So welcome everyone,
And thank you,
Thank you for listening.
So you might not call it a closed heart.
You might call it being independent,
Self-sufficient,
Not needing anyone too much.
You might call it being careful,
Sensible,
Learning from your past mistakes.
Or you might call it having high standards,
Protecting your peace,
And not settling.
You might even call it fine.
I am fine.
Everything is fine.
But here is what I notice in people that have closed hearts.
There is a tightness in the chest that never quite releases.
A shallow breath that never quite deepens.
A sense of holding,
Holding it together.
Holding people at arm's length.
Holding back something that wants to be expressed.
There is a loneliness that does not make sense on paper.
Here,
You might have people around you,
Friends,
Family,
Maybe a partner.
But there is a glass somewhere.
You are with them,
But not quite.
Connected,
But not really.
And when someone gets too close,
When intimacy starts to deepen,
Something in you pulls back,
Creates distance,
And finds a reason to withdraw.
Now this is what a closed heart looks like.
Not cold,
Not unfeeling.
Just protected,
Guarded.
A door that used to be open,
But has now learned to close.
And if you recognize any of this,
I want you to know there is nothing wrong with you.
Your heart closed for a reason.
A good reason.
And we are going to talk about that.
Hearts do not close for no reason.
They close because they got hurt.
Maybe it was just one big thing.
A betrayal,
A loss,
A heartbreak that shattered something in you.
Or maybe it was many smaller things.
Repeated disappointments.
Love that was conditional.
People that were not safe.
A slow accumulation of evidence that opening your heart leads to pain.
And here is the thing.
The heart learns.
It is not stupid.
If every time you open up,
You get hurt,
Why would you keep opening?
So the closure is intelligent.
It is protective.
It is your system saying,
We tried that,
It did not work,
And we are not doing it again.
And this closure is not just emotional.
It is also physical.
The chest tightens.
The muscles around your heart brace.
The shoulders round forward,
Protecting the front of the body,
The vulnerable heart space.
The breath becomes shallow because deep breaths open the chest and opening the chest feels dangerous.
You might notice that you cannot take a full breath.
You might feel tension between your shoulder blades.
You might have a chronic ache in your chest that doctors cannot explain.
This is armor.
Body armor built to protect you from ever feeling that pain again.
The body is very good at this.
It does not need your conscious permission.
It just does what it needs to do to keep you safe.
The problem is,
Safe and closed is not the same as safe and alive.
So let me be honest about what happens when the heart stays closed for too long.
Yes,
You are protected.
Yes,
You cannot be hurt in the same way again.
And yes,
You have control.
But you also cannot fully feel.
When you close off to pain,
You also close off to joy,
To connection,
To the aliveness that comes from letting yourself be moved by life,
By people,
And by love.
So the walls do not discriminate.
They keep out the bad,
But they also keep out the good.
You might also notice flatness.
Things that used to excite you feel muted.
Relationships feel surface level.
And life feels like you're watching it through glass.
You might notice that you cannot cry or that you cannot let yourself be comforted when you do.
You might notice that you always have an exit strategy,
That you never fully quite commit to anything or anyone.
There is a part of you always holding back,
Waiting for the other shoe to drop.
In relationships,
This is devastating.
Because love requires vulnerability.
It requires letting someone see you,
Reach you,
And affect you.
And if your heart is closed,
You cannot do that.
You can go through the motions,
You can be a good partner on paper,
But there's a barrier.
And the other person can feel it,
Even if they cannot name it.
I have worked with so many people who say,
I do not know why my relationships never work.
I do not know why I feel so alone.
I do not know why I cannot let anyone in.
And when we look at the body,
At the chest,
At the breath,
At the armor,
It starts to make sense.
The heart learned to close,
And it is still closed.
That is why.
So how do you open a heart that has learned to close?
So here is what does not work.
Forcing it.
You cannot willpower your way to vulnerability.
You cannot decide to be open.
The heart closes for survival,
And the body does not release survival adaptations,
Just because the mind says it is safe now.
