrast, let’s look at what happens when we courageously keep our hearts open, and dive into the heartbreak that results from life’s insults. We feel overwhelming grief and sorrow, and through feeling it, we no longer say ‘no’ to our hearts experience.
This is a bold act of self-love.
We turn towards, and not away from our heart, and, as a result, we turn towards life itself. We are sending the message to ourselves that no matter what we feel, it’s OK. Amidst the discomfort, we are OK.
I came out of an emotionally abusive relationship years ago and crawled home to my parents. I collapsed emotionally and physically and had some sort of breakdown. I was worn out and heartbroken. I cried and cried and cried. Ok; sometimes those tears weren’t particularly constructive, and full of self-pity rather than genuine heartache, but I truly embraced the feelings and the situation I was in. I honestly thought I would die from the heart break. But I didn’t. It took about three months for all the tears to dry up, which they did.
There is a truth that it is so helpful to know about our emotions;
EMOTIONS, JUST LIKE LIFE, ARE IN A PERMANENT STATE OF FLUX.
You know those amazing times in your life that you didn’t want to end but they did? The same applies to the tough ones. Pain, like the joy of life, being in essence a transitory thing, will always pass. This is inevitable, and if you open your heart to everything, over and over again throughout your life, you will come to deeply understand this truth and to embody it. You will become a beacon of open-hearted light, shining the light of self-acceptance over all that you encounter, inspiring others to do the same.
There’s just one last thing I want to mention. When you experience all the colours of your heart, your vibration of self-acceptance and self-love sends a message to the Universe, and this is what it says in response: