Happy day of all things red, arrow, cherub, love, and hearts! Valentine’s Day originated as a Western Christian feast day honoring one or two early saints named Valentinus (according to Wikipedia). It is recognized as a celebration of romance and love.
What better day to discuss the desires and expression of the heart?! Our heart yearns for attention, affection, appreciation, and acceptance. We look to fill our heart’s desire with these things everyday in the world around us, often without even giving it much thought. However, what we are able to feel from others is directly correlated with the amount of attention, affection, appreciation, and acceptance we’re able to give ourselves. In other words, if you don’t fully give yourself attention, affection, appreciation, acceptance than you will never feel as though you receive enough from others.
Cultivating these things within ourselves can be tricky when we are new to the idea. For instance, how do I show myself affection? Do you mean I need to give myself more hugs? No, I don’t mean more self hugging, but I’m not mad at ya if you decide to do so! Affection in our culture is often associated with touch which is a misleading concept. The actual definition of affection is a gentle feeling of fondness or liking. Do you like yourself? How much; a lot, a little, or somewhere in between?
Appreciation is something you can offer yourself every minute of everyday. Here’s a little example to determine if you’re excelling with self appreciation: Imagine yourself working long and hard on a very tedious project. You have labored on this task for days, and there is a lot riding on the successful completion of this project. You have spent more effort on this one project you have on everything else all year long. As you’re about to submit the project you notice an error in the data. This error would have completely negated the credibility of the entire project. Thus flushing all of this hard work and effort down the tubes. Upon realizing this error, which best explains the internal dialogue you have with yourself?
- You berate yourself for making such a huge error which would have cost you dearly. You call yourself an idiot, halfwit, and careless fool. You begrudgingly make the correction by forcefully typing on your keyboard and punishing your mouse with heavy finger clicks. You remind yourself you will never be successful if you continue to make such thoughtless errors.
- You thank yourself for your keen attention to detail and the commitment to review your work several times before submitting it. You show gratitude for your intuition which urged you to look things over one more time even though you thought you had caught all of the needed corrections. You realize how these traits serve you well and will help you to have the success you desire with this and future projects.
Appreciation can be expressed even during times of stress and misfortune. It’s all about perspective!
Self acceptance is feeling satisfied with yourself despite deficiencies or weaknesses and regardless of past behaviors and choices. My last blog discussed our personality structure, and a part of our personality structure is having traits which work against our success. We are all human, therefore we all have perceived weaknesses. Are you aware of yours or do you deny acknowledging them? Do you realize your weaknesses while being able to identify some positive aspects about them? When we are able to accept all aspects of self we actually decrease the desire to be approved by others. Oh, and go the extra mile and appreciate both your strengths and your weaknesses while you’re at it!
Of the four ‘A’s of the heart, attention has the most variety in how we can offer this to ourselves. Yet somehow self forgetting seems to be a regular stumbling block. Do you drink enough water? Get exercise each week? Do you spend time in prayer/meditation/mindfulness? Do you eat the foods which make your body feel well? Do you stop and observe your feelings or emotions as they arise, or do you ignore them and tuck them away for a rainy day that will never come? Do you take time for a beloved hobby? Do you allow your body to sleep the ideal number of hours it needs most nights? Do you regularly partake in activities to expand your mind? In our fast paced, hectic world it is so easy to rush around from this task to the next and demand a high level of productivity from ourselves without ever checking in to see what’s going on internally.
Heart Centering Exercise
Here is a quick and easy activity to help guide you to feed your heart’s desires internally. This can be a short two minute activity or a longer meditative practice. But first, a little bit of information on what makes this exercises so effective. Traditionally we have studied the communication pathways between the head and heart to be a one-sided perspective. Scientists focused primarily on the heart’s response to the brain’s commands. However, the communication between the heart and the brain is a two-way dialogue, dynamic and on-going in nature, with each organ influencing the other’s function. The heart is an intricate network of complex ganglia, neurotransmitters, proteins, and support cells which is the same as those in the brain. What better way to discover how you can fulfill your own heart’s desires than by asking the heart itself?
Start by deciding which ‘A’ you would like to explore. Do you want to perceive how you can give yourself more attention, affection, appreciation, or acceptance? As you focus on this word take a few very long, deep, slow breaths into your belly, expanding your chest last. Then breath all the way out, pushing all of the air out of your lungs. Once you have focused your attention internally via the breath work, move the intention you’ve been holding in your mind down into your heart. If you chose attention, ask your heart “How can I show myself more attention?”. Then see what comes up from your heart to your mind. If you begin to think about what’s for dinner or all of the things you should be doing right now, just move your awareness back to your heart and ask the question again. We have a thought every 1.2 seconds so don’t be surprised when those thoughts start popping up trying to pull you off track. Once you receive a response from the heart, express gratitude. You can then move to the next A and complete them all if you’d like. On the days you apply the information you receive from the heart, be mindful to see if you feel more of this desire from others too than what you feel on the days you don’t utilize this practice.
Wishing you all your heart’s desires and more!
Peace & Love,
Janessa