Now I see people try this all the time.
They read a book,
Or they do a workshop,
And they decide all of a sudden they are going to be open and available.
And their heart chakra is open.
They try very hard.
They push through the resistance,
And then they wonder why it does not work,
Why the walls come back up,
And why they feel even more guarded than before.
Because the body knows.
The body remembers why it is closed in the first place,
And no amount of positive thinking overrides that knowing.
If you try to force the heart open,
The body will resist.
It will close harder,
Because forcing feels like danger,
And the heart's whole strategy is to protect against danger.
So I think,
I feel,
I believe,
We need a different approach.
Not forcing,
Not pushing through,
And not demanding that the heart opens up because you've decided that it should.
Instead,
Creating safety,
Honoring the protection,
Letting the heart know that opening is optional,
And that you are not going to rip apart the armor.
And then slowly,
Gently,
Inviting.
Not forcing,
Not demanding,
Inviting.
The heart opens when it feels safe,
Not when it is told to do so.
Now,
Before we can soften this armor,
We need to honor it.
The tightness in your chest,
It saved you.
It got you through something you might not have survived with an open heart.
Those walls you built,
They were necessary.
They were the best strategy you had at the time.
So the armor is not your enemy,
It is the part of you that has been working very hard to keep you safe,
Often thanklessly and often invisibly.
So instead of trying to get rid of it,
What if you acknowledged it?
What if you said,
Thank you.
Thank you for protecting me.
I understand why you are here.
This is not weakness.
This is not giving into fear.
This is building a relationship with your own protective system and the relationship is the only thing that can create real change.
Now here is the paradox.
When the armor feels seen and appreciated,
It often starts to relax on its own.
When it does not have to fight to be here,
When it is not being attacked or forced off,
It can soften.
So the heart opens not because you demanded it,
But because you created the conditions where closing was no longer necessary.
Safety first,
Then softening,
It's never,
Ever,
Ever the other way around.
If there is one physical key to the guarded heart,
It is the breath.
When the heart closes,
The breath becomes shallow.
The chest does not fully expand and the body breathes just enough to survive but not enough to feel.
So deep breathing opens the chest,
It stretches the muscles that have been bracing and it sends a signal to the nervous system,
We are safe to expand.
But again,
We cannot force this.
If you try to take a deep breath and it feels scary or your chest will not open or you feel panicky,
That is all inflammation.
That is the armor saying,
Not yet.
So we do not force deep breathing,
We invite it.
We create conditions where the breath can naturally deepen,
We let the body lead.
And sometimes it starts very small,
A slightly longer exhale,
A gentle expansion of your ribs,
Nothing dramatic,
Just a tiny bit more space than you had before.
Over time,
With consistent practice,
The breath can deepen,
The chest can open and the heart can begin to feel safe enough to soften.
This is slow work,
But this is real work.
It is working with the body and not against it.
In a moment I am going to guide you through a somatic practice for the heart.
This is not about forcing anything open,
It is about bringing gentle attention to your heart space,
Honoring whatever protection is there and inviting,
Just inviting,
The smallest of softening.
If nothing shifts today,
That's okay.
If the armor stays firmly in place,
That's okay.
The heart will open in its own time when it's ready.
All we can do is to create the right conditions.
So find a comfortable position.
You might want to place a hand on your chest if that feels supportive or not.
Just do what feels right for you.
Now let your eyes close when you are ready and just let yourself arrive here now with me.
There is nothing to do,
Nothing to fix,
Just arriving.
Feel your body,
Its weight,
Its presence,
You,
You,
Here in the physical form and just notice your breath without changing it,
Just noticing how it is right now.
Is it shallow?
Deep?
Tight?
Whatever it is,
Just let it be.
Now without asking anything to be any different,
Gently bring your attention to your chest,
The area around your heart.
You do not have to do anything.
Just notice what is present there for you today.
Just notice.
Maybe you notice tightness,
Tension or a sense of folding.
Maybe you notice numbness,
Blankness or not much at all.
Maybe you notice aching,
Heaviness,
Something that has been carried a long time.
