For the past week, I’ve found myself humming the tune “keep your heart wide open”. The lyrics are from a Zac Brown band song called “Let It Go”. And, as happens once in a great while, I got the lyrics wrong. They actually go:
Let It Go by Zac Brown - unexpectedly wise and a fun listen!
Keep your heart above your head and your eyes wide open
So this world can’t find a way to leave you cold
And know you’re not the only ship out on the ocean
Save your strength for things that you can change
Forgive the ones you can’t
You gotta let it go.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how to open my heart. How to be more compassionate to others, without losing myself in the world’s troubles. Not so easy for an empath. We automatically pick up the emotions, energy and suffering of those around us, and it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Often times it’s pretty difficult to distinguish our own emotions from the deluge of angst that streams in. Most of my clients are highly empathic and I’ve noticed that we tend to adopt a couple of different coping strategies:
Close down our hearts to give ourselves a respite
Take on other people’s suffering and feel responsible for fixing their problems
Neither of these works very well in the long run. Just ask James Doty, neurosurgeon and author of “Into the Magic Shop”. Last week, I wrote about Doty’s four magic tricks in Let There Be Magic! The hardest trick for him to learn was #3 - open your heart. My guess is that he’s still working on it, like so many of us.
“Where did this headache come from?” I wondered. Rather than continue to try to ignore it, I decided to do some healing work on myself. I began to move my hand counter clockwise over my 6th chakra. This energy center is called the third eye because it’s located in the middle of the forehead. Right where I was feeling pain and tension. This technique, unwinding a chakra, helps to clear out stagnant energies, and should be a staple in every empath’s energy hygiene practice. I just hadn’t been good about doing that for myself lately. Like the plumber whose own pipes are clogged. If you’d like to learn more about this practice, start with my post Settling Into the Stillness of an Open Chakra.
As I unwound my third eye, I felt the pain in my head ease. When this chakra was still and quiet, I noticed a disconnect between my head and heart. My throat chakra, which sits in between, and acts as a sort of gatekeeper, was closed. So, I repeated the same unwinding process for my throat. As it opened and cleared, I felt magic begin to flow; a swirling mix of green, blue, purple and white colors connecting my heart, throat and head. My heart was already open and just waiting for the opportunity to collaborate with my thinking mind and speaking voice.
Keep your heart above your head and your eyes wide open. Suddenly, the lyrics I’d been humming for days, made a new kind of sense. To stay afloat, our open hearts can’t do it alone. We’re likely to drown under the weight of the world’s sorrow. We need our clear voice and open eyes to direct our heart’s compassion. Then, we can better recognize what is ours to own, what we can effectively do to help others, and to let go of the rest.
