The Expansion and Contraction When You Have an Open Heart

Having an open heart is not all sunshine and roses, it means having the courage to feel.

As humans, we deal with many dualities: day and night, hot and cold, inhale and exhale. Dualities offer expansion and contraction, an opening and a closing. Feelings like joy and love are expansive, whereas anger and fear feel more contractive. Emotions in general are neither good nor bad, but might feel that way based on how they move.

When you have an open heart, you make yourself vulnerable. Vulnerability isn’t a bad thing, in fact it’s necessary when you want to feel love and connection with yourself and others. You can’t create real connection with someone else unless you make yourself vulnerable. You can’t be seen unless you let yourself be seen.

The opposite of vulnerability, which is expansive, is protection, which is contractive. There are times in life when vulnerability doesn’t feel safe and it’s better to protect your heart. Scrolling on the internet isn’t always the best place to have an open heart, as there are many people who can’t handle your openness and want to shut you down.

Sometimes even with family it’s safer to keep yourself hidden and protected. Not everyone has earned access to you, even if they are blood related. Sometimes parents aren’t safe, but aunts and uncles are. Siblings might judge you harshly, or they might be the safe keepers of your secrets. Sometimes family is chosen. Chosen family has earned the right to hear your story.

Expansion and contraction are a natural flow

You can’t stay open all the time (unless you are a fully enlightened being), although that would feel amazing. Many addicts chase that feeling with drugs, alcohol, food, sex, anything that makes you feel good. Of course after a high comes a crash. Expansion and contraction.

Allowing the flow of emotions to happen, without judgment, is what being human is all about. We have a whole range of human emotions and they are all good. They give us information about ourselves. I am happy, sad, fearful, worried, joyful, in love, grieving, it’s all information. If we stay static in one emotion, no matter what it is, it means staying stuck.

Contraction means safety, but disconnection

As a child contraction felt safer. I lived in a contracted state for most of my life, swallowed up by my perfectionism driven anxiety. The striving (and failing) to be perfect kept me small, living in the bubble of my own mind. It didn’t feel safe to be my imperfect self because what if people didn’t like me? What if I wasn’t accepted for who I was? Those worries took up a lot of space in my early life.

But the protection of contraction also cut me off from love and connection, which I craved so much. Nobody saw the real me because she was hidden behind the “20 ton shield” of perfectionism (as Brene Brown calls it). With perfectionism, I held everyone at a distance, which kept me safe from having other people break my heart. But I broke my own heart by staying small and hidden.

I got tastes of vulnerability, open-heartedness, and expansion when I finally let go of perfectionism. When I found the courage to show up as myself, I found people that loved and accepted me as I was. I didn’t need to be perfect, they loved me anyway. Initially I struggled to find the balance between vulnerability and safety, but I got there. I made mistakes along the way, but that’s how I learned. Without mistakes, there is no growth.

Yoga opens the heart

Yoga, both on and off the mat, is a heart opening practice because it connects you to yourself. On the mat there are many poses that are considered “heart openers” because of how the chest is exposed. Backbending poses, like Camel/Ustrasana, Bridge/Setu Bandhasana, and Fish/Matsyasana all open the heart to create more space. Gravity causes a concave chest, as does staring at our devices or working at a computer. Heart openers undo this position, creating better flow in and out of the heart space.

Yoga off the mat teaches compassion, kindness, non-harming, and gratitude, all heart opening practices. When you feel lovingly toward another person or yourself, you feel it in your heart, and it opens. The lotus flower exhibits this heart opening, which is why it’s a common symbol with yoga. I use it in the logo for my online yoga studio, Purple Room Yoga, for this reason.

After being on a yoga retreat, my heart is fully open. I have spent time, in a safe space, with other open-hearted people, practicing yoga and meditation, and cultivating connection. We talk about hard things and hold space with kindness and compassion. It’s a special time to share, grow, see, and be seen.

Sometimes returning to “real life” can be a shock as my heart starts to close again. It contracts out of protection, as not everyone or everywhere is as safe as on retreat. Not everyone knows what to do with my open heart. I have learned how to reenter my life with kindness and gentleness toward myself.

My kids often tease me for being “all lovey” after a retreat. They are not as aware of the expansion of an open heart, but hopefully they will in time. They know what love feels like, I’ve made it one of my missions, as a parent, to make sure they know how loved they are. It hasn’t been perfect, but I do the best I can.

Finding the middle space

I no longer swing between fully open and fully closed off, but remain flowing in a middle space. I can access openness as well as protection, and can ride the wave between the two more gracefully and intentionally. Moving between expansion and contraction can be as simple as paying attention to my inhale and exhale.

When I notice myself in a contracted state, I use practices like journaling, meditation, and yoga to acknowledge the feelings and let them move through. Sometimes it’s a matter of taking some deep breaths and feeling what’s occupying my heart. Once I feel them fully, my heart lightens again.

It’s a balance, an ebb and flow, an inhale and exhale. That’s all there is.

Practice

Sangha Sundays is online this Sunday, February 23 ,at 6:30pm EST. This monthly meeting is an opportunity to explore yoga off the mat in a safe, supportive group. Explore on your own through journal prompts, then learn and grow with each other when we meet. This month we are discussing Ishvara Pranidhana/Surrender, how to let go rather than grip, when feeling anxiety. Click the button below for more information or to sign up!

Join me at Purple Room Yoga, an online yoga studio for active adults over 50 who want to stay active with yoga. Classes for all levels of experience! Yoga, meditation, stretching, and mindful core available, both online live and on demand. Click the button below for more information!