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Creating Bridges: The Spiritual & Philosophical |
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Teachings from the Western Mystery Traditions:
The Esoteric "Paths of Return"
An Open Heart is
the Bridge to the Divine
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by Jacquelyn Small
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The heart chakra, located in the center of the chest, links our body and spirit and drives the life force that propels our feeling nature. Intuitively, we know how important the heart is, not just to the physical body, but to the soul. When athletes go all out to win, we say that they “put their hearts into the game.” When we are devastated by a tragedy, we say that we are “heartsick” or “brokenhearted.” When we are moved by a benefactor’s generosity and compassion, we describe that person as being “all heart.”
Words such as these point to a deep truth which becomes more and more clear to us as our emotions heal and we awaken spiritually. The emotional energy of the heart chakra is a bridge that links us to the higher realms where Divine Love continuously spins creation into being. The heart bridges the spiritual and human kingdoms by giving us divine help when a heartbreak hits us. When our hearts are open, we are filled with creative energy and connected to the pure power of the Source. When our hearts are closed, we cannot access the feelings that come from the spiritual realm. We are devoid of inspiration and the bliss of being one’s true Self.
Our heart functions like an artist that paints over our heartbreaking events, leaving on the canvass a less sharp version of the truth, until it fades it out completely with light pastel compassion and understanding. As the bridge between the human personality and the soul, an open heart helps us to heal any split between what is happening in our individual life and what the collective spiritual life is calling us to be or do. An open heart is able to hold “the tension of the opposites” between what is happening to us personally, and its deeper, more universal meaning. We know when we have bridged this gap because we experience a peaceful feeling of warmth and release right in the center of our chest.
For example, say that you’re brokenhearted over the impending loss of a loved one in the process of dying. You feel your grief as a hollowness or emptiness in your chest. Yet, when you open your heart to a feeling of compassion for your loved one’s suffering, your brokenhearted emptiness is held in balance by a feeling of calm warmth toward all who suffer, with a quiet knowing that physical death brings peace to them. Similarly, a feeling of intense anger at a friend’s betrayal can be held in balance by an open-hearted recognition of your gratitude for the lesson you’ve learned as a result of this experience. In the heart, pain and pleasure become one. We hold on. We release. Fullness and emptiness combine and balance.
THE HEART IS WHERE THE PERSONAL AND TRANSPERSONAL MEET
As our sorrows and our joys mix together, the human personality contracts to the smallness of individual pain and expands to encompass the suffering of all people in the world. Pain and joy are neither wallowed in nor sought after; neither despised nor ignored. Mystics describe this “divine tension” as a state of bliss in which the whole Self is engaged. The personal and the collective become the two dualistic bottom sides of a triangle, which is the symbol for creativity. These two apparent opposites combine and when they do, they rise to the top of the triangle, into a third and higher synthesis which is emotional wholeness and freedom. The heart unites while the intellect divides. Heart feeling is the opposite of cool, removed rationality.
When we drop the mask of separateness and speak to another person “heart to heart,” our common bond overrides any sense of “me” and “mine” and links us as fellow travelers on the human journey. The bridge of the heart allows genuine dialogue to take place and grounds us in the absolute truth of the moment. An atmosphere of unconditional love encourages agreement and gentle change so that everybody wins.
Recently, in a family therapy session, I worked with a father and his teen-aged daughter. The daughter had been caught after school smoking marijuana, and the father was so upset with her, he could hardly sit in his chair. The argument escalated as the father shouted his convictions about drugs and the stupidity of kids who use them. The daughter matched his level of distress, shouting back at him about how rigid and moralistic he was not to give her a chance to explain or apologize. The two were so entangled in their rage, I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.
Finally, I was able to tell the father to look into his daughter’s eyes. As he did this, the energy in the room suddenly shifted. His voice choked with tears, he took his daughter’s hand, and said, “I’m not sure I know how to be a good father. I’m just so afraid you’re going to be hurt, or that I’m going to lose you!” When she heard this heartfelt confession, the daughter’s defiance just melted away. In this communion of the heart, the two fell into stillness, their love for each other made so visible and real, and then calmly began working out a plan for resolving their conflict.
