Trusting With An Open Heart

As many of you know, recently Petra and I went on vacation where we were provided the opportunity to swim with wild dolphins.  It was a great experience although much more would unfold than merely swimming with dolphins.  Our trip involved a lot of personal work and growth.  We participated in various exercises intent on diving deeper into ourselves.  Often times when we slow down from our busy lives, take a breath, and look within ourselves we may find things that are difficult to swallow. 

We may notice things we have done and said to others that we are not proud of.  Some of us have felt victimized and abused.  Some of us live in guilt and shame for the things we have experienced.  We may see ourselves as stupid, not good enough, or foolish.  Many of us pass judgment on others because we do not realize how badly we feel about ourselves.

When we are in these dark places we lose who we are.  We forget that we are greater than what we perceive ourselves to be.  We think that we are the small, weak, little person that we often feel inside.  When we feel small we feel fearful.  Fear of what will happen next which is really fear of the future.  Our thoughts spin out of control and into a downward spiral of worse case scenarios and self limiting beliefs.  Every time this occurs our bodies respond in a variety of fashions.  Our throat may tighten to where we feel that we have no voice and cannot speak up for ourselves.  How many times have you felt disempowered because you did not speak your truth? 

Our breathing becomes shallow as we claim less and less of our life due to our playing small.  In every tradition there is mention of breath as life.  Breath is called many things: prana, life force, and chi.  Without breath life would cease to exist.  When we do not breathe deeply we do not breathe in life to its fullest.   If we take a look deeper we may realize that some facet of our life may cause us to breathe more rapidly and shallow.  It is well to remember that every condition, from cancer to depression, with established chronicity all have one thing in common – shallow breath.  How many times have you felt that you could no longer take a deep breath?  In what situation are you not claiming your life?

One more thing that we should take note of is our heart.  When we live in these places of lack, fear, and judgment, it is impossible to express an open heart. It may have happened when we were very young or it may have happened in our journey to early adulthood, but somewhere along the way our open heart was hurt and we decided to close it.  Over time we have become used to this feeling of having a closed heart.  We excuse it by saying well that is just the way I am or that is just not me to do something like that.  How many times have you wanted to dance but you didn’t?  You wanted to sing out loud but you felt you couldn’t?  How many times have you lived in regret because you were not as kind as you could have been?  Do you remember a time when you didn’t express your love to someone as much as you wanted?

Our speech, our breath, our heart - if we could first have the awareness of these three things only then would we be able to begin to bring about change in our lives.  If we live in fear we stay stuck in our same patterns, our same attitudes, our same beliefs, and our same unfulfilled lives.

It is only when we learn to trust that we can move forward.  When we learn to trust in that something greater than ourselves we feel sustained.  We have agreed to a certain way of being in the world.  These agreements were often times imprinted on us at an early age.  It is these unconscious agreements that dictate the overall equation of our lives.  We do not understand nor see how much we have been indoctrinated into a way of being that does not serve us.   To break these ways of being it first requires us to make new agreements with ourselves.  I would like to suggest that you read, “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz, as a foundation of your understanding on forming new agreements for yourself.

In my own personal journey I have found many occasions where I did not speak my truth.  I felt that I couldn’t because I lived in fear of being judged of what people would think of me if I spoke up.  What would they think?  What would they say?  Would they not accept or love me?  It is this fear that shut down my heart.  Those who know me now may not believe that I ever lived with a closed heart.  But I did.  We all do to some extent.  We close our hearts every time we say no to something we wish we would have said yes to.  When we close our heart we cannot live full out.  With a closed heart, we cannot love enough, we cannot smile enough, and we can not see everything around us to be grateful for.  There is no way that we can live to our fullest potential if our heart is closed.  We lose our individual gift and expression to the world because we are too afraid to share it!  When we do not express life it is because we do not claim it.  There is apathy on some level that if we look within we will discover.  For many including myself it is the realization that often we do not claim our life.  Breathing is only symbolic of how we are choosing to live our life.

On our “vacation” I went to a depth that I personally have never been to before.  It was a place where many emotions reside from deep anger, to fears, and frustrations.  There were many processes that helped facilitate my inward journey to this new place.  I discovered that once through what seemed like the endless barrier of negativity on the other side there was a deep sense of love, compassion, and awareness for myself and others.

The first step to healing our body is healing our life!  It really is a journey of trust.  Trusting that we can live more fully, trusting that we are going to speak up for ourselves, act upon our desires, and live full out with our hearts open!  Who doesn’t need more love in the world?  Who is the next person that will be uplifted by your presence?  Who will you give permission to claim their life because you have claimed yours?

For everyone who took the time to read this newsletter – Thank you for sharing in this journey of life and I look forward to serving you and your families on a whole new level!

Clayton Sullwold D.C.