I’ve been getting more curious lately about what it means to be Open-Hearted.
I notice two parts – I used to think parenting through my heart meant being happy, pleasant, calm, and ideal.
One half of the whole.
But lately, I’m seeing a deeper layer, another part of being in an open-hearted relationship with my kiddos- the other half.
I know when they were born my heart opened so wide! So wide because something spiritual or magic, or otherworldly happens when you meet your child for the first time. Right?
Some of my coaching clients have been saying this too- and the range of how we meet our babes the first time is also so wide, yeah?
I’m taking a closer look at this question tho- what about the times when the birth was so hard, when I had a surgery, when I lost blood, or when my blood pressure was dangerous….when I felt like I was going to die?
Was my heart open then? I want so much to say something was wrong and it was so hard and painful and I cried, and I was confused, and my body was wrecked. I want to get away from how vulnerable those moments were.
I notice it feels safer to position in a way that says it happened to me.
So I stay with all those stories in my SafeSeat and the feelings that go with them.
I listen so deeply to the one in me who went through that experience and wonders if it will all be ok, if the babe is ok, if I am ok?
If there is a safe space for me to let all of it be true, to come forth in my being?
Hand on my heart.
I feel powerless, and scared.
I ask- what was really true in that moment? Was my heart wide open?
And this is the new part that I am starting to notice now as I do my work and turn back towards my vulnerabilities- even then when it was so hard.
That my heart was profoundly open then, too.
Because I was more present to the tiny details of life in those moments than I am usually in the day-to-day mundane, in that moment of a life coming to me, as I became their mama.
I noticed my body here and where my babe was laying in the lights over there.
I felt the path my baby took out of my body- and the IV poked into the back of my hand.
I noticed that I had lots of questions in my mind, but couldn’t speak about if everything was ok, or normal, or not in the moment?
The visions of those moments are imprinted in all the minute ways I take information into my senses.
The beep, the breath, the warm, the tight, the light.
I had an awareness about what it meant to connect with my babe- even tho reality was such that I couldn’t hold her.
There was no such thing as future or memory.
See- it wasn’t that it was ‘good’ and ‘happy’, or even ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’ that showed me my open heart.
It drops down a bit- from my thoughts to my knowing.
In those moments my HEART was awake, open, and aware of ALL that was happening in the moment.
That’s what open-hearted relating has been teaching me- from these experiences where I KNOW my heart was leading the way, where it was wide open.
It’s not about ideals, and perfection and pleasant… I notice my perception says that it’s always ok to have my heart open when it’s delighted.
But also- can keep my heart open when it hurts, and when its disgusted, and when my perception says- this is wrong, bad, horrible!
And when I do.. when I choose to keep my heart open to all of the parts that hurt… and stay with the pain just a little bit deeper- when I welcome it.
Something beautiful reveals itself to me.
There is a hidden beauty in the pain.
I recover a deeper more true part of me that I tucked away a long time ago.
My kids reflect to me on a daily basis in the small ways, the parts that sting and poke and scratch. The parts of me that are still looking to be loved… by me.
And then there are also big stories with big energy that call me back, over and over, to the parts of my heart I often close because that’s the only way I have ever treated them.
My friend AmyBeth who is also a Purejoy coach said to me in one of those moments of intensity the other day- but watch closely, are you closing your heart- to YOU, Mama? Whoa…
I’ve been sitting with that one.. and I notice in the moments- when I look out and see something I don’t like… I close, I turn, I protect my heart- I cut off to the moment and say, I want something else, or I’m trying to get us away from what is right here in front of me- all the little details that my senses can tune into I ignore.
And that hurts too.
So I’m practicing now- and you can join me…
I’m asking of discomfort- am I closing my heart to myself?
What would it be like to stay open? To face, to see, to reflect the moment…
What do I have to be willing to feel?
I anchor into these times I met my children.
I know my heart was open- and I see that they were all things, in a moment- and I was tuned in.
I notice my kids, masters of present moment, moving through all feelings as natural waves of the human experience- no judgment to how they feel.
I notice they move on, they experience the moment, and then move on…
I’m learning from them, to feel what’s in the moment, to use my adult capacity to notice, to witness, to support, to choose.. and then- move on.
As the energy of the feelings animate us, heart open, and we simply live it.
The relationship that is created this way is just so profoundly true of us- its Purejoy!
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