When something happens in your life, do you open up your heart to it? Or do you close your heart down and resist the reality of the situation? All of our choices come down to this simple distinction. Your decision in this area will determine your general mood and overall happiness. To close yourself off or open yourself up to life.
Closed
Think of a time when you closed your heart down. It could be a very justified situation like someone hurt you, and you closed that experience off because it hurt you in the past. Then when anything arises which reminds you of that actual situation. However, it makes a lot of sense to want to avoid these things that hurt us 
once. Closing your heart, mind, and soul to them doesn’t stop them from existing. It only prevents you from dealing with them. And, of course, things don’t go away. If you resist them, they only linger in the background and do their damage later.
Being closed will feel contrary to you because you are stopping the natural movement of energy through you. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. So if you have energy moving through it and you close down and repress it, there will be consequences. Resistance will lead to feeling bad and have you operating with low vibrations. Spending all that energy reflecting and ignoring things can make you worn out and tired. There is a better alternative.
Open Up Buttercup
The best practice is to learn to keep your heart open, regardless of how you view the situations you see. That doesn’t mean you accept poor treatment or unhealthy conditions for you. Instead, you healthily deal with them, allow disappointment, pain, or suffering to move through you, and then let it go and move on. One of the negative things about being closed is at least a part of you stays in a very unhealthy place for all time. What do you change by doing this? 
Nothing. Open up your heart and accept whatever is happening. If a relationship ends, it is no good to pine away for the past. Thank them for the lessons, absorb the learning, let go of the pain, and move on.
When you are open, your energy is naturally optimistic, and you will be functioning at your peak. You will feel good about yourself, and your point will be helpful for all you come in contact with. Choosing to be open brings a high energy level, which will make accomplishing your goals more manageable, and you will feel better about life and your part in making it a worthwhile experience.
It is a Choice
To be open or closed is a choice, and it is a fundamental decision you make every day of your life. You can boil it down to this simple statement. Choose to be open and prepare to be happy. Choose to be closed……… prepare to be unhappy. Nobody else can make this choice for you, and only you are responsible for what you decide.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.”
– Mark Twain
“It does take great maturity to understand that the opinion we are arguing for is merely the hypothesis we favor, necessarily imperfect, probably transitory, which only very limited minds can declare a certainty or a truth.”
– Milan Kundera
“Begin challenging your assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows to the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in.”
– Alan Alda
“By all means, let’s be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains pop out.”
– Richard Dawkins
“Let yourself be open, and life will be easier. A spoon of salt in a glass of water makes the water undrinkable, and a spoon of salt in a lake is almost unnoticed.”
– Buddha Siddhartha