Because the heart links our personal experiences of pain, loss, fear, remorse, and grief with the higher or spiritual meaning of human tragedy and suffering, it enables us to move beyond any self-centered reactivity. When our hearts are open, we can respond to another’s pain with true empathy, experiencing both personal compassion and transpersonal objectivity simultaneously. Such expansion into the spiritual dimension reveals the cosmic purpose of personal suffering. We are the only species who suffers, by the way. All species experience pain. Suffering is holding on to pain and contains a mental component of catastrophic thinking.
HEARTWORK IS HOLY WORK
Heartwork is a universal sacred process that move us up the evolutionary ladder toward becoming more fully realized human beings. We gain wisdom and expand as we travel into knowing more of that which already is, with deep compassion for all who travel this world. When the challenges of heartwork hit, we can choose how we respond. We can close down and contract into a stance of self-absorbed grief or angry projection and blame. Or, we can struggle to hold the tension between our personal feelings and the larger meaning of what is happening to us. What is the lesson here? What is my soul wanting to teach me? Or, perhaps, what is my soul wanting to experience?
When you live “from the heart,” you can relax and just be yourself. You have no ax to grind, no position to defend, nothing to hide, no one to impress. Coming from the heart melts your negativity and collapses all one-sided judgments, fanatical beliefs, and any need to be acknowledged as good, or right.
We have a mission to fulfill. Our task is to prepare ourselves so that the Divine can flow through our personal human experience and out into the larger world. Heartwork allows us to enter into a state of grace in which we are available to the deeper meaning of whatever we encounter. Heartwork teaches us to never fear the cycles of death and rebirth. We learn to stay always open to new feelings, new ideas, and new paths. Surrendering to the Divine within and allowing Spirit to guide their lives is truly our natural way of being. Heartwork helps us remove the blocks to this amazing realization.
The key to experiencing a fulfilled life is holding the heart open. A closed heart walls you off from access to the higher dimensions in which the creative imagination, inspiration, and intuition can be accessed. Shaken by the fear of change and death, with a contracted heart you will peer with vacant eyes at a threatening world full of uncried tears, repressed anger, and unexpressed caring. Spirit is unable to flow through repressed feelings that close the heart when we learn to live in surrender.
An open heart is expansive and free. The open heart allows life experiences to work their transformative magic of healing and awakening us. With an open heart, we think as our Creator thinks and feel as our Creator feels. When your heart is unclogged and standing free, you just naturally stride fearlessly through whatever life presents. Spirit blows through you, and you see in your mind images of your new life, new possibilities beyond your current limitations. Seeing life through the eyes of the soul, you become an agent of inspired ideas and free thought. No longer burdened by heavy judgment and the world’s opinions, you remain transparent, so that the winds of Spirit can blow through you unencumbered.
As you practice the work of coming from the heart, one day you will see that you’ve developed the ability to live from the heart in all situations. You will have stepped out from behind the veil of superficiality, no longer afraid to be truly yourself. You know people who behave this way. So do I. They are a joy to be around and model for us the beauty of authentic living.
The following process can help you clear the wounds of the heart and move you toward this more open and courageous approach to life:
Breathing into the Heart
A Meditative Practice You Can Use Daily
Find a place to sit comfortably for awhile, and close your eyes and being focusing on your breath. Gently breathe in and out to the count of seven (at your own pace) . . . . .Feel your breath begin to balance. . . . .And notice how your body begins to let go and relax. . . . . Now, check and see if you have any constriction or tightness surrounding your heart. . . . .And quietly breathe your inbreath into your heart space, feeling the warmth of the breath start to dissipate any tightness or tension collected there. . . . .Do this until you feel the tightness start to relax…..Now, feel this warmth begin to spread out throughout the trunk of your body, until you feel spacious and open. . . . . as though you are empty and transparent. . . . . Allow this feeling to spread now all over your body. . . . .until you feel perfectly relaxed and open.
Now, imagine this heart warmth begins to spread beyond your body into the space around you. . . . .It’s spreading now to all those whom you love. . . . .Feel it now begin to spread throughout our world, to everyone or anyone who needs the touch of a loving heart. . . . .Stay with this feeling until all is perfectly calm.
Come back to this reality, and take some time to integrate this process. And know you can repeat this exercise anytime you feel your heart constricting.
“Each time we drop our masks and meet heart to heart,
we awaken from our sense of separateness,
which is what we are called to do in all things.”
- Ram Dass |
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Jacquelin Small,
Spiritualist, Clairvoyant Psychologist
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JACQUELYN SMALL, LMSW, is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Texas at Austin with degrees in human psychology and clinical social work. She is a licensed non-denominational minister and a licensed psychotherapist who works with both spiritual and psychological concerns.
Jacquelyn is a popular presenter and consultant in academic settings, new-thought churches and new paradigm conferences and mental health settings, known for her easy-going, self-disclosing, humorous style of intimate relating with her audiences.
She has a long history in addiction counselor training, consulting and counseling, and trains all kinds of health professionals in the emerging field of spiritual psychology. She is one of the teachers who has been selected by Unity Church for their national TV ministry. She served as the Director of Training for the Texas Commission on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse for nine years, and served on the adjunct faculty of the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Stanford, California for four years.
Jacquelyn has authored eight books about soul-based psychology and the process of personal transformation, some of which have become classics in the counseling and consciousness fields. She is represented by the Tom Grady Agency. She has many audio tapes as well through Eupsychia's publishing company, Eupsychian Press.
Her published books are:
* Becoming Naturally
Therapeutic (Bantam)
* Transformers, the
Artists of Self-Creation
(DeVorss & Co.)
* Awakening in Time
(Eupsychian Press)
* Embodying Spirit (HarperSanFrancisco
/Eupsychian)
* Rising to the Call with
co-author Mary Yovino (DeVorss & Co.)
* Becoming a Practical Mystic (Quest Books)
* Psyche's Seeds-The 12 Sacred Principles of Soul-Based Psychology (Tarcher/Putnam
/Penguin)
Jacquelyn is a regular columnist for Science of Mind Magazine and is featured often in other magazines. Among the many conferences and programs for which Jacquelyn has keynoted or presented programs, include:
* The Association for Humanistic Psychology
* Association for Transpersonal Psychology
* Omega Institute
including their Body &
Soul Conferences
* Tracor and Texaco, Inc.
* Church of Religious Science Annual
Conference
* Great Lakes Addiction Conference
* Whole Life Expo
* The College of William & Mary's Annual Addictions Conference
* Most major universities
in the United States
* U.S. Department of Heath, Education and Welfare
* Omega Institute's
Body & Soul Conferences
* New Age Magazine's Bahama Teaching Cruise
The ConferenceWorks!
She has been featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show, America's Talking, Wisdom Television and Radio, New Dimensions Radio, NPR's People's Pharmacy and a CNN's series on Alternative Healing and continues to make regular guest appearances for radio and television.
Jacquelyn Small serves on the Advisory Board of the International Psychosynthesis Association, the National Council on Codependence, and The Holistic Alliance of Professional Practitioners, Entrepreneurs and Networkers, Inc.
She is the Founding Director of Eupsychia (pronounced u-si'-ki-a) Institute which means "good psyche" or "well being" in Greek, a not-for-profit professional training and healing program in Soul-Based Psychology and Integrative Breathwork. With her staff of dedicated, experienced spiritual therapists, she conducts workshop intensives throughout North America on a regular basis.
Eupsychia Institute
PO Box 151960
Austin, TX 78715-1960
(800) 546-2795
Local (512) 327-2795
Fax (512) 327-6043
eupsychia1@aol.com
Contact Webmistress
www.eupsychia.com
New Event!
Healing Into Wholeness:10 Day Wellness retreat For Emotional Healing and Spiritual Awakening with Jacquelyn Small
June 16- 26
Central Texas Hill Country (near Austin)
Contact:
Eupsychia 800-546-2795
eupsychia.com/well.html
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