Tag Archives: Open Heart

22

Open or Closed?

Leave a comment

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

 

22

Inner Security

Leave a comment
One might look for a mighty castle to provide safety.

Life seems to be a maze of things we develop fear about experiencing. We are continuously looking for security in our day-to-day experience. Sometimes we look for relationships to provide a safe place to be ourselves. In other moments we see money as a security blanket against the world’s troubles. We create a constant state of stress and worry about what might happen and never know the joy and power of the moments we are in right now. To live in this way will push people to block good things from entering life and keep you on the treadmill of unhappiness. To stop the cycle, a person needs to start to look inside for items that are always there, always accessible, and always positive. These things are inside each of us, and turning your focus to them will provide as much security as you can expect in this life.

No matter what we do or how well we plan, the truth is. We have very little control over our external security, and we have total control over our inner security. To lack the ability to find safety inside is the definition of insecurity. No matter what happens outside, be secure about your reactions and feelings. Here are some areas your awareness can go to find security daily.

Find The Moment

Too often, too many people choose to live their conscious moments worrying about the future or regretting the past. Ignoring the most precious moment they have, the present moment. Being mindful of where you are right now and becoming aware of the situations, people, and things in your current reality are the only thing you have. The past is recollected the way we think of it, and the future is nothing but a fantasy. It hasn’t happened yet and may never occur the way you think.

Getting into the moment is as simple as being aware of what you are doing and living from that perspective. Sometimes we are so routine-oriented we make the majority of our choices through subconscious programming. Making conscious choices and noticing the moment is a power we have at our fingertips in each moment. There is significant security in this because the moment will always be the only thing there is, so making the most of it and finding joy in it makes a lot of sense. This appreciation comes from the inside, and you have it available to you all the time. It can be hard to see if your focus is “out there.”

Be Open

Another way to be secure is to be open-hearted toward the world. Too often choose to separate ourselves from others because they are different from us. But we all are the same, and by practicing an open heart, we can foster security of connection with all people because we are all connected. We all have the same blood in our veins and breath the same air. We have thoughts, take actions, and love one another. So many see fear when they look at individuals who are different from themselves, and it causes people to withdraw.

When you open your heart to others and life, you realize you are all in the same production, doing your best to play the role you have been assigned. Don’t waste time judging someone else; invest your time getting to know someone from a different station in life. Send love to everyone, especially those who are negative. They need it the most. Open your heart, and security will be yours.

Accept Yourself

Most people see the flaws in themselves quite easily. We compare ourselves to the images we see in the mainstream media or even on social media and pick out the ways we don’t quite measure up. Rather than seeing our uniqueness as a strength or an unusual defining characteristic, we dislike ourselves and hate that part of us. We have to accept what we are. It doesn’t mean we can’t improve and change. If you don’t get yourself now, you won’t receive yourself in a month or a year or five years when you have made all these changes.

Bring your awareness to the things about you, which are lovely and unique and make you a one-of-a-kind experience for the world because each of us has the luxury of being this. There has never been another person who looks like you, talks like you, or has your skillset throughout time. It has never happened before, and it will never happen again. Too often, people fight against who they are and what they look like because nobody is perfect. It is in our imperfections that many of our strengths lie. There is absolute security in the person you are. Embrace that person and accept them, strengths, flaws, and all.

Awareness and Appreciation

You are an infinite, creative, unique, and inventive living on this planet. Start to use your awareness to see all of the things already in your life, which are lovely, and then take a short moment to appreciate them for just being themselves in the scope of the world. Your awareness is the connection to your attention and focuses on what you are experiencing. Knowledge stops you from taking things for granted and allows opportunities for growth from passing by you.

Appreciation is a door you can open, which will bring more into your life. Are you a person who always sees the bad? Or can you find the good in any situation? All people have a choice about where they fall on this continuum. The majority of the thoughts you entertain and believe to be true will dominate your energy and the life you experience. Focusing on more positive things will allow more of those things to enter your life—a choice.

Unconditional Love

This emotion is the rarest of things because society has conditioned us to expect something in return for what we create or give to others. Putting your focus on the love you have for others is a great place to seek security, but the best is how you choose to love yourself. Nobody is perfect, but all of us are entirely constructed to be exactly who we are. It is too easy to stop and put awareness of your flaws rather than your talent and greatness. It is not arrogance or avarice to be proud of what you do well or what you love about yourself. To want more of these  things is a natural progression,

To offer unconditional love to the world or someone else is tough to do. The ego always tells you to judge someone for their harmful actions and punish them by not loving them anymore. It happens every day worldwide; love is lost and replaced with vengeance, anger, and even hate. Letting these emotions and thoughts dominate your mind and reality will harm you, not the person you are angry at and hate at that moment. You can love someone and keep them at a safe distance. Choose to love, no matter what, and see how it changes your life and gives you power.

