This is an email I received from a woman who runs various trauma programs. She teaches a ‘Heart Bathing’ meditation for free…I haven’t done it yet myself so I can’t comment on it…but I felt it might be useful to post what she wrote in her email. I find it resonates with me very strongly and maybe others will get something inspiring and useful from it as well.
Do You Bathe Your Heart?
by Deirdre Fay
I woke one recent morning a bit rattled. Without seeming to have any reason why. All I knew was my heart wasn’t quiet.
I was holding all kinds of stories in my body, mind, and heart. Some old stories of my own, some stories of others as they move through the phases of their lives.
Rattled, I also felt other more nourishing habits assert themselves inside.
Instead of staying caught in the rattled dysregulation my heart remembered it’s way to the eternal flow of goodness.
Ah…yes… now it became clear… I hadn’t been cleaning my heart much lately.
“Things” had been accumulating.
Stress taking hold.
Worry grasping into old fear patterns. Tangling themselves.
People have been saying similar things in coaching sessions, groups, meetings, in writing, in offhand conversations.
It’s hard, though (wouldn’t you say?) to find inner guidance when we’re rattled?
It is for me.
That morning, deep in the quiet of the pre-dawn, I felt the pull to create a space for any of us who want to gather, to reorient, to connect to our own hearts and let ourselves be guided from within.
How often do I take the time to drench my heart with the light of goodness so the warmth of kindness can flow in?
More often I don’t realize how the clarity of my vision is obscured by past hurts and patterns.
I stretch my body but am I willing, and able, to stretch my heart’s capacity to hold even more love?
Bear even more compassion?
What about those times when I petulantly refuse to dust off old hurts so more goodness can arrive?
All the more reason for me to choose, again and again, to clean the windows of my heart so guidance can more easily, more freely shine forth.
This is an inquiry of many of my meditations where I take the time to clear the cobwebs of my heart, release sticky moments and remind my heart that it’s safe to open.
It’s when I bathe my heart.