[caption id="attachment_1769" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Photo by Bianca Meyer geb. Bollmeirer"][/caption]by Barbara Atkinson “The only internal relationship anyone ever has is with the higher Self... Self-love grows when you refuse to follow the impulses of anger and fear, trust that the universe is on your side, form your desires from the heart and watch the higher Self carry them out, believe that you are enough in and of yourself… put your attention on positive energies in every situation, honor your own needs without having to seek outside approval, and cultivate the peace of inner silence.” –Deepak Chopra Most of us equate an open heart with love, unconditional love being its highest form. I suggest that an open heart is not an outpouring of emotion-filled sentimental love toward everyone (which can lend itself to condoning mistreatment of yourself and others and excusing unacceptable behavior). Rather, an open heart is a grateful heart; it receives love by releasing resistance — the resistance we have to forgiving ourselves and others, thereby accepting self-love and gratitude for All There Is. This sets the stage for unconditional love, compassion, a love not clearly understood. Unconditional or compassionate love accepts others as they are and wishes them no ill-will, i.e., we are without malice and desire only good for them. It’s a love that is birthed in the center of our being, the solar plexus, and then expressed through the heart, because, on its own, the heart can be led by emotion. Therein lies the confusion. A pure heart works in concert with the intuitive, discerning solar plexus. 1 In themselves, the universal language of emotions acts as inner messengers (gut feelings) with information to be valued and honored. You’ve heard that your identity does not lie with your thoughts; well, they don’t lie with your emotions either. You are called to identify with your Divine nature, your true self, not your personality. You have a personality; it isn’t who you are. Emotions can help us form attractions and bonds to a partner, our children, our culture, and the beauty around us. Nevertheless, emotions can be picked up from others and also be distorted by inner shadows. These can lead love to express itself as zeal and projected angst allowing us to follow harsh dictators (both without and within), national and cultural aggression, and misinterpreted religious beliefs that persecute others in the name of Love, God, Allah, or the like. Even though we may deeply love our spouse, children, and friends, most of us have tossed judgments or verbal assaults their way at one time or another or repressed them into self-loathing. By attaching to our emotion — i.e., assuming it is part of who we are — we associate a reason to blame it on, projecting anger and frustration that gives form to shadow. This is reacting rather than responding to what these non-judgmental emotions are trying to tell us about ourselves or others: emotions leading as opposed to emotions informing. How do we reconcile these disparities of love? By releasing resistance and recognizing that compassionate love is a by-product of self-love, the doorway leading to it. When you open your heart with gratefulness and give way to accepting, respecting, and loving yourself, you receive the power of grace that has been waiting for you: the blossoming of the higher Self (inner Christ, Buddha, Goddess, etc.). Then, and only then, are you capable of compassionate love. You express the divinity and harmony that lives in everyone and pervades all life. Ego no longer runs the show; it is now in service to Spirit. This self-love necessitates an end to the inner struggle of ego-in-charge, the cause of distress in all of us (because ego is unable to detach from the outcome or wanting control). Whether our bodies are healthy, diseased, or otherwise suffering, releasing resistance to this grateful love brings us peace. It is the whole point of the inner journey; all woes boil down to its suppression. It entails facing and embracing our fears, negative habit-thinking, regretsand denials, and taking full responsibility for ourselves: no victim thinking, martyr behavior, projected angst, or ego inflation When we take responsibility for ourselves by opening our heart, we stop chasing imperfections, accept what is with gratefulness, and recognize we are enough. (This is not resignation; accepting what is brings about an opening for change, movement and transformation.) Grace intervenes and we hold ourselves in the embrace of loving kindness. This grace awakens the wisdom and creative power of the Self, a wonder to behold. Accepting what is (ourselves as we are; the situation as it stands) without judgment or attachment to the outcome, allows the Self to be liberated and take the lead; it is recognition of ego’s powerlessness to end the inner struggle. This recognition is what is meant by humility. Until our own inner work is done, we often meet others at the level of our misperceptions and wounds, thereby having the opportunity to move ourselves into harmony. Then, as we become more aligned with Spirit, we begin to meet the other with Divine clarity. We’re no longer sidetracked by the distortions of the other; rather through compassion, we see the Divine in the other. This is where we connect. This is where all harmonizing occurs. The grateful love that emanates from a resurrected Self can do no less than recognize its reflection in everything else. It is our innate nature: how we see and treat ourselves is reflected in how we see and treat others. We often give ourselves away by what we criticize, harshly judge, and find fault with in others. If we hold other’s feet to the fire, our own feet also burn with self-judgment and recrimination, whether conscious or deeply buried. At the same time, it is healthy and normal to discern with whom we feel comfortable and wish to spend time, and with whom we don’t. Even in families, we may find we have an attachment of birth, but not an intimacy of friendship. It is not that we have a “kinship of personality” with all whom we encounter. Rather, what we recognize and acknowledge is our kinship of Spirit. As we release resistance to accepting ourselves, our grateful heart is opened to receive the grace of compassion for others in the solar plexus of our being. That compassion allows us to move out of reaction and realize, just as we did with ourselves, that the wrong turns, unkindness, even brutalities, put forward by others are based on their own self-judgments, distortions, and suppressed hurts projected outward — we can forgive others even as we hold them accountable for their actions. With this pure heart (gut and heart in concert), we bring forth the higher Self and cease to attract negativity and radiate the peaceful embrace of unconditional, compassionate love. 1 The solar plexus is both a spiritual energy center in many belief systems and scientifically has been found to house many nerve receptors. A network of nerves in your belly is in constant communication with your brain; it’s often referred to as the brain in the gut. Notes professor Kevin Olden, MD, “Gut feelings are a very definite form of information,…called the enteric system, it contains over 100 million neurons. That’s more than the spinal cord.” UCLA gastroenterologist, Emeran Mayer, theorizes that, “As much as 80% of our well-being might come from the complicated interplay between the brain in our head and the one in our gut.”