Secret Of A Path With Heart

No matter how much I meditated, I could only get so close to the flame. Something blocked me from touching my inner core. There was a low temperature place inside me behind locked doors. Eventually I discovered writing. At first, I wrote on the typewriter, since I could pace my thoughts to the speed of my two fingered typing skills. It gave me a structure which helped me manage the gush of stuff that come up for expression. The gushing part took me by surprise, and it constantly amazed me that the words didn't stop. I did nothing with what I wrote - I thought "Who would want to listen to my babble?"

Then I stumbled across my inner child. This was in 1993. It was a difficult experience in the beginning. Stubborn, rigid, willful, angry, cold - all those things I expressed when I was scared or hurt. And I seemed to be scared and hurt a lot of the time. In a book called The Artist's Way the author describes a form of journaling which appealed to me. I sensed that this form of writing, combined with the concept (back then I thought it was a concept) of the inner child, could work for me.

I discovered the doors were not locked against other people so much as they were against myself. The low temperature was me being cold toward myself. I wasn't having heart for myself. I started journaling, experimenting until I found what works. Then I took ownership of what I discovered. Sometimes painful, sometimes joyful, always healing and worth every step of the way. A Path With Heart is the result.

This journey is not unique to me. Every human being makes it. From entrance to this world to departure, it is all about learning to have heart for ourselves. If you adopt an attitude of patience and persistence; and journal as I describe it, you will come home to your heart. Your healing is a forgone conclusion. No matter how badly you have been hurt, it is not beyond being healed. Buddha taught "The greater the burden, the greater the enlightenment." No matter how violated you have been, or have violated yourself, the essential you is untouched and untarnished.

I am speaking of your spiritual self - the inner you. The you that you see when you look into your eyes. Your body, emotions and mind may have been trampled into the dirt over and over. You are not your body, your emotions or your mind. These things were created during your mother's pregnancy, and they cease to exist when you pass over (die). You already are whole, complete and perfect just as you are. What and who we are as adults is built on the foundation of what and who we believed ourselves to be as children.

I believed myself broken, and responsible for other people's troubles. Through journaling, I finally found what was behind those tightly locked doors. I found I had this agenda of emotional suicide whereby I unconsciously made the above belief come true over and over. All this is transforming now. Since it has happened for me, it can happen for you. This is, after all, an equal opportunity universe. You are a perfect being just as you are.
Go look in the mirror - check it out.

 Next article...

 Previous article...

 The Articles Index...