Open Your Guarded Heart

After loss, the heart learns discernment and protection. This meditation offers a steady space to gently reopen without rushing, forcing, or retreating. Through grounded awareness and compassionate reflection, you'll explore openness as presence rather than vulnerability or pursuit—an invitation to trust your heart's timing and allow love to arrive in its own way.

Return to this practice when your heart feels closed or defended, or when you're ready to soften without pressure.

Formerly titled: Staying Open To Love Without Forcing The Door

Transcript

Welcome to Be With Melinda.

I'm glad you're here.

Settle your body in a way that feels steady and honest.

Take a slow breath in through the nose and gently release it through the mouth.

Again,

Take a slow breath in through the nose and release it gently through the mouth.

After loss,

The heart learns how to protect.

It becomes careful,

Not closed,

But simply alert.

This is not failure.

It is wisdom shaped by grief.

Bring awareness to the center of your chest and notice how openness feels right now.

Not how it should feel,

But how it actually feels.

Notice if there is warmth,

Density,

Or neutrality and let that be enough.

You are not being asked to open more or to close,

Just to notice.

Many hearts swing between two extremes after loss.

Rushing toward love for reassurance or holding the door shut to avoid pain.

Neither is required here.

Imagine love as something that approaches,

Not something you chase.

It does not demand entry.

It waits.

Silently say,

I can stay open without forcing,

Without forcing the door.

Notice what shifts even slightly.

Openness does not mean availability,

Explanation,

Or exposure.

It means presence without pressure.

Grief may still live nearby,

Let it.

It does not need to decide for you.

Silently affirm,

I trust my heart to open at its own pace.

No urgency,

No proving,

No retreat.

As we close,

Rest in this knowing.

You do not need to push love away and you do not need to pull it toward you.

Staying open to love without forcing the door is enough.

Thank you for practicing with me.

May you be blessed with the steadiness to remain open and the patience to let love arrive in its own time.

Take one final breath in and release it slowly.

Return when you are ready.