Let's start in a comfortable seated position of your choice.
Take a moment to check in with your body.
Take whatever form of movement that feels best to help you relieve any lingering tension or aches.
A neck roll,
A nice big stretch,
Or a gentle twist.
Take up all the space you desire.
Now straighten the spine and pull your shoulders back,
Allowing your heart to shine forward.
Place your left hand on the chest and your right hand on the belly and breathe.
Help yourself to the biggest inhale you've taken all day.
Feel the chest and belly inflate.
Let it engulf any aching muscles.
Send it through your limbs and settle into this feeling of fullness,
Enveloped in the air that gives us life.
The heart chakra can simultaneously be the most sensitive to work with and the most cathartic.
We all carry scars.
And oftentimes the ones that pain us the most are those that came from relational wounds.
From the people who were supposed to love us unconditionally,
But treated us with callousness.
Or from witnessing the harrowing malicious affairs that humankind is capable of.
It's these very wounds that fortified our need for automatic protective responses.
To feel the absence of love,
To recognize noxious ill will in those we once sought connection with can be so jarring and provoke remarkably unyielding emotions.
And even if our perpetrators no longer have access to harm us,
It's as if we take on their role and begin to ravage ourselves.
It's no wonder we build fortresses to hide within or fall into vices and habits to distract ourselves from the tenderness.
Affirmations for the heart chakra include,
I love and accept myself exactly as I am.
I am open to connection,
Forgiveness,
Harmony.
Your greatest power lives here within the heart.
I invite you to combat shame,
Despair and betrayal with compassion.
Feel the yearning pool within you to open and soften.
Let the breath permeate through the fractures.
Soothe the tarnished crevices.
Breathe in peace and breathe out love.
Summon your highest self.
Become conscious of your ability to give yourself what you have desperately craved.
Love is yours to give to yourself through the words you speak,
The boundaries that you set,
The joyous activities that you engage in by meeting your own needs.
When you actively and intentionally love yourself,
Anything else received is extra,
But it is no longer needed to make you whole.
Endless love has been within you all along.
Can you feel it?
The infinite nourishing benevolence that holds your inner truth?
It will always be within you,
No matter where life leads you.
Embody your light.
Let your heart lead you to deeper connections,
Starting with your connection to self.
From there you can recognize the kindred spirits around you.
You may have been scorned before,
But you don't have to conceal yourself from new potential.
There is a purity within this universe.
It brought you here,
To this moment,
Along with countless others on their own journeys to find peace.
Draw your palms together at the heart.
Embrace the relief provided when you take time to be in this space.
We'll end with a poem I wrote in hopes of reminding you of the enduring power of the heart.
If all I can give is compassion,
Then I'll sit here and give every breath.
Every night my light will shine through the windows of my heart.
I will bow my head in silence and respect the nature of the art.
May heaves of loving kindness travel straight through my souls planted,
To the destitute knees of the woeful souls who've been slanted.
May it wrap up all guilt,
Resentments,
Shame,
And the warm embrace of our connectedness all humans the same.
May it find its way through darkness,
From afar and back to me.
For there are as many breaths as we all need to be compassionate beings.
Stay true.
