SHINE: Share by the Spirit — Open Your Heart, Share Your Love

Posted on October 23, 2012 by TME

SHINE … By the Spirit™ with Tonya M. Evans

Open Your Heart, Share Your Love

October 23, 2012

Right now, and in every now-moment, you are either closing or opening. You are either stressfully waiting for something – more money, security, affection – or you are living from your deep heart, opening as the entire moment, and giving what you most deeply desire to give, without waiting.” ~ David Deida ~

When it is all said and done, our life path can be reduced to, and defined by, an essential choice: to live with an open heart filled with expansive, loving energy or to live with a closed heart filled with constricting, limiting energy.

The choice can either be unconscious and reactive or conscious and responsive. But rest assured, we are constantly making the choice. We are always either living with an open heart or closed heart because there is no in between.

Open-hearted living focuses on the process of our surrender to the journey itself without focusing on ,or trying to control, the outcome. So much of life is actually out of our control and doesn’t require or desire our input. For example, the sun hasn’t asked me what time to rise recently and no tree has consulted me about the color its leaves should change to this fall.

But everyday my heart asks me to be a more full, whole, fearless and authentic expression of my divinity. Everyday my heart says it wants to shine through me. My head, of course, has other ideas. It wants safety, security, control and ego strokes early and often. And all of that open-heartedness sounds so very crazy to my decidedly rational mind.

Thankfully, I’ve learned as I’ve matured and evolved spiritually that its my heart that contains all of my divinely inspired desires and it alone can lead to my fullest expression of God’s Love. So today I encourage you to live with an open heart. Open-hearted living allows Love to flow freely … out and in, like the ebb and flow of life.

Read more about living with an open heart and healing the wounds of the heart at www.wisdominthewhisper.com.

Read about Tonya’s 100 days of Wisdom™ Project

Follow her on Twitter @WisdomWhispers and the hashtag #100daysofwisdom for more reflections on life, love and the wisdom of Spirit!

[Subscribe to the By The Spirit™ Podcast & Content Stream!]

Comment! Subscribe! Share! Follow Us @ByTheSpirit

[About the BTS Authors] [SHINE By The Spirit™ contributor Tonya M. Evans]

Filed under: Shine | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

SHINE: Resolve by the Spirit — Open your Eyes, Open your Heart and SHINE!

Posted on January 22, 2012 by TME

SHINE … By the Spirit™ with Tonya M. Evans

Open Your Eyes, Open Your Heart and SHINE

© 2012 Tonya M.  Evans

January 22, 2012

Blindfolded man in fieldRemember that childhood game where someone blindfolds you, spins you around to throw you off kilter and then you start walking (stumbling, actually) toward some predetermined end point? You rely on the person who spun you around to tell you you’re getting warmer (that is, closer to your destination) or colder (moving farther away). I just have one question. Who on earth invented this crazy game!!??

Now if you’re playing with someone who plays by the rules it usually works out. You reach the destination, everyone cheers and then it’s your turn to shout out the directions. But if you’re playing with someone who isn’t giving you the proper information (or doesn’t know the best course to follow), you can end up far away from your intended destination. So this game requires a lot of trust. And you can learn pretty quickly playing such a game – and in life – that not everyone is worthy of such blind faith.

But all too often, we put blinders on in life and allow others to shout out instructions of who we are, which way should go and the destination we should seek. And all too often, those people – often well-intentioned – don’t even know who we really are and where we are really supposed to go. I mean really. They see us through the lens of their own life – we all do. And with those “experience-colored” glasses it’s so easy to miss the true face behind the “mask”, the real soul that dwells within our physical temple.

(more…)

Filed under: Shine | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments »

SPEAK: Love By the Spirit – Living with an Open Heart Approach

Posted on February 18, 2011 by EAH

SPEAK! … By the Spirit™ with
Erica A. Hawthorne

Living with an Open Heart Approach

© 2011 Erica A. Hawthorne

February 18, 2011

“Well, then, why should I listen to my heart?”

“Because you will never again be able to keep it quiet. Even if you pretend not to have heard what it tells you, it will always be there inside you, repeating to you what you’re thinking about life and about the world.”

-the boy to the alchemist, in The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo

Lego Man by Nathan Sawaya

When I discovered a picture of one of Nathan Sawaya’s Lego™ art designs, I was floored.   I had to go to the site to make sure this was not just a great photoshopped piece of work.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that was a real piece of creative work, done by hand.   It’s such a wonderful image to reflect on this month as we talk about Love and living with an open heart approach to life.

Something is shifting in the Universe (though something always is), something in the way in which we relate to one another, something about how we approach ideas and concepts.  More and more, examples are emerging of people stepping off of the “Ferris wheel of life” and opting for some other undefined path.

People are finding the faith to follow their hearts, they are starting their own businesses, changing their approach to how they manage their time and daily lives to spend more quality time with friends, family and their children.  Communities are rising up, overcoming their fears and breaking the silence with their voices with sit-ins and peaceful, but world-changing protests.

We are breaking open places within us that have lain dormant or fearfully tucked away in self-imposed expectations and societal-adopted sanctions.

It feels scary, intimidating, daunting…and it feels great! It’s liberating! It’s exciting…and it’s necessary.

“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity”.

The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo

Usually when we talk about opening our hearts, we do so in regards to loving others.  But there is also the open heart approach that involves listening to your heart in order to discover your Purpose, or what I like to call your “Divine Operating System”;  the place where you are able to live your most authentic self and in this state approach all aspects of your life with positivity and success.  It’s the place where your natural talents and skills are ever-present, ever-useful and you are able to consistently live in this place and is apparent in daily life such as your job and your relationships.

Living with an Open Heart Approach involves:

  • Listening and watching the signs that are present in your life. What is your environment or the people around you showing you about living with an open heart?  Feel the twinge in your gut moving you towards a certain place.  Listen to what heart says about that job. That relationship?  Sit still and observe your day-to-day world for ideas and guidance.
  • Living in a way that is open to the discovery of the greatness in yourself… some call this “following your bliss”.  This involves not judging your ideas or killing them before giving yourself the opportunity to try them or explore them.
  • Taking small, but direct and fearless steps in the direction of the things that bring us joy and nurture us. This may begin inwardly with our self-talk, encouraging ourselves. Or it may be more hands-on and action-based like taking a entrepreneurship class, going back to school, etc.
  • Participating in support groups, reading books, going to counseling, taking a class…anything that helps us do the emotional and spiritual work of being open to discovering and living our Purpose…
  • Expressing our creativity/most authentic self…whether we are scientists or bankers, photographers or writers…not just doing, but living our creativity for no other reason than because it is in us, and it must come out.  It could also mean not adding pressure for your creativity to be presented or received in a certain way at a certain time, and to simply allowing yourself the opportunity to express it.

Living the Open Heart Approach means that if there is no joy or fulfillment, that you go in search of it, find it, and embrace it. It is not being afraid of hard work, or exposing the root of our fears, nor does it expect the road to be always easy.  It is of course a journey and a process, but the life lived with a heart that is speaking its utmost desire, in partnership with a Spirit that wants to bring it to fruition, is the recipe for living life to its fullest…and a most precious act of self-love.

==

READ By the Spirit:

Click here to order suggested books:
[Spiritual Resources from Amazon.com]

 

 

Enjoy what you read?
Comment! Subscribe! Share!

[About the BTS Authors]

Filed under: Speak | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 339 other followers

%d bloggers like this: