Although October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, we’d like to expand your awareness to Breast Health and an Open, Radiant Heart Chakra. The Heart or fourth chakra commands our sense of self-love. Whether you are male or female, the heart is connected to the breasts. Female breasts symbolize loving nourishment and nurturing. But, when the energy of love is not flowing from or to our hearts, both men and women can suffer the effects of being cut off from the free flow of loving female energy. Male breast cancer is on the rise and, sadly, the numbers of incidents of heart disease in women are catching up with the statistics for men.
Here are some signs that a weak Heart Chakra may be affecting the things and people closest to your heart:
Defensiveness. You are often on guard. It is difficult for you to believe people mean the best for you. You do not allow yourself to open up to others and constantly fear being misunderstood or misinterpreted and fear of being hurt or rejected.
Ruminating. You obsess over social situations that don’t go your way. You go over and over and over again interactions that left you feeling you could have said or did something better. Maybe it’s a conversation, an interview question or an argument you wish you had answered or said something differently. You try and put blame on the other parties and feel intentionally slighted or harassed.
Neediness. You’ve become worried that your partner doesn’t need you as much as you need him. Or, you’re sure your friends have stopped calling you because they don’t like you anymore. What you used to accept as other people’s busy lives you now think is intentional silent treatment. You feel and act childish.
Your Love Has Become Conditional. You find yourself keeping an ‘emotional score sheet,’ determining who should or should not be worthy of your time and affection based on how well they met your expectations. You become reactive or petty at the slightest perceived offense and try to manipulate your loved one’s behavior.
Here are two exercises for energizing your Heart Chakra:
Reframing for Gratitude
What we focus on amplifies. Turn off the insecure accusations and turn on the gratitude. When you are lonely and the phone isn’t ringing, take a moment to say, “Thank you for all these friends in my life who I wish to spend my time with.” Turn an annoyance into an honor. If you have a messy spouse or roommate, give thanks for your home and shelter. “Thank you for all these clothes in the laundry basket!” “Thank you for my two feet that created these dirty socks.” You get the idea. Next time you get annoyed, take a pause and remind yourself that every inconvenience is actually evidence that you are in a dynamic flow of energy with another human being. Let the gratitude and love for them flow out of your heart and you will turn loneliness into precious time for solitude and reflection.
Love Affirmation
Take a deep breath, close your eyes, and on the out breath say to yourself: “I am filled with power to dissolve sadness, loneliness and fear with the gentle, powerful strength of this golden light. Golden energy radiates from my heart to the entire world.”