A Center-pieced Heart
Do you know your heart communicates with you?
I didn’t. I thought she only spoke when I was waist deep in a big mess I made feeling overwhelmed, confused, and hurt. I couldn’t distinguish between the emotions I felt and what my heart was needing. I thought the only reason for a heart was to communicate pain or love.
I didn’t understand I was emotionally equivalent to a 2 year old - one with serious wounds.
In order to emotionally heal we need to understand our hearts are at the center of the equation. Before we go too far, it’s important to recognize the difference between our hearts and our emotions. They are not the same.
Emotions are indicators. They tell us want is happening inside of us. They are warning signs - green means good, yellow means “let’s rethink”, red means “hold up, something’s not right”. Plus blue and orange and purple, you can get creative here. They tell us when something is okay and when it’s not. We were never made to live by our emotions (can you imagine that roller coaster ride? Some of us have been on it for a while). Rather, we were meant to understand them and use them as a roadmap back to our hearts. You can think of emotions like kids - you don’t want them driving the car, but you don’t want them in the trunk either. They’re meant to be felt and processed in the safety of the back seat. Feeling anxious is an emotion, not a problem. It’s an indicator that says, “hey, there is something your heart needs right now.”
“We were never made to live by our emotions . We were meant to understand them and use them as a roadmap back to our heart.”
Our heart is our source of life. It’s a living entity that beats to be loved and give love. It comes alive with compassion and understanding. It has healthy needs that if gone unmet will find unhealthy ways to fill them. It’s with you in every situation regardless if you can feel it or not. It absorbs every ping of pain no matter how small or large. It drinks up every drop of love and acceptance. Its incredibly raw, vibrant, captivating, and most importantly - MESSY - real messy and that’s okay.
We can easily learn to ignore our hearts, but they are actually meant to play the main character at center stage. We are designed to live fully connected to our hearts because they are our source of life! When we are connected to our hearts life becomes a wondrous adventure, the kind that captivated our imaginations as kids.
At some point, many of us decide (conscious or not) to partner with death. We believe our hearts are too sick, too confusing, too complicated, too messy, too painful, or too deceitful. Maybe someone hurt us, abused us, neglected us, or ignored us. We use pain to justify silencing our hearts and moving into our heads. After all, its safer in the shrink’s office than in the wild landscape of an abandoned heart. When we do this we cut off our oxygen supply, and we go into survival mode.
“We are designed to live fully connected to our hearts because they are our source of life. When we are connected to our hearts life becomes a wondrous adventure, the kind that captivated our imaginations as kids. ”
Think about your life as a period of 20 minutes. The human body can survive without oxygen for about 15 minutes and there will be indicators. We might start panicking, kicking, grabbing our throat, searching for other people to help us, turning red, then purple, then blue. If we don’t get back to oxygen, then 15 minutes finds us desperate. We either succumb to the white light or experience an adrenaline implosion to find a way back to life.
The same is true of our hearts. We can decide our hearts don’t matter at a young age. As kids, we internalize our experiences around us and start believing our hearts don’t have space or they don’t have a voice and when they do it’s not welcomed unless we fit into a cultural standard (often called good behavior). We cut off our hearts in order to survive upbringing. We can live without being connected, however, there are always warning signs. I’m talking about anxiety. I’m talking about withdrawal, numbing, over eating, under eating, depression, suicide, alcohol, denial, dramatization, fight, flight, freeze, fawn, masturbation, porn, disassociation, etc.
These are our symptoms, not problems. They are either direct emotions (anxiety) or indirect emotions (freeze as it relates to fear). Regardless, they lead us back to the root. For example, many people will masturbate not out of addiction, but out of a need for intimacy. Often our pain is overwhelming and few were taught how to process it in a healthy way.
Let’s leave shame at door. These are not problems as much as indicators your heart has a need. Our hearts can function a long time in survival mode, but ultimately we’ll hit our 15 minutes. That’s what I like to call rock bottom. I personally hit my 15 minutes three different times. Each time after getting a hit of oxygen, just enough to feel relief, I went back under. The final time my implosion sent me seeking avenues of healing my pain. Had I not, my perfectly “decent” life would have continued and with it the numbing and sabotaging as well. Until another 15 minutes came along.
We’re afraid to connect to our hearts because it means traversing past pain. We make decisions to avoid pain - to shove it, distract from it, and numb it. If you’re anything like me, that task feels overwhelming. We are afraid the pain will be too much, that it will overtake us, and we’ll drown in it. Those are real fears. They are also lies.
Feelings buried alive never die (Karol Truman). They still exist - that’s what scares us. We simply don’t know how to navigate pain. Who taught us that? I don’t see any hands being raised. That’s not to vilify our parents or dampen our upbringing, but to break the voice of shame that says, “you should already know how.” Let’s karate chop the word “should” right now. It is a heart sniper often firing bullets of shame, judgment, and hatred. Unless you had incredibly emotionally healthy parents, you should not already know this, and that’s okay.
Emotional healing is available to everyone. It starts with recognizing our heart is our source and our emotions are indicators leading to the root pain. When I welcomed pain as a friend instead of an enemy I embraced my heart with love and compassion. I watched her come alive. My filter changed from fear to freedom. I awoke to a life woven in awe, wonder, and color. It wasn’t the world that changed, but my shattered view of it.
“It wasn’t the world that changed, but my shattered view of it. ”
Uncontainable freedom is available to you. It’s who you are and what you are made for. You were designed for fullness and exuberance; depth and compassion; bounty and richness. It’s already in you. Lean in.
“So above all, guard the affections of your heart, for they affect all that you are. Pay attention to the welfare of your innermost being, for from there flows the wellspring of life.” Proverbs 4:23 TPT
Guest Writer: Carly Caprio
Carly found a path to true transformation and emotional healing after drowning in unhealthy pain for most of her life. She’s now passionate to see others walk in the same freedom. She also enjoys extreme mountain climbing and skiing. One of her life dreams is to bike from Canada to the tip of South America.