Learn to focus and awareness of these things and develop the inner security that comes with them. There is little we can do to avoid the pitfalls and challenges that come to us externally, but we can build a security net inside ourselves, which is totally in our control.

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.– Buddha

 

21

Security

Leave a comment

All of the things we do every day are to find true safety and security. The relationships we build, the jobs we work, the friends we make, the places we go, everything we do is build this illusion of being safe and secure.  It is only an illusion.  No matter how hard we work to establish a life with no danger, we are all continually susceptible to suffering.  So, where do true safety and security come from?  It can never come from outside of you; it can only come from the inside of you. This is the only place it can exist and grow in any real way for any of us. The human experience is full of pitfalls and ugliness, along with the magic and beauty we can see every day. It is time you started looking at the things stopping you from seeing what is stopping you.  It is your limiting beliefs.

Overcoming Limiting Beliefs

Our beliefs have been formed over the experience of our lives. As young people, we look to our environment to see where we fit in and survive and thrive. We look at our role models and listen to the lessons we are taught.  We also are very good at feeling our way and where we fit.  When we find a situation causing pain or trauma, we create a limiting belief about it.  Pushing trauma away, hiding it inside of us, denying the suffering it causes and the pain you feel is creating a mess from your childhood that will affect you for the rest of your life until you make an effort to deal with your emotions around it.

The only way to overcome these childhood traumas is to learn to accept your pain. Whatever it was, no matter how big it was to you and your development, accept it. That doesn’t mean you approve of it, or like it, or forgive anyone for things they did. It simply means to accept it happened, you felt how you felt, it is over, you are still here.  Accepting it will take power away from that trauma, and you move past a hurdle of pain you have been carrying all of your life.  You will be able to move past it into a positive relationship, career, and life. Seems like a good deal to me.  Accept the experiences you have had in your life.

Building Real Security

Moving into a structure of real security inside yourself takes effort and conscious thought, but anyone can do it and become invincible.  First, be present at the moment at hand.  All we have is right now, don’t spend time waxing poetic about the past or worrying about the future.  Think about the future but don’t build an attachment to what has to happen.  Thinking of things you want to accomplish and taking organized steps toward these goals works. Obsessing and worrying about all the things you think can go wrong or must happen will not.

Accept yourself for the person you are. Just like you accept your past, you have to do the same with yourself. Wishing you were something or someone else is a slap in the face to you and the greatness you have.  Too many people look at their flaws and obsess about fixing what is wrong rather than looking at what is right and building on that solid and powerful foundation.  Successful people don’t deal from a place of lack, they work from abundance, and we all have abundance.  Open your heart to yourself and all that you have to offer.

Appreciate Life

Look at the world around you and celebrate what you see that is good.  There are always reminders of how great the universe is.  Sometimes we get so wrapped up with our own thinking we get run over by them.  Rather than appreciating the rain, we complain about it.  When it is sunny, we say it is too bright.  Look around you and see the wonder that is always right there. Feel a connection to it and celebrate it.  For example, you drive down the road and move past trees, lakes, birds flying, bright blue skies dotted with puffy white clouds, all pretty miraculous, but we don’t see them.  Appreciate it all, life is a short trip, and it will be over before you know it.  Don’t waste your time being self-centered and a prisoner of your thoughts.

Learning to have unconditional love for yourself and life all around you is one of the most difficult things to do.  We are constantly getting hurt, emotionally, physically, and spiritually leading to an almost constant healing process.  But as we heal, we learn, grow and become a different and most often better person.  Being yourself and giving that to the world is a true gift. Some people will break your trust and reject who you are. That is their problem, not yours.  You are one of a kind and incredible.  Be you, and don’t worry about being accepted by negative people with small minds and smaller conscious thought patterns.  Be the great you that you were destined to be!

Safety and security come through this path.  You can build huge walls around yourself, but they won’t keep you safe in the end. Only being yourself, being vulnerable, and accepting all of the things about yourself can bring security.  To do anything else is a definition of insecurity, and it is tough to be happy and healthy through a vision of insecurity.

Take action on your own vision.  Your emotions are a clue to what you need to work on. How you feel in certain situations will lead you to the issues in you that need acceptance and a place inside you so that you can move past them into the best version of yourself.

  1. “Absorb what is useful, Discard what is not, Add what is uniquely your own.” — Bruce Lee.
  2. “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” — Viktor Frankl.
  3. “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” — George Bernard Shaw.
  4. “The only journey is the journey within.” — Rainer Maria Rilke
  5. “They must often change who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.” – Confucius
  6. “We must become the change we want to see.” — Mahatma Gandhi
  7. “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” — Will Durant
  8. “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
  9. “What we think, we become.” – Buddha
  10. “Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” — Napoleon Hill.