Today we are looking at my very favorite part of being human… your emotional heart!
We have been talking a lot about focusing where you have power and I can’t think of a more powerful place then your heart. So we are going to map it out together. I use to do this with clients and with strangers at coffee shops and it always brought them to tears of joy.
What we are about to do will make so much sense to you, that it will feel like you are learning something new and remembering something you have always known all at the same time!
Figure 1. Your Emotional Heart:
So let’s start with you and your emotional heart. This is you, a brilliant mix of divinity woven into human form. You are a completely unique expression of truth, essence of love, and creation of life. You are filled with purpose and passion and power.
While your being is completely unique and individualized you are part of the whole. You are connected to every other expression of life and form that we get to experience. You can feel it when you stand at the banks of the ocean or look out over a vista… You can feel that you are small part of something so much bigger.
You are worthy and valuable as you are without any external factors needed.
Figure 2. Your fundamental & Essential Truth:
This is you with all of your fundamental and essential truth radiating from your.
You come into your humanity in harmony with your divinity. You don’t have words for your fundamental and essential truth yet but it is woven through your being.
This is the truth that allows you to be completely who you are; full of life, fully supported, worthy, enthusiastic, curious, joy filled, intrigued, and resilient just to name a few.
Nothing feels off limits to you. You are present, engaged and free to be in harmony with the world around you. Think of a baby or toddler and how curious, brave completely engaged and present as they move through there day.
In Season Two of Awakening To Your Story TV we looked at so many of these Essential and Fundamental truths as mantras; I AM Loved, I AM Miraculous, I AM Whole, I AM Powerful, I AM Connected… If you need a refresher head over there to plug back into some of the power essential and fundamental truths woven into your being.
Figure 3. Your Limiting Beliefs:
These are handed down beliefs that contradict your essential truth. They are exactly what they say they are… beliefs that limit you, your heart and your experience as a human being.
As you start to adopt these limiting beliefs they restrict your capacity of heart or the ability to express and engage from your truth. With every liming belief it’s as if your capacity of heart get more bound and more tangled.
You go through life picking up these liming beliefs from other people. Whether being told things directly or by witnessing them in situations around you, you start believing the limitation. The limiting thoughts sneak in and before you know it you’re doubting the truth and replaying the limitation over and over again.
When someone hands down something limiting to you, that person is usually expressing themselves through their own fear and limitation. Their truth has been masked by fear and often they don’t even know it. No matter where or who it came from, a limiting belief is still just a belief. It’s something you have a choice in, because you have the power to believe in anything your heart desires.
With every thought you are fortifying your truth or you limiting belief. With every thought you are plugging into love or fear. So you want to make sure you are focusing in a place that serves your higher good.
Figure 4. Your Mind:
Your brain is such a powerful part of your humanity. But it’s important to understand that it’s a tool that you control, it doesn’t control you. You have the power to choose your thoughts, to engage your imagination, and to focus wherever it is you want to focus.
It’s valuable to get familiar with your hippocampus, amygdala, and your prefrontal cortex. These are three working parts of your brain that filter and activate thought.
Your hippocampus creates and stores facts, memories and helps you remember things that are important and of value to you. It acts as the worker of your brain.
Your amygdala filters negative emotion to help you survive. It’s known as the fight, flight, or freeze part of your brain. It’s the fear center of your brain and is linked to all those limiting beliefs. It acts as security of your brain.
Your prefrontal cortex is in charge of your creativity, high functioning thinking, focus, and imagination. It influences your actions and helps you make decisions. It is also linked to all of your essential and fundamental truth. It acts as the boss of your brain and has the power to affect all the other parts of the brain.
When negative emotions come in it activates the amygdala and works that flight, fight or freeze to make sure you are safe. But it’s your prefrontal cortex that has the power of higher level thinking, to be solution oriented, and find a path out of the fear and negative emotion and back into the truth and positive emotion.
FIGURE 5. PATTERNS OF THINKING:
Everything you experience and co-create into reality is woven together by your patterns of thought. It’s important to understand that you have the ability to choose your patterns of thinking.
When you have activated a pattern of thought from your amygdala, limiting beliefs, or fear you become stuck in a loop of suffering. It keeps you focused on what’s wrong and what feels bad.
When you’ve activated a pattern of thinking from your prefrontal cortex you are set on a solution oriented journey back to your essential truth. It activates a wellspring of possibility and holds your focus on what’s working in your favor and your path forward.
I use the analogy of the jellyfish beach vs. the piña colada beach to help you re-pattern your thoughts. It gives you a visual that can help you make a conscious choice over the thoughts you choose to think. Ones associated with your limiting beliefs or ones associated with your essential truth.
The jellyfish beach is covered in jellyfish. There is no shade and the water is rough and filled with sharks. You can’t walk or swim without worry and suffering. There is no place to sit or be without discomfort. There only seems to be struggle waiting for you.
The Piña Colada Beach on the other hand is awe-inspiring. The crystal clear water laps up on the pristine beach. Majestic turtles wait to swim with you and there are palm trees, a hammock, a lounge chair, and a piña colada waiting for you. It’s peaceful and there are endless moments of joy waiting to be created.
Now with each thought you are building a path to one of these beaches. You have the power to choose which one you want to find yourself dealing with. Think of your mind as a grass covered sand dune… your limiting belief may have caused you to walk to the jellyfish beach a number of times. It may have even been years or decades of walking that same path. Each time wearing down the grass so that the sand came through.
When you are working to re-pattern your limiting belief back to your truth you have to understand that it’s a process. You have to consciously choose to forage a new path to a new beach. Then you have to choose that path over the old path time and time again, until it becomes second nature to you. The grass will have grown up over the jellyfish path making it even easier to choose the path of truth.
FIGURE 6. MIRRORS AND REFLECTIONS IN THE WORLD AROUND YOU:
The world around you is a mirror that reflects back to you, what is in your own heart. Sometimes it reflects back to you all that brilliant and magical truth that is woven into your being. Sometimes it reflects the limiting beliefs that have been keeping you bound.
If it’s reflecting something limited, it’s not bad. There is nothing wrong with you. It just means your ready for more capacity of heart. It means that external reflection is trying to show you the limiting belief that is in the way. Try not to focus on the mirror or the external factor. It will feel like it’s all about them but it isn’t, it actually about your heart. So instead try to focus on your heart, your personal belief system, and what might be limited there.
If something is coming in and bumping up against a limiting belief you will feel your reaction to it. It may be fear, stress, anxiety, frustration…. That reaction can be all sorts of negative emotion. Don’t let your amygdala take over… use your prefrontal cortex to find the higher perspective.
Let the moment be an indicator showing you what limiting belief is ready to be shifted back to your truth. If you can do that you will absolutely make room in your heart to feel better. And as you do, remember that re-patterning those limiting beliefs back to the truth is a process. Keep choosing the peña colad path of thinking.
