Opening up to love becomes a gateway to emotional well-being.

The heart is a gateway into our feeling nature and largely expresses our emotional body—an innate part of us and our overall wellness.

The reality is that our feelings are a barometer for all that we’re experiencing within and around ourselves. That being said, we can assimilate how certain thoughts or circumstances make us feel to better gauge what’s happening in our lives right now.

Remaining open when so many of us have been conditioned to close off instead is raw, vulnerable and challenging.

It’s difficult to open up to the underlying loving expression that exists in even the most difficult of situations we’re dealt. We can easily be consumed by fear or anger, for example, which are also natural and equally deserve their expression.

It’s taken me two and a half years to open back up to my last lover and it still pains me because of the amount of love that still exists between us. Despite how hard it is to let go, I choose to keep that door open and let her love in as well, without attaching myself to any ideals that we’ll ever be together again.

Eventually, knowing that health arises from peace of mind and heart, we must choose to allow that pain in through the gateway of our hearts so we may transmute these energies while gaining new insights into loving in a healthier fashion.

It often starts with platonic love, appreciation and detachment without expectation that we’ll receive the same in return.

There are so many times that an infatuation left me wondering for days, weeks and sometimes months about the potential between someone else and myself only to realize eventually that the magic lies in loving them and myself unconditionally instead of expecting anything more.

Starting with ourselves, we eventually stop seeking love, attention or affection externally and instead learn to receive—to allow the expression of universal love to flow through us.

We learn to love ourselves—sometimes only one ounce at a time but something deep within the caverns of our hearts whispers for us to open that door to love.

A sign of loving ourselves is that we can let go more easily and still love others for whom they are from a perspective that might otherwise be distorted if we’re simply longing for, or infatuated, over them.

Again, if we find ourselves seeking acceptance from others, it’s likely we are closed off and we’re reminded that we’ve somehow blocked the flow of love to pass through us uninterrupted.

When we become that conduit for love to flow through us naturally, we suddenly become that object of affection or attention that others will surely appreciate and be attracted to.

Letting go of the fear that love hurts while accepting that pain is inherently natural and a part of our experience helps us identify with the origins of such fears and we can then work towards overcoming them.

Appreciation plays a large part in one’s ability to love without fear especially if we’re able to appreciate who we are ourselves absent judgement.

I’ve learned to appreciate the women who have touched my heart in many different ways yet I know there’s no chance of anything beyond friendship.

Sometimes the truth is that we have some serious soul work to do on ourselves and that being apart from what we want is actually the best thing we could receive from an abundant and loving universe. Again, acceptance and time helps us discover the clarity to help us transcend and move forward.

In order to do so we must not only open these doors, we must be willing to pass through them as well and shedding in this way can be incredibly uncomfortable but it’s necessary for overall growth.

We often want something to happen despite the universe insisting on what needs to happen in order for necessary soul growth to occur. Remaining open to suggestion and possibilities that might still be obscured gives us a real chance at availing our emotional nature to the right people instead of those who might seek to abuse such exhibition.

Safe boundaries are crucial along with practicing discretion or discernment because there are still people out there who would seek to tarnish an open heart and their sensitive wounds. Trusting in our own intuition will help guide us through the labyrinth of our heart’s journey.

Reflection is crucial to understanding who we truly are and whether we’re really emotionally open or available to the kind of love we’re receiving in our lives. It requires intensive work on the self to emerge from the depths of self-disparity and persecution from and towards others.

This personifies our inner knowing that if we trust and act faithfully, no matter how well disguised our fate is we know our intentions are always in-play—working on our behalf.

 

 

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Author: Thayne Ulschmid

Editor: Travis May

Photo: Art & Music Woo Hoo/Flickr