Stillness 6-29: When we were babies, we reached for a strawberry and experienced it with every part of our being—we tasted with our heart, not our mind. But we soon learned how to taste with our minds: Maybe there weren’t enough strawberries to go around. Or maybe too many could give us a stomach ache. We learned to be careful.
Back then, we instinctively knew that our heart is not a powerful engine that drives us, it’s the foundation of who we are. And so we learned to protect it—from caregivers who wanted us to do something we didn’t want to do, from people who shouted mysteriously at us, or from friends who let us down. We learned to be vigilant about our wants and needs, and learned how to be increasingly cautious and self-protective.
When we were teenagers we learned to be even more vigilant, because to have an open heart was to invite disappointment, even disaster, into our lives. Emotional shields and swords were essential tools for protection, and we learned how to wield them well.
But what happened afterward was that we began to identify more with our armor than we did with our light-filled, love-filled heart. We forgot how to taste a strawberry with every part of our being. The result was often grown-up disappointment, addiction, toughness, and loneliness.
Our heart is the organ without which we cannot live. We can be “brain dead” and go on functioning for years, but without a heart it’s impossible. It’s where our higher self resides. Our heart is our antahkarana bridge, linking soul with vessel, bridging our spirit with our physical body.
Perhaps in large part because of the pandemic and the extraordinary solitude and nothing-to-do-ness that it’s engendered, I feel I have begun to relax my heart for the first time since I was a baby. It feels less contracted, less tight and heavy. I feel it expanding, and as it expands I feel lighter. The armor is finally dissolving.
I think in spite of what’s happening, we can all feel more safe and more secure than we ever have before, simply because we know so thoroughly that not one of us is safe and secure. Yes, we can use our mental intelligence to be vigilant and diligent around what we can control, whether that’s wearing a mask or social distancing or calling a friend. But let’s not use our heart to be vigilant, or we’ll find ourselves donning the armor again.
There is great serenity in letting go of trying to protect ourselves, and instead to feel at one with All of it. By relaxing our heart from years of vigilance, we embrace all people, all creatures, all planets, feathers, and strawberries. Nothing seems scary or hopeless any longer. When we relax our heart, it expands exponentially, and there’s plenty of room for everyone and everything.