Letting go | With an Open Heart

Nov 18

Letting Go: This is How You End Suffering

This post is part of The Awakened Heart Project

Week 41: Letting Go: This is How You End Suffering

“Some people believe holding on and hanging in there are signs of great strength. However, there are times when it takes much more strength to know when to let go and then do it.” –

Ann Landers

Let Go, Be Free

This is not the first time the idea of “letting go” has been discussed throughout this project. And frankly, it probably wont be the last. Letting go, is something that is so important to inner peace. Holding onto emotions, thoughts, believes, perceptions, memories play a role in our lives. Sometimes we hold onto a memory for pleasure, because it brought us joy. Or we hold only a belief because letting it go bring us fear. We can’t image it any other way. However, there is a lot of suffering that remains when we continue to hold onto negative events, beliefs, and/or perceptions of people or events, etc. When we do this, we create another reality. Read more

May 6

Letting Your Worries Go

This post is part of The Awakened Heart Project

Week 19: Letting Your Worries Go

“I keep the telephone of my mind open to peace, harmony, health, love and abundance. Then, whenever doubt, anxiety or fear try to call me, they keep getting a busy signal – and soon they’ll forget my number.”

– Edith Armstrong

Letting Your Worries Go

Worry is unfortunately a very real part of most of our minds. This pattern of thinking has perhaps increased in the last 300 years as well. As humans, our worries are no longer simple or basic; that is, surviving. We’re now worried about the mortgage, college, how we look, the home we have, how others perceive us, are our children popular, or did I marry the right person? Am I in the right career? Should I have gone on vacation? Do I have enough saved? Are my parents proud of me? The list can go on forever and ever; I’m not going to bother.

Despite the plethora of things we have to worry about these days, it is possible to get back to basics; -at least cut the list dramatically! Before we get into the how, I want to share a little story with you.

“THE TROUBLE TREE”

The carpenter I hired to help me restore an old farmhouse had just finished a rough first day on the job. A flat tire made him lose an hour of work, his electric saw quit, and now his ancient pickup truck refused to start.

While I drove him home, he sat in stone silence. On arriving, he invited me in to meet the family. As we walked toward the front door, he paused briefly at a small tree, touching the tips of the branches with both hands.

After opening the door, he Read more

Apr 8

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We Must Learn to Let Go of Judgment

This post is part of The Awakened Heart Project

Week 15: We Must Learn to Let Go of Judgement.

“We should be lenient in our judgment, because often the mistakes of others would have been ours had we had the opportunity to make them.”

―Unknown

Part 1: Do Not Judge Others

Judgment: it’s a word that has a lot of weight behind it. The words that come with judgment are most often heavy, cold and unkind. There is nothing to gain when we judge. Nothing. If you know of something, please comment and let me know, because I can’t think of one thing.

When you judge others and others judge you, you put negative energy out into the world and in your heart. You’re also spreading a message that is likely not 100% truthful. Judgment is based on personal beliefs and schemas. Therefore, when you judge, you’re really showing many of your true colors. Sometimes, these colors are uuggglllyyyyy! These colors can easily out weight the beautiful colors underneath. We all know the saying, “Let your true colors shine!” But if your true colors are dark and sullen, then your “shine” will look much more like a dark cloud. I don’t know about you, but I’ll take a sunny day, over a raining day, ANY DAY! But hey, we can’t be a masterpiece all the time. We’re human. Not a single one of us is perfect.

Which brings me to my next point… Read more

Mar 4

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If You Want to Move Forward, and Let Go of Your Past, You Must Be Ready to Feel Some Pain.

This post is part of The Awakened Heart Project

Week 10: If You Want to Move Forward, and Let Go of Your Past, You Must Be Ready to Feel Some Pain.:

“As human beings, we all want to be happy and free from misery… we have learned that the key to happiness is inner peace. The greatest obstacles to inner peace are disturbing emotions such as anger, attachment, fear and suspicion, while love and compassion and a sense of universal responsibility are the sources of peace and happiness.” –Dalai Lama

Brace Yourself for Pain

I think it’s important to repeat some important themes from last week: We all have internal work to do. It’s inevitable that we all have baggage from our past that we’ve never bothered to open and sort through. We’ve pacified it with a band-aid and have worked quite hard to forget it. But it hasn’t worked. It’s just changed shape into the form of a tiny little metaphorical “twig”. Just like the elephant, there are “twigs” holding each of us back. The pain from our past often holds us hostage…Face it, -we ALL have these “twigs” whether we like it or not. And the only way to realize that it’s just a twig and that you can walk away from it, is to accept the fact that the twig exists, and pull that band-aid off and to realize that this little twig can be dealt with (with some work of course), and removed. In order to see the path to what you want, you must first see what is holding you back! It is then, and only then, that you can start moving forward.

And with that, IF YOU WANT TO MOVE FORWARD, AND LET GO OF YOUR PAST, YOU MUST BE READY TO FEEL SOME PAIN!

I know, what you’re thinking, “But band-aids help heal! If I rip it off now I could open that wound!” Actually, these “band-aids” aren’t really band-aids. They’re metaphorical band-aids. In reality, these “band-aids” are actually just concealers, camouflage, a façade, a mask, or blinders. Putting a band-aid on an emotional wound will not heal it; it will only cause it move further inward to a place that’s harder for you to reach, but it will undoubtedly continue to cause you pain. You may not understand Read more

Apr 22

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9 Fears that Keep Us from Achieving Our Dreams and Purpose In Life

There is no better place for growth then when we face our fears. Take the leap and see what happens. If you constantly hide behind your shadow, and stand stagnent paralized by your fears, you’ll never know all that you can acheive and where your fears might take you. Read more

Mar 21

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Changing Requires a Paradigm Shift. No one said it was going to be easy!

This morning I came across this post by A Thousand Shades of Gray discussing the paradigm shift we go through as humans whenever we’re in a process of personal transformation and growth.

Kurt Lewin developed the Change Theory that is today, the epitome of change models. Lewin is also regarded as the founder of Social Psychology and contributed vastly to the field. On the most basic level, Change Theory describes the process of change that occurs in humans, society, organizations, etc., as conscious and in three phases: Read more

Feb 22

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[FEATURED POST] What is…With an Open Heart??

What is …With an Open Heart? Well, it’s my best attempt at making a change in my life and opening myself, and my heart to the world. There are so many things I could try and say to explain this little blog, and the reason why I’m started it, but every time I try, I struggle to find the words. So let me just start by explaining my feelings leading up to this blog.

Feelings: I’m afraid of them!!

I’ve been running from them for nearly eight years. At first, this was easy, and made life a hell of a lot easier. How do you feel? Fine. Did that bother you? I couldn’t care less. I basically just shut down. I turned off my feelings and stopped caring. Read more