What It Means To Be Heart-Centered

Life is hard, it throws many obstacles at us and as generational trauma survivors it starts at a young age. The never-ending onslaught of negative messaging becomes our every waking moment but there can be healing if we choose it. As we grow, our child self, born true of heart, decides they can no longer live from that place causing us to turn away from our truth and towards living out of alignment. A disconnect between heart and mind (ego) takes place that is so severe that it marks the rest of our lives, leading us towards self-sabotage and a life half-lived.

This half-lived life slowly eats away at our souls, causing more and more disconnects with every area of our lives. Our work life, home life, relationships and personal world become increasingly uncomfortable as each day passes. We start to believe that there is some force working against us and the more things go wrong, the more we believe that we are completely incapable of living a life that is any better. It seems as if we are predestined to fail.

Our ego plays tricks on us, reinforcing the negative messages of our childhood and casting the unfortunate events of adulthood in stone, creating a prison of the mind. For a short time, we can seek solace in the cage we’ve created for ourselves, there is comfort in our darkness because it’s all we’ve ever known. We believe this is all we can ever experience in life and that mindset keeps us locked in a state of self-sabotage as we cascade deeper and deeper into the realm of internal discomfort.

The increasing discomfort takes form in our external world. Depression, anxiety and mental and physical health difficulties start to manifest as our body desperately tries to fight the pain within us. Our nervous system is overloaded and energetically we start resonating at a lower frequency. The heart we so proudly wore on our sleeve as a child gets covered over and eventually, removed from our sleeve altogether. It becomes hidden away for no one to see and our ego starts running the show.

The ego would have you believe that this way of living is all there can be and we reside ourselves over to the fact that this is how life is. This is where many people hit rock bottom. Rock bottom can sometimes be called a “dark night of the soul”. This dark night, often brought on by traumatic events plunges you into a world of pain that you fear will never end and you have two choices, stay the same or embrace change.

Somewhere in each of us is a voice that knows we deserve more than the pain we feel, it begs us not to give up on finding ourselves again. This voice lives deep within us buried by the pain of our past. It’s the voice that wakes us up every day. It makes us eat, drink and shower. It sends us to work, school or to see friends. But when we hear it, we often only listen to half of what it has to say. This voice wants more for you than just what it takes to survive, it wants you to thrive. This voice is the silent whisper of the heart and it is begging you to hear it.

Choosing Change

To become heart-centered is to choose to follow a path unlike any other. This is the path to your true purpose, finding your true self and the journey out of darkness. Heart-centeredness, sometimes called being heart conscious, is recognising your deep, core values, desires and aspirations and living in full alignment with them. This is truly listening to the voice within you, the voice that has knowing, our higher self.

The ego is our conscious mind, the part of self that comprises opinions, thoughts and beliefs often driven by fear. It can be rigid and unmoving if left unseen and it is that fear that keeps us in darkness. Our higher self is born of light and emerges from the heart. It is softer and has a broader understanding, it is the home of our values. There is a certainty hidden within the heart, even in moments of pain. Tapping into this intuition and wisdom is what guides heart-centered living.

Most of us have the desire to live our life in alignment, holding the core values of love, compassion and empathy but in our pursuit of distraction from the pain of our internal world the ego diverts us from those values and moves us towards acts of self-protection. These acts are often self-driven and our self-awareness diminishes. The values we once held so dear fade from our central vision and move into our periphery. We know they are there but we no longer let them guide us. We start operating our lives from a place of fear as our ego takes over, burying the wisdom of the heart, forcing us to live in a state of misalignment.

Being heart-centered means putting these three core values at the forefront of our existence, taking full responsibility for them by aligning every step that we take with those values and desires. To fully embrace this brave and vulnerable way of living the old us must die in favour of new patterns and a continual practice of returning home to our heart and operating from love can begin.

By no means is this an easy feat, it is not the whimsical cliché of “follow your heart”. It is not a temporary moment of bliss nor an eternal state of happiness. It is not chasing after our desires with neediness or asserting our values with dominance, but letting them both gently unfold through a sense of wisdom held deeply within. The ego will try hard to pull us back to the temptations of distraction and throw us of course but it is here that a conscious choice to feel into our heart must be made. This conscious choice is us trusting our intuition and choosing the softness of our heart over the often-reactive state of our ego regardless of our emotional atmosphere and allowing that softness to be fully felt, seen and acted upon, knowing we are choosing what is right and not what is easy.

The Higher Self

When we choose to live our lives through heart-centered living, we naturally bring about a state of peace and we are able to live into our authenticity, bringing light into our darkness. With our words and actions aligned our soul no longer lives in a state of confusion increasing self-awareness and self-trust, the ego is calm as it follows the heart. We no longer suppress our emotions allowing our emotional intelligence to blossom. Our understanding of others deepens as we recognise ourselves in full. Interpersonal relationships shine brighter as we bring the best of ourselves to those we cherish, creating a sense of harmonious union within our connections. Our worldview changes as we see the beauty all around us.  Every action we take comes from a place of alignment and as our heart-centered living continues the fear energy stored within our ego slowly morphs into love. Love for ourselves, for others and all beings, equal and as one.

A process of achieving our full potential through self-actualisation has begun. This practice fosters self-appreciation bringing forward a sense of confidence in how we show up in our life, allowing us to fulfil our own needs and connect with others without expectation or a desire for reciprocation. The alignment of our mind with our heart allows us to more easily differentiate between our egos “wants” and societal conditioning and our authentic desires, naturally leading to an enriched sense of who we are. Self-transcendence through having the courage to speak our truth and share our natural strengths with those around us directly adds value to our world, heightening our experience of unity, interconnectedness and oneness. Our ability to see others as we see ourselves increases and we recognise our mutual need for heartfelt expression, understanding and acceptance. This is the energy of love.

Love energy is our higher self being fully recognised, resonating at a high-frequency state. Reaching this higher self and returning home to our heart, the centre of our being, is our purpose. Inviting intuition through wisdom into our lives shows us our path, guiding us towards authentic acts of kindness and compassion, allowing us to truly live into who wish to be for ourselves and others. This approach gives us the ability to touch our world with soft and tender hands, a choice we must make every day for both ourselves and others.

Choosing to live in full alignment, allowing our higher self to resonate energy in a high state of love and appreciation for all things is the very essence of heart-centered living and what it means to be heart-centered. It is our destiny to recognise ourselves as loving beings, to live fully from our heart without fear and actualise our true potential, to give love and receive love as we were truly intended to.