Heart Meditation

Encounters with suffering and disappointment can cause us to lose touch with our hearts. When feelings are too difficult, we may block our emotions, and consciousness of the area of our hearts diminishes. Deadening our emotional core may protect us from pain, but we pay a price. In this visualization experience, you will have the opportunity to tune in to your heart energy and reconnect with this part of you that is so central to life. 

We need not identify the heart center specifically with the organ we call the heart. We could think of it as a center of emotion. It is a confluence of the energies of our heart, lungs, solar plexus, throat, the nerves that serve them, and the brain that informs them. As the center of gravity is not a specific organ, but is a balance point, the heart center can be considered, not a specific organ, but a focal point of emotional energy.

Find a comfortable position, perhaps lying on your back. Or if seated, sit upright with your spine straight. Elevate your sternum just a little so that your ribcage is open to the easy flow of breath. Take a few slow deep breaths. As you exhale, let go of tension. Let your muscles relax. Let your mind grow calmer. Breathe slowly and consciously.

Direct your attention to the area of your chest between your lungs, behind your sternum, in front of your spinal column. Place your consciousness there.

Notice the mental imagery you have created for this space inside your body. You have never looked inside your body with your eyes, yet you may have pictures in your head of what is there. Possibly you sense colors in the area of your heart center. Perhaps the area seems dark. Take your time, and without trying to visualize anything specific, notice what images you connect with your heart region.

Notice how that area feels too. What can you notice? Does it feel tight or open? Does your ribcage move as you breathe? Can you feel the beating of your heart? This area of your body pulses with the contractions and relaxation of your heart and the expansion and relaxation of your lungs. Observe what you can of these movements.

Note that with all this pumping of your heart and lungs, every part of your body is being refreshed with oxygenated blood. The actions of your heart touch you everywhere. Every living part of you connects with your heart.

Since this is a visualization experience, it is being created by your mind, anything can happen.

Imagine a rose blooming in the center of your chest near your heart. It blooms and the petals unfold and it just keeps unfolding and blooming. The process is never ending. The rose is always in the process of blooming, petals opening. The rose never fades. It is always opening. Hold this image in mind for a while.

Now imagine that at the center of this ever unfolding rose is a precious jewel. It shines brightly, like a little sun. Its light pours out and fills you. The jewel’s beautiful light fills your chest and enlightens all parts of your body. As it does, it relaxes and heals all that it illuminates. Your heart and lungs are filled with the light and this radiance shines across to your shoulders and down your arms to your hands and fingers. The light shines up to the area of your throat. It fills your mouth and lights up your sinuses bringing purification and ease of breathing. Upward this light shines to the lower areas of your brain, your limbic system, and it fills your cerebral cortex so that your whole brain is filled with beautiful radiance. Downward from your heart center the light purifies all the organs of digestion and reproduction. It brings comfort and relaxation to your low back. It loosens your hips and brings flexibility to all the joints of your lower body. See now that all parts of your body are illuminated. Take your time and hold this image of your body filled with a beautiful, peaceful, healing radiance. Feel the