Open Heart

by Anet Paulina

“You have to protect your heart,” a friend tells me for the umpteenth time, conveying the advice to himself as much as to me.

“Always keep the upper hand in a romantic relationship. Remain a challenge,” are dictums frequently repeated by another acquaintance. Like the first man, he is handsome, intelligent, and professionally successful, yet has not been able to create and sustain a fulfilling long-term relationship with a woman. He also has chronic heartburn that sometimes is almost unbearable.

The friend who often speaks of protecting his heart has excellent health habits and follows a pristine diet, yet was diagnosed with a “widow maker”: a combination of factors that predispose a person (typically a male) to experience a heart attack or stroke without warning, particularly if he is subject to extreme stress. This man’s doctor advised him to literally protect this heart!

The closed-heart state is not unique to males. In energy healing sessions, I often perceive what feels like a hard shield in front of a woman’s heart area. Numerous men have such a shield as well, and it also is typical for me to sense a constriction or closing of their heart chakra energy. I sometimes call the heart shield a “turtle shell,” as that is what it feels like to me.

I can’t blame people for feeling the need to protect their heart. By the time most of us reach adulthood, we have experienced heartbreak in some form, be it from a lover, friend, or family member that we perceive failed to return our love or fulfill our expectations. We are hurt, so we constrict our heart energy to protect ourselves from further harm. Eventually we may open our heart again, but usually not as fully as we did the first time. Typically at some point we experience heartbreak again, so the next time we begin a relationship, we open our heart a little less, and the cycle continues. Older, wiser, and tougher, we learn to survive in the world by not allowing ourselves to be fully vulnerable.

It never occurs to most of us that the reason we perceive that others don’t love us completely is because in closing our hearts, we not only restrict our capacity for giving, we shield ourselves from receiving! Others sense our capacity for openness (or the lack of it), and they respond in kind. A constricted, shielded heart may give us a false sense of protection, but in fact we are blocking ourselves from receiving love as well as from giving it.

The heart is the focal point of our life energy. Regardless of the apparent external cause, every physical death is actually a heart failure. In essence, the person has stopped the flow of life energy. In most people, it is a gradual process that occurs over decades. Little by little, they shut down the flow of this abundant energy until it is insufficient to sustain their physical body.

Conventional wisdom and “common sense” tell us to be guarded in loving and cautious in trusting. These seem like reasonable choices; no one wants to invite hurtful experiences or be played for a fool. Yet in our vigilance to protect ourselves from harm, we may inadvertently be erecting a wall that not only blocks access to the most joyful experiences life can offer, but ultimately shortens our physical lives as well. Many people die inside long before their physical heart fails. Perhaps it is worth taking the chance of being open — trading the risk of being hurt for the joy of living without defense.

As I was completing this article, I opened two heart-shaped dark chocolates wrapped in foil imprinted with a message. The messages said, “Go where your heart takes you” and “Discover how much your heart can hold” — suggestions as profound as any advice I could offer.