Closed Hearts Don't Get Fed!

Randomly, the other day, I got this message in my heart to post on my Instagram story. I wrote about how most people don’t realize that giving half assed love out of fear of someone hurting you is really delusional and arrogant. It may have seemed like I wrote this because I was reminiscing on how someone had done me dirty or I couldn’t get the person that I like to text me back, but honestly I have no idea where it came from. I don’t have anyone that I’m talking to and at the time I wasn’t thinking about the past. The interesting thing about channeling and inspiration is that sometimes you don’t even know why you’re sharing a message. All you know is that you feel this strong urge to share what’s on your mind. Shortly after I posted the messages, people started direct messaging me, agreeing with the posts and saying that they needed to hear it. That was confirmation.

Sometimes, I like to refer to life as Earth school. I believe that we are all spiritual beings, placed into 3d human vessels to experience emotions, creativity, and physical sensations. So, by nature, we learn a lot through simply living. Everyday I realize something new about myself and the world around me. The other day, I had the sudden realization that one of the reasons why people are not able to flourish and reach their fullest potential is because their hearts are closed. We all have heard the infamous phrase, “closed mouths don’t get fed”. But, what about a closed heart? 

Whenever I’m scrolling on social media I see all of these quotes, memes, think pieces, and podcasts about relationships and dating. People are projecting their past experiences, giving advice, teaching manipulation tactics, and everything else. Sometimes, I wonder, “Don’t people know that if we all just showed up authentically and loved with open and honest hearts we wouldn’t need to learn to play psychological games and pretend we don’t have feelings?” It all just seems so backwards to me. My last relationship was not perfect by any means, but one thing that I learned was to open my heart and love fully regardless of the outcome. 

When I first got with my ex, I had trust issues and I hadn’t yet realized how strong my intuition was. I intuitively knew from the beginning that that person was “too good to be true”. Looking back, it wasn’t too good to be true, I just could feel some manipulative, selfish, and sneaky energy creeping underneath the surface. After being gaslit so many times whenever I would bring up what I felt, I just accepted that I loved him and that I’d continue to love him. I decided that even if he one day lied to me or cheated on me, I’d just be fully present everyday and deal with that when the time came and that’s exactly what I did. I have no regrets. 

Did I get my heart broken? Sure. Did I feel dumb for not trusting myself in the past? Sure. The thing is though, that I also learned to be open. A couple of years ago I realized that whether I fully trusted my person or not, I could never control their actions and I would never put it above anyone to hurt me. My only option was to let go of control, open my heart and trust MYSELF to know that if I was ever put in a position where I needed to leave, I would. That gave me an immense level of peace and a high self esteem. Why? Because, I was no longer letting anyone outside of myself determine how open I was going to allow my heart to be. 

I was no longer going to cling to fear and trauma as excuses as to why I would deny a key part of myself to openly flourish. I love love. I love being kind. I love nurturing the people that I care about. I love being able to relax around people and just connect. Allowing myself to exist in that without playing any games or holding back out of fear freed me. It freed my heart. 

The unfortunate truth is that sometimes, people lie. Not everyone has the best intentions for others. Some people like to manipulate others and try to use them for their own gain, but on the opposite end of the spectrum, there are people out there who love wholeheartedly. There are people who genuinely enjoy being kind to others and being supportive and loyal. Unless you allow yourself to be truly open to love, you will never get to experience those kinds of people and if you do, it will be short lived. 

This message obviously applies to romantic love, but this also applies to platonic connections and pursuing your passions. When my heart was cold and I was only paying attention to the negativity in the world, I was attracting fake friends and didn’t even have enough confidence in myself to put my creations out there. Every time I would realize that someone was not a good friend to me or I’d get a cool idea then immediately convince myself that I couldn’t bring it to life, I was allowing those situations to feed into my fears and distrust of myself and my ability to make decisions. 

It wasn’t until I learned what it means to internalize something that I was able to detach myself from other people’s actions and projections. To internalize something simply means to absorb it. In a psychological sense, this means that when someone shares a negative opinion or critique of you, you take it in as though it was your own belief and now feel shame or guilt behind that negative opinion. The same can be said for when someone lies to you or hurts you. You can internalize that person’s behavior, absorb it, and begin to think that there is something wrong with you that prompted the person’s behavior or think that they represent everyone in your life. Then, you start to believe that all people are liars. 

To me, opening your heart is really about practicing the ability to trust in your own discernment and NOT take anything personally. You can never stop someone else from mistreating you or trying to get over on you. You can never avoid failure when trying to pursue your dreams or avoid people having negative opinions of you and your work. The only person that you can control is yourself. Imagine how many people and opportunities you will repel with a closed heart. Do you know how many people have only found their spouse, best friend, and dream career opportunities after heartbreaks, disappointments, and rejection? The same way that we have to practice not being afraid to ask for what we want, we have to combine that with not being afraid to actually open our hearts and ALLOW what we want into our lives, with love.