Love Like Milk

 I have this wonderful, life changing book on the chakra system that I’ve been waiting for all my life. We found each other while I was poking around on Amazon a few weeks ago. Out of all the yoga studios out there, this book wandered into mine. The whole notion of “when the student is ready the teacher appears” has been proven to me time and again over the past couple years. It’s truly astounding; Esquire, Stephanie, Betsy, Tim, Patty, and Vikki in my physical life. Eckhart Tolle, Mooji, Ram Dass, Jack Kornfield, Thich Nhat Hanh, Talia Sutra, Dylan Werner, Lisa Romano, Mark Groves, and Vienna Pharaon in my virtual life. Paulo Cohelo through his literature. The list goes on.

The only way to live fully is to commit to being a forever student. There is literally no limit to how much we are meant to absorb and learn from. The more open we are, the more we can receive. It’s that simple. That’s why feeling closed sucks; we deprive ourselves of beautiful, enriching, healthy information that helps us do this human job better. One of the ways to stay open is by learning the chakra system. There are seven chakras in our bodies that are like spinning tops. They act as gates to different parts of us. When the chakras are balanced, so are we. How we carry ourselves feels clean, right, dignified, ethical, and open. We can love. We have perspective. We are calm and more able to withstand the sometimes violent winds that try to knock us down in the physical world. Our chakras are the best tool in keeping our minds and thoughts from railroading us. The chakra system is so beautiful and involved, and I’m not going to try to explain it now, but I wanted to share my thoughts on what I’ve recently learned about the heart chakra.

The heart chakra is the fourth one up from the bottom. The first one, the root one, represents the Earth element which symbolizes stability, security, and feeling grounding. The second one connects to the element of Water. Near the sacral area, water symbolizes our ability to flow, adapt, change shape, and heal. The third chakra in the naval region represents Fire. Fire is our ability to ignite passion and change. Fire changes whatever it touches, so our fire element is what transforms our craziness into something positive and productive. Side note; I recently had my first astrology reading (loved!!!!) and it was revealed to me that I’m mostly comprised of Fire (you were right, D; I AM a ball of dynamite!). This made a lot of sense to me. I’m always asked how I’ve managed to make so many changes huge so quickly. If I’ve got so much fire then I was able to direct it and burn through lots of stuff, thus clearing the path for new. My “transformation” was so clearly explained in that moment. It Also explains why I can be too impulsive sometimes and get heated. All this information is wonderful, since it teaches us what we must work on. Which parts of us need better balancing. It requires humility but it feels lovely to learn. Humble Warrior is one of the essential yoga poses for a reason.  On top of the fire chakra lies the gate to the heart, the command center for love.

Now as we know, I’m a natural lover. I never thought my heart chakra was out of balance since my heart really does feel so open. I can give love fully. I know half the population is terrified of that, which I cognitively understand but can’t relate to. In reading the chapter about the heart chakra, I realized I had so much fixing to do in that department. A couple weeks ago I had a powerful revelation during meditation. It was that my whole life I have associated love with pain. The two were completely intertwined, for several reasons. Love for me was almost comprised of this tortuous push pull that I subconsciously grew to be addicted to over time. As much as I have all these romantic notions of what pure love should be, my entire life’s history taught me otherwise. The pain seemed to bookend the pleasure, with both components being these conflicting Siamese twins. Locked into this pattern that I wasn’t aware of until recently, I would choose scenarios that perpetuated that cycle. So yeah, I’d welcome love, but it was always the wrong kind. My definition of it was simply incorrect. The heart chakra works with the element of Air, which symbolizes lightness, freedom, and a feeling of soaring. A delicious buoyancy. Love for me was always heavy. It weighed me down and strapped me to so much heartache. Now I’m learning that pure love is one in which the air is so clean; we are infused with abundant, renewed breath that lifts us into joy. That’s why to breathe well is to live well because to live well is to love well. I’ve been envisioning my heart and seeing it filled with swirling, foggy, dark air. It’s a mix of clean white milk and dark coffee, each trying to claim their right to the cup that is my heart space. Then I imagine fingers scooping away the dark parts, gently but with fierce determination. The fog is there, I see it, and I understand why it’s there. It doesn’t upset me.  It’s just time to clean house and make space for the kind of love that is free of fear, doubt, and pain. The kind that’s an invigorating infusion of pristine air. Air is limitless and expansive.  It’s all around us but we have to make sure it’s clean before we breathe it in. Just like love. If the air around you stinks, you hold your nose, right? You block it from entering your body. When love is healthy, clean, and right, we feel like we are floating. We are uplifted to heights we never thought possible. A love that tethers and shackles is not love at all. It’s something else, be it an addiction to self punishment, a need to believe your own story that you don’t deserve better, or that it’s your job to fix another person.  Feeling stable and safe leads us to flow and adapt to life’s changes. Being able to have a healthy flow and heal and renew our ever changing state leads us to extinguish some of our fire, and use our fire properly to transform and become something else. Which leads us to drink in air and love expansively, without restrictions or conditions. It’s a two way street; a healthy person both gives and receives in this same way. Earth, water, fire, air. This is what it means to be the living embodiment of Nature.

I have been devotedly meditating on cleaning out all the suffocating smoke from my heart space. I want different. I want that buoyancy. I want to soar. The way I love and treat myself comes before any connection to another. Our hearts must belong to us first. We must know how to care for it, clean it, and keep it balanced. Smooth, white, milky love. Pure. Unblemished. The more balanced we become, the more we will attract this. How blessed are we to have this knowledge so readily available to us? No one has any business bringing an unhealthy heart to someone else. It’s a recipe for failure. Accountability feels good. It feels like a breath of fresh air...