Strengthening My Heart by Paula Stockman
Love. It's what we are looking for. Love of another, love of God, love of ourselves. Yet it causes us all so much trouble. We love conditionally, we feel we are undeserving of love, we close off our hearts and live without knowing deep full love.
I am no exception. My posture tells the story of someone afraid of opening her heart. My chest sinks back, my shoulders round forward and my head juts forward in an attempt to close off even the top of my heart. Between my shoulders is always tense and uncomfortable. Well, that was my posture before yoga.
After learning a bit about posture and even more about chakras - I discovered my imbalance, a closed fourth (heart) chakra. I started immediately to balance it. I lifted my collar-bones up and forward, opening my heart to the world. I started to do backbends everyday. If I had spent so long with a closed off heart, I needed to change it.
I found that this change affected my personal life too. Not only was I standing up straighter, I felt more alive. I felt energy pooling in my chest, I felt blood pumping through my veins. I started to tell friends and family that I love them. I had always been afraid of telling people I loved them - it seemed too sappy or silly. My parents divorced when I was a teenager and I had never acknowledged the hurt I felt from that, and I had never been willing to heal it. Now, I had the chance! I looked at my partner and felt deeper love for him than I had ever felt before. Up until then, my partner and I had never really had much intimacy - yes, we were intimate physically, but on a spiritual level we had never truly connected. This was great! I had balanced my heart.
The heart is an important chakra. In it resides our basic need to be loved - a simple requirement. In our hands, love becomes conditional and showing love for others a sign of weakness. I went away on a METTA meditation retreat (METTA is a practice of loving-kindness) to stop being afraid to love and just decided I would love - completely and fully. I would love no matter what, never again would I close of my heart.
A great idea. The problem I encountered was I felt pretty shaky and unstable most of the time. I was always getting hurt. I wouldn't even concern myself with what anyone else was doing -I was going to love them. If that meant putting my own interests aside to help somebody else, fine. I felt frustrated that others didn't love the way I did. I couldn't understand when my partner needed space. Obviously he didn't love me. When I had a closed heart chakra, I was the one who wanted space.
This showed itself in my Hatha yoga practice as well. Poses like Urdhva Danurasana (full wheel pose) showed off my full open heart while I teetered on scrawny, stick-like arms. My arms would shake trying to support my weight in the pose. Sometimes, just doing backbends would make me feel shaky and unstable - maybe there's a connection!
I remember my first attempt to balance on my arms in chaturanga dandasana (inverted staff pose). I struggled, I sweated, and I finally collapsed in frustration onto my mat. This wasn't yoga - it was aggressive and, well, hard. The sense of strength and power that I felt when I finally did the pose was like nothing I had ever felt before. Thinking back on that scrawny girl who could barely lift herself makes me a bit sad. The inability to lift my own weight, to support myself in the most basic way was completely out of my grasp both physically and mentally, yet the only imbalance I focused on was doing backbends.
Admittedly, backbends were part of my therapy. I definitely needed to open up and let some love in and out of my heart. The piece I was missing was the strength to support that love. I had forced open my wounded heart and expected it to be okay. Instead, I found I was scared and hurt and afraid all the time and using my new ability to love in controlling and co-dependent ways.
This lesson was clear as I worked through my marriage. Somewhere along the way, my open and loving heart couldn't quite acknowledge the truth. I was so into loving my partner that I couldn't see the reality of our relationship. He struggled through an addiction to alcohol and I covered up for him. I put my own needs aside to help him out.
I took every ounce of courage and strength I could muster to finally discourage his behavior. To finally say, I love you, and I can no longer pretend this is okay. My excessive heart chakra was in denial about the reality of my marriage because it hungrily wanted love.
I don't believe I ever would have found this balance if I hadn't felt my arms grow stronger and more capable of supporting myself. I had changed my concept of myself. I am a woman who has an open heart and can love unconditionally, and I am a woman who is strong and powerful enough to support herself.