A Journey To Love: Opening The Heart Chakra
Written by Kesaine Walker
The heart chakra, also known as Anhata in Sanskrit, is the power center of our energy system. Located in the center of the chest, the heart chakra sits directly between the upper and lower chakras connecting our mind, body, and spirit. The heart chakra is responsible for how we feel about ourselves and others. It is here that we focus on our connections and relationships.
When your heart chakra is open and balanced you’re likely to be more compassionate, loving, centered, and at peace. With an open-heart chakra, we can love unconditionally, evolve, and heal. An imbalanced or blocked heart chakra can make you feel closed off to those around you as well as yourself. As humans, we experience certain traumas throughout life that we carry with us and find extremely difficult to release. Things like abandonment issues related to our parents or caregivers and lack of emotional support and nurturing can do great damage to one's heart chakra from a very young age. Sometimes resulting in difficulty letting love in as it may feel like a foreign concept when your heart’s blocked. A common sign of a blocked heart chakra is the constant need for approval and attention from others inside of us. When you begin to practice self-love and heal you’ll no longer need acceptance from outside of you.
A balanced and opened heart chakra is essential for self-love and spiritual growth. When you cultivate a healthy relationship with yourself, implementing healthy boundaries in your relationships won’t feel like such a difficult task. You’ll be able to give love and receive love freely. Pure loving energy will overflow through you and you’ll be like a magnet for the love you desire. But first, you must set the intention to do the work to clear the blockages so that you can get back to what you already have within; compassion, love, joy, and peace.
If you’re ready to open your heart chakra, there are several ways to do so on your own. Here are five ways to get started on your journey to love and open-heart healing.
Self-reflect
It takes a certain level of introspection to bring awareness to your patterns in order to make necessary changes to hold space for the new. We are bound to repeat mistakes if we don’t take a step back and reflect so that we can get the lesson in the experience and move on. Try journaling to process your thoughts, heal old wounds, connect the dots, and find answers to why your heart chakra’s blocked. Self-reflection is essential for balancing the heart chakra.
Forgive
Feel the grief, anger, sadness, regret, etc and let it go. Write a letter of forgiveness to those who hurt you (including yourself) telling them how they made you feel, and thanking them for the experience. Burn these letters under a full moon. Then make a list of everyone who makes you feel loved and let that feeling of genuine unconditional love flow through your body and light up your heart. Whenever you’re feeling off-center bring awareness to this feeling and remember that you are loved.
Visualize
burn a bright green candle, sit in a quiet place in which you won’t be disturbed, put your hands over your heart, bring awareness to your heart. Inhale. With each deep inhale imagine yourself breathing in all the love energy and bright green light from the candle, through your nose straight to your heart. Exhale. With each deep exhale imagine dark green smoke coming out of your heart and releasing through your mouth. This smoke represents all the hurt/pain, and wounds that no longer serve you. Do this visualization for a few minutes in the morning, while in the shower, or before bed at night.
Use crystals with love energy
green and pink crystals are great for heart healing. When placed directly on your body or in your environment you can immediately experience the effects of them. Choose crystals like green aventurine, rose quartz, green kyanite, emerald, and jade to open you up to love and compassion for yourself and others.
Affirmations
repeating affirmations related to love and healing will open your heart and invite more love into your life. Saying affirmations like “I am open to receive love,” “I love myself,” “I am divinely led by love,” and “the love that I pour into others comes back to me effortlessly” several times a day can shift your vibration and help you attract love energy.
Be patient and gentle with yourself during this process. Remember that your heart center’s experiencing an awakening for the better. Self-love can heal the heart chakra, and open hearts can heal the world.