When Your Heart Hurts Too Much Too Open

What do you do when your heart hurts too much to open?

Someone asked a great question today about opening their heart. They recognized that after too many traumatic experiences, feeling was too difficult and their heart shut down (emotionally) for protection.

I could completely relate to this because I've been in that kind of emotional pain, where I felt numb and unfeeling. That is exactly what it was for me—a protection mechanism.

While it is scary to feel, the irony is that it is also scary not to feel. Limping along through life without feeling is like walking in paradise without ever being able to really enjoy the rich colors and scents of the flowers. You can see them, but you don't really take them in.

In order to feel the beauty and wonder of the Divine pulsing through life, our hearts have to be open. And some part of us, knows this. So how do we address the fear and open our hearts?

Here some questions I was guided to ask myself many years ago that seemed to help me find the courage to unlock my heart. See if they resonate for you.

1. When your heart has been really open in the past, what were you experiencing that allowed it to open so widely?

2. When did your heart first shut down? What was happening in your life?

3. What are you most afraid would happen if you allowed your heart to open wider?

4. How might your life change for the positive if you allowed yourself to feel greater love?

5. How might the positive aspects of experiencing love allow you to find greater compassion for your fear of it? And then what would happen to your fear in the arms of your compassion?

Then I did, what many of us do when we want to find our feelings again. I held that little wounded one inside of me. I found ways to love the little one inside of me, and through that love I patched the gaping holes of woundedness that seemed to be running my life.

As I became proficient at holding her, I found my compassion for myself. Because compassion is the great healer, I eventually was able to find the same compassion for others.

Eventually the heart yearns for more and compassion leads to passion for self, others, concepts, life and the Divine itself.

Feelings are doorways to the Divine. That has been my experience.

How about you? Do you have some thoughts about what you have done or do when it feels like your heart hurts too much to open it?