Whatever you find,
Let it be there,
You are just witnessing.
If there is protection here,
If there is armor,
Tightness,
Walls,
I want you to acknowledge that too.
This feeling,
This protection is not your enemy.
It is part of you that has been working very hard.
Whatever you are aware of now,
Just watch,
See,
Witness,
Observe,
Acknowledge.
It's like we are speaking these words to your heart,
To your chest.
You can say these to yourself out loud,
Silently or just receive my words.
And for this part,
You might want to put a hand on your chest or not.
I see you.
I know you are here for a reason.
Thank you for trying to protect me.
I see you.
I know you are here for a reason.
Thank you for trying to protect me.
Now this may be happening for some of you that if you sense why the heart closed,
If there is a memory,
A feeling or a knowing of what may have happened to you,
Let that be there too.
You do not have to go into the story.
There is nobody to blame.
Just acknowledge.
Something happened and the heart responded by closing.
Something happened and the heart responded by closing.
I understand why you closed.
You were just trying to survive and it made sense.
I understand why you closed.
You were only trying to survive and it made sense.
And it made sense.
I am not going to force you to open.
You can stay as closed as you need to.
I am not going to force you to open.
You can stay as closed as you need to.
You can stay as closed as you need to.
Now really mean this.
The heart needs to know it has permission to stay protected.
Now paradoxically this is what allows it to consider softening.
I am not going to force you to open.
You can stay as closed as you need to.
As you need to.
Now gently see if the breath can soften.
Not forcing any deep breaths.
Just inviting a slightly longer exhale.
Just inviting a slightly longer exhale.
And then let the exhale release.
And then let the exhale release.
And then let the exhale release.
Let the next inhale come naturally.
Let the next inhale come naturally.
If the chest wants to expand a little bit more,
Let it.
And if it does not,
That is okay too.
And now,
Just inviting,
Not demanding,
The smallest softening in your heart space.
Maybe the tightness releases by 1%.
Maybe the walls become slightly more permeable.
Maybe nothing happens today.
All of that is okay.
Just be with whatever is happening for you right now.
If there is any softening,
Let yourself feel it.
If there is resistance,
Honor that too.
The heart knows its own timing.
The heart knows its own timing.
Now say this to your heart.
When you are ready,
I will be here.
We can open slowly.
You do not have to do it all at once.
I will not abandon you when you soften.
And just stay here for a moment now.
I just want you to stay here now with your heart,
With whatever is present.
You are building a relationship with this part of yourself.
And this relationship does not happen in one guided journey.
It happens over time.
So let's stay here just for a few seconds.
You have shown up,
You have acknowledged,
And now you are listening.
Now gently let your attention widen.
I want you now to feel your whole body again,
Not just the heart.
Bit by bit,
Breath by breath,
All of you.
Feel the room around you.
Feel your breath.
Take a slightly deeper breath if that feels right.
And whenever you are ready now,
Let your eyes open and welcome back.
So you have just spent time with your heart.
Maybe something shifted.
Maybe nothing happened.
Both are okay.
This is not a one-time fix.
It is a practice.
The heart that learned to close over years may not fully open in 20 minutes,
And that is not the goal.
What you are doing here is building trust.
Trust between you and your own heart.
Trust that you will not force it.
Trust that you will show up and be present.
Trust that opening can happen slowly,
Safely,
In its own time.
In your daily life,
You can continue this.
Notice when your chest tightens.
Notice when you stop breathing fully.
And notice when the walls go up.
And instead of judging yourself,
Just acknowledge it.
I understand why you are protecting me.
And over time,
This awareness creates space.
A space for the heart to soften when it is ready.
So you have lived with a closed heart for very good reasons.
You survived.
You protected yourself.
And now perhaps it is time for something new.
Not forcing.
Not rushing.
Just allowing.
So go gently.
Be patient with yourself.
The heart that has learned to close can learn to slightly open again in its own time.
In its own beautiful time.
So thank you for being here.
Thank you for joining me.
And Namaste.
