Your Courageous Heart

The seed of courage is in your heart - let it take root.

Courage means strength of heart. The root of the word - “cor” - means heart in Latin. The word our culture uses to refer to “facing fear”, actually means living from the heart! Vulnerability and connection is the courageous choice that will promote survival. Dropping the armor, the defenses, the cultural facades, this is courage of the heart. 
 

The mythos of our culture hooks our value to productivity; externalizing our worthiness. Emotions and intuition are often seen as second class citizens. Unfortunately, this disconnects us from heart. When I teach self-compassion many students report discomfort and concern that bringing kindness to their experience will “let themselves off the hook” or they will become "lazy". Questions of deserving vs. undeserving arise. As a human, and a division 1 athlete raised in a competitive culture, I can relate to this. When I started practicing self-compassion I noticed resistance and tightness in my chest. Bringing love and acceptance to my whole experience, even the hard and painful ones, felt strange and scary. Dropping the armor of judgement and the "fix it" mentality was downright frightening. 
 

So why can compassion be so hard? Feeling into the reality of being human, and holding this in love, is contrary to what we have been taught. Love is the way of the future, yes, but it was not the way of the past. For thousands of years our ancestors have been fighting for resources, warring between tribes, and fearing many predators (rival tribes, weather, animals, food shortages, etc). Vulnerability was dangerous; safety & love a privilege. Our collective consciousness has been impacted by this, our culture shaped through the lens of competition. Yet as we evolve it is clear the architects of wisdom were on to something: 

 

"For thousands of years & one generation after another, the human race has thrown up men & women of love, vision & boundless courage. It is thanks to these towering giants that our humanness has always remained with us & will always remain with us, no matter how difficult the challenges history throws at us from one historic era to another" 

                                                                                             ~ Nelson Mandela
 

Let us honor these "towering giants" by dropping judgement and awakening love. Sounds good, BUT HOW? We integrate head and heart. We shift from the dominant and seductive thinking mind, to the inhale and exhale. My dear friend has an apt saying, "practice makes permanent". Our culture has been training the thinking/judging mind for a long time - so we have some excavating to do! Let's start training the muscle of awareness. Untangle from aversion of pain and cravings for pleasure, shift from the cultural message of “not enough” to enough, and find the balance between strength and ease. All of this can be done in the seat of a loving heart. As your heart muscle strengthens so will your ability to navigate this being human. Love spreads moment to moment, healing everything it touches.

All of this contributes to my passion for starting This Mindful Life, our online mindfulness community. You can learn more HERE. Please pass along to anyone you think may benefit:)

See below for Head & Heart online class this month or click here

Lastly, I want to start sharing suggested reading to awaken our hearts together. Cheers to the first book of the month!

Book of the month: The Art of Living by Thich Nhat Hanh  book link


With Compassion,
Ellen 
Founder