Heart

 

 

‘It’s all about love’ is a cliché but most people find that’s the most succinct way of describing a life well spent or a mystical experience. If philosophy, psychotherapy, psychedelics, meditation and prayer don’t open your heart then you are missing the mark with those practices.

 

Experienced meditators often describe their practice becoming more heart-centred over the years. Sometimes this can happen after decades of having meditated in order to transcend feeling altogether. A spontaneous turning around of direction can occur: ‘freedom from’ becomes ‘freedom to be’. 

 

Psychotherapy is modern science’s greatest contribution to expanding the love in people’s lives. There are a huge variety of approaches. It can take quite a while for you to discover the one’s that suit you. It’s not uncommon to use different psychotherapeutic techniques as you go through the changing phases in your life. Personally, I have found the most powerful techniques to be Integral Psychotherapy and Voice Dialogue. 

 

A large part of making our hearts whole is reconnecting with those parts of ourselves that we have disowned during our life. Voice Dialogue is a deep technique for this process, a facilitator guides as you inhabit and give voice to the myriad selves that make up our personalities. There is beauty, love and wisdom in even the darkest and most awkward aspects of who we are. Another practice I love is Lama Tsultrim Allionne’s ‘feeding the demons’ which is rooted in the Tibetan Tantric Buddhist practice called Chod. This is a visualisation meditation for creating a potentiating relationship with the difficulties in our lives.