Workbook Chapter Twenty-One

Become Open-Hearted

 

Self-Assessment Tools:

 

OPENING YOUR HEART: A GUIDED MEDITATION

Barry K. Weinhold, PhD

 

Suggested background music: Paul Sutin’s “Serendipity” or Vangelis’ “Ignacio”

 

Note: You may need to have another trusted person read this script as you allow yourself to experience the guided meditation. 

 

This guided meditation will help you open your heart. It will take about 20 minutes. Place your body in a comfortable position…. Close your eyes…. Take a deep breath and hold it in…hold it…hold it…and let go. Begin letting your body relax.  Let your body relax. Take a deep breath in…hold it…hold it… hold it… and let it go. Feel your body relaxing and letting go. Once again a deep breathe in…hold it…hold it…hold it… and let it go.

 

As you breathe in now imagine that you can breathe directly into the center of your heart, into the area in the center of your chest (place your hand over your heart and feel your breath going directly into your heart center). 

 

What is the first thing you are aware of as the breath comes into your heart?  What do you feel? What do you notice as your breath comes into your heart? Continue breathing and becoming increasingly more aware of your heart. As you breathe in imagine that you are breathing in a light of golden color. With each in-breath,  experience golden light coming into your heart. Follow this golden light in with each breath. 

 

Feel it come all the way into your heart center. Feel your chest beginning to fill with golden light. With each breath feel your heart filling with more golden light. This light is warm and as you breathe in now there is a sense of warmth coming in. Feel your breath filling your heart with warmth. Each time you breathe in very gently with each in-breath, experience that this golden light and warmth is filling your heart. This golden light has healing properties to it. This light has healing properties so as the golden light comes into your heart there is a sense of a healing warm light coming into your heart and gently touching your heart.

 

It is as if you were in the hands of a master masseuse or masseur and they knew your heart perfectly and using this golden healing light began to gently massage your heart. This light is familiar; you know this light and this feeling, this healing touch. In some way, you know this. Keep breathing in warm, healing light…. As you do that you are becoming aware of places in your heart that are closed…..

 

We all have places of armoring in and around our heart. Places that seem to shy away from the light as it enters your heart. Be aware of any of these places that seem tight or perhaps numb.

 

As infants, we came into this life with our hearts totally open. You are totally vulnerable; totally alive. We met each moment without expectation with total trust. See an image of yourself as a newborn baby. Your eyes and your heart are wide open. In your imagination, remember this state of trust. See it, feel it, remember it. Keep breathing into your heart.

 

Yet, over time, our infant trusting hearts, our infant selves had experiences that taught us to fear; to close down. Remember now some of these experiences that taught your heart to protect itself. These experiences made you in some way feel like the world was not a safe place for an open-heart.

 

Breathe into your heart. Breathe in warmth; breathe in light. As you breathe in, become aware of some of the armoring your heart is carrying is a result of the wounding it received in this lifetime. Now feel that you are your heart. There is no past and no future. In your heart, it all happens now.

 

Breathe into your heart. Let the golden light illumine those places of darkness, of uptightness, of numbness in your heart. Keep breathing gently. Don’t try to change what you feel or are experiencing. Keep drawing the golden light into your chest with each in-breath. Let your own heart now reveal to you some place in your heart where healing is needed, knowing that this healing is available to you today. Let your own heart show you this now…. Find that place where you need healing and know that you have available some healing for your heart…. Go into your own heart and let your heart show you this place now…. 

 

As you breathe in, breathe directly into this place in your heart that needs healing, drawing the golden light in very gently to this place of wounding. This healing light cannot enter your heart unwelcomed, unbidden, so if you are wanting an opening for your heart and if you are wanting to heal this wound in your heart, now you must ask in some way for this. 

 

So, I invite you now to sound a prayer in your own heart, to literally say the words that ask for healing. Sound these words repeatedly in your heart now. Ask that your heart be opened and that this wound in your heart be healed. Call out that the spirit of all life may touch your heart. Do this in your own way repeatedly asking for healing in your own heart and bringing unconditional love into your life. Ask repeatedly now. You may want to put the words softly onto your lips. In addition, as you listen to this song let the words and the music touch your heart wherever healing is needed today.

 

Play “How Could Anyone Ever Tell You?” by Shaina Noll.  Follow this song with “The Rose” by Bette Midler

 

Case Example:

 

A male client told me that he was having trouble with projections in his marriage. He said he uses “perception checks” to determine whether or not his partner is projecting her unhealed trauma onto him rather than working to heal it herself. He reported that he freaks out when someone is using vague language that can have multiple interpretations. He said, “If I get the feeling that someone is shading the truth with me or trying to create loopholes for themselves, or framing things in a way they think I’ll more readily accept, my trust goes out the window.” 

 

Then he said, “How I have learned to deal with this feeling is to check it out with the person, when I’m feeling suspicious. I ask them directly about my perception. I turn into a detective and find out what they are really saying, or trying not to say. I’ve learned that when I do that, I find out that my fears are not real. At times, I realize that I am loved and special to that person and that they are being truthful to me.” This is the correct way to use perception checks to identify any possible projections.

 

Additional Resources: 

Films: “Through a Glass Darkly ” by Ingmar Bergman