The Heart Chakra: A Bridge to Grace

February reminds us of our connection to our heart with the arrival of Valentine's Day. The heart chakra encompasses the realm of love—not only romantic love, but also love for self, dear ones, and humanity. Most importantly, it allows us to feel love from the Divine, which heals and transforms.

What is the heart chakra?

It's an energy center that sits at the center of your chest. It is not located at your physical heart, but did you know your heart has its own chakras?

When your heart chakra is open and balanced, you feel:

• Joyful

• Compassionate, kind, loving

• Peaceful

• A sense of purpose in life

• Free and safe to express your emotions

• Capable of nurturing self and others equally

• Intuitive

• Spiritually connected

When your heart chakra is closed and imbalanced, you feel:

• Grief, loss, sadness

• Fearful of rejection, unworthy of love

• Overly emotional and nervous tension

• Lost, directionless

• Shut down and unable to express emotions

• Excessive giving without equal receiving

• Unable to hear your heart's inner voice

• Blocked from higher spiritual guidance

The color of the heart chakra is green. I often like to breathe into my heart chakra and imagine that I am walking on grass through a green jungle.

The heart chakra is a profound emotional center. Trauma and wounds are stored here. Rejection, heartbreak, grief, and loss are some of the main wounds stored at the heart. Sometimes we form a wall around the heart to protect ourselves because of these woundings. However, the wall also prevents us from receiving and giving love at deep levels. It also blocks spiritual growth and many people with a closed heart chakra feel stuck in their lives.

How do you allow your heart to open and heal?

First, allow yourself to feel fully the complex emotions that can arise at the heart. The heart can feel both sadness and joy at the same time. You can understand this if you have sent a child off to college. Slow . . . it . . . all . . . down. Breathe through one emotion at a time. Provide yourself deep love and reverence for the courage it takes to feel your emotions.

Imagine Mother Earth taking all your emotions as you ground and release them down your tree trunk. She will compost and transform the emotions. Replenish yourself by imagining a waterfall of light above your head and drinking in that light. I love also to imagine myself as a tree as I enjoy the tingling interface of sunlight dancing on my leaves.

This light is from Source. Allow your heart chakra to drink it in, like a flower, from the back of your heart. Let the light enter the middle of your heart chakra to clear and cleanse. Then allow it to radiate out to the front. This will allow the front of your heart chakra to come back to its normal size (often it is overextended and large from giving so much) and it will start to spin at its normal pace. You will start to feel calm.

If you ever cry during a healing, that is a good sign! It is the heart cracking open to Divine Love and letting go of the scars of this lifetime. You will feel loved and supported and very joyful.

You can start healing the heart through the lower chakras.

If you feel like you are having problems at your heart chakra, bring your attention to what is happening in the lower chakras. Being ungrounded (first chakra issue) can cause all the lower three chakras to close. As a result, the heart chakra is forced to process an enormous amount of energy, most of which it cannot handle well. It becomes overworked, like a sore muscle. What often results is anxiety, fear, and insomnia.

The heart chakra bridges the physical realm with the higher realms. It is the transformation point between the lower three chakras and the upper three chakras. It allows us to manifest our higher creative vibrations into the physical, aka creation! You are a divine creator. You came for the joy of creation. When your heart is open, you allow Grace to come in. Then magic happens. And best of all, you feel worthy of the magic.

Upcoming Workshop

I'll be teaching a workshop on Sunday, March 1 at Yoga Pearl. It will focus on healing the root chakra--a great way to provide a foundation for healing the heart. I hope you can join me.

To learn more and register: Healing the Root Chakra: Rooting into Trust to Regain Self

I hope your February is filled with love and Grace.

Many blessings,

Tuan Anh