Navigating injuries is painful. Confusing. Disarming (no pun intended…well, it always is ;)).
In our Western World, we take a joint by joint approach. The shoulders, the hips, the knees, the ankles…
In the Eastern World, we take an organ by organ and chakra by chakra approach. The brain, the liver, the kidney, the bladder, and yes — the heart. The oases of swirling energy spawning magically vibrant colors we call chakras.
Is one better than the other?
No.
This is not a discussion of superiority.
It is a discussion of holism.
It is also a discussion of origin.
When my injuries began…that is, when I first noticed the franken-feeling of a deep red band of pulsating light surrounding and emanating from my waist — my pelvis and low back stiff as stone, I looked right into the center of my psoas. The psoas, a hip flexor and spine lateral flexor and extender, bridging the back and pelvis, the trunk and legs, known as the “master emotional center.” Being so emotionally in-tune, I thought: what hard conversation have I not had and who do I have to have it with?
I assumed I was harboring some intense, toxic, fierce emotion in my psoas/psoaii that needed to be released.
Recognized and released. Through witnessing and healing.
I’ll save the fuller story for how I unfolded that conversation for a future post, but for now, I want to delve into how — regardless of whether I had perfectly pinpointed THE organ of origin, THE muscle of origin, THE chakra of origin…there is always one place where healing can and will emanate out of.
So, rather than go on a crazed, WebMD, panic-attacked pleated, chronic tension-caked, incessant worry and stiffness like the best player ever in a game of never-ending freeze tag when you are it, I would like to offer you the fore-guidance for whatever next pain you may experience in your life.
To immediately go to the Heart.
It is more than just an organ. It is a spiritual center — in my currently biased opinion, like a Master Chakra, that can pour healing green waterfalls of light down into the lower chakras and shoot playground fountain like surges of water up into the higher chakras.
But it can only do it’s job if it itself is loved, honored, and nourished.
I think that for some long period of time I was trying to give from my heart when my heart was broken.
And I would repeat strong, affectionate affirmations of self-love to my heart, but the programming/conditioning of my mind was not in alliance with the mission.
With the return to Truth.
And so, like the “Iron Curtain” that the Berlin Wall dropped between East and West Germany…which quickly created two silos — one of wealth, privilege, power, and freedom, the other of poverty, lack of resources, victimhood, and struggle, my Heart and my Head were at war.
Where did this war start?
How did this war emerge in all of the joint dysfunctions I’ve had to overcome?
To both questions — not important. I don’t ever need to know.
What I do know and need to do…and, again, what I’d instruct you to do at any time you are in confusion and/or pain, is to go to your heart.
The Heart is this infinitely regenerating source of giving, love, connection, and gratitude.
When you really sense how big your heart is, you realize it is the size of the entire Universe.
You are your Heart.
And instead of asking for healing, just be aware of all of the love and wholeness that is already there.
That love and wholeness, like the lime green aura of absolute awesome elevating energy, will cater to the cells of your body. Like a much better ibuprofen — which you take through one vessel, your mouth, and it distributes its analgesic effects to the areas of the body that are aching and crying. The Heart, when you knock on it, when you call upon it, when you sing to it for re-connection, will feed your wounds with its green goodness.
Get that thought out of your head right now. That’s the war announcing itself.
But the war is a record of the past.
We’ve all had a battle or two, or ten, between our Heads and our Hearts. It’s called being Human.
If we were born with the perfect ability to embrace ourselves with unconditional love on a cellular level, I really don’t think we’d be here.
I think this is one of the journeys and missions that is inherent in being alive. Learning to love yourself.
An affirmation is cool.
A heart dance is cool.
A big, giant, juicy, full-wingspan wrap-around self-hug is also cool.
But if it is not creating change on a cellular level…in EVERY SINGLE CELL IN YOUR BODY…that is, EVERY SINGLE CELL IN YOUR BODY, is in full agreement that it is upgrading with the program…with the new truth…with the new Self, it is not getting the work done.
Two of the specific ways I am learning to truly love myself (this phrase still sounds so cliche):
With the help/assistance/receiving of other’s love and compassion.
By asking my very own brain to receive the wholeness, innocence, authenticity, and abundance of pure loving energy that is in my heart.
Back to that war thing — as I was listening to The Art of War author Steven Pressfield express yesterday on his view of the utility/origin of Resistance, he believes that it is there as a progeny of the Ego, to get in the way of allowing oneself to express ones highest gift and highest Self through the help of some higher power.
We are here, all facing Resistance, so we can come further together.
So that we can be guided into these lanes and lessons of love, where we just have to figure out how to create connection where there is disconnection.
And, as I believe, the heart has everything we need — all of the goodness, to heal and elevate everything. Each cell in our bodies. Each flower petal in each garden. Each clenched jaw on each stressed out American (and hey, probably people in other countries, too).
But, it is like the quirky, quintessential artist Pablo Picasso said: “The meaning of your life is to discover your gift; the purpose of your life is to give it away.”
If you’d politely excuse me, Pablo, I’d offer that just giving it away ain’t the purpose.
The purpose is to actively offer the gift in collaboration with others’ energies.
What I mean by this is, to engage in conversations, embraces, adventures, playful moments, dances, chants, jiu-jitsu matches, and to co-write books.
To engage in conversations when the conflict between the Ego and the Heart feel much too incongruent to every find harmony and peace.
To embrace lev to lev (heart to heart in Hebrew) when the Ego is feeling hurt, scraped, let down yet the Heart is feeling free, uplifted, and positively energized.
To adventure when the Ego is feeling scared and small — and as a result, rigid and recalcitrant, but the Heart is offering both of its hands to the Ego to play with its wild, creative, imaginative, and yearning for something exciting and different — for your greater good.
To play when the Ego thinks it needs to meet its work quota to uphold a particular identity/persona/role in society yet the Heart is hopping and happy as it: hears the buoyant bounces of a game of hopscotch outside the window; feels the wispy, whittled molecules of rainfall grace its skin as the rain begins to fall; and senses the synchronistic, sensual, scintillating energy existing between two souls when simply ordering coffee to get a caffeine kickstart to the day.
To dance when the Ego wants to stay stiff, startled, single-pointed, yet the Heart wants to flow, bend, twirl, wind, and soak up the energy of fields beyond our vision.
To chant when the Ego is afraid to speak yet the Heart has so much to say.
To roll and tug, push and pull when the Ego believes it is the strongest character in the room, but it needs some nudging from the Heart to really see how much more effortlessly effective and how much more form-free fashionable it can be when it appreciates its exquisite smallness.
To develop a new expression beyond the Ego’s always correct ideas, straight-lined and unbudging, when the Heart just wants to offer a splash of compassion that might change the entire potion of Ego ideas into something beyond what pure thought could ever create.
You can see that herein the Ego represents one person — the more close-minded Clovis, and the Heart represents one person — the more open-minded Ophelia.
Whirling all the way back to the start of this post, when our joints are tight and aching…when our bones are feeling brittle and weak…when our organs are feeling malnourished…
This is a sign of an overactive Ego. An overactive Clovis.
Clovis has to let Ophelia in.
The alchemy, the transformation…the reorganization of energy (alignment) and the elevation of love (agreement with wholeness) is what will happen.
So no matter the ailment — real or perceived (if you are perceiving it, it is real), you must turn to the Heart and ask it to flood you with its unwavering belief that you can. Then, you must appeal day after day after day to the Brain to get on line with the Heart — it’s knowing that you can. You will feel the internal change, and you will feel yourself forget your pain and remember your strength.
You will return, with a Heart-based essential energy (thank G-d), to your future self…the unlimited Self that is waiting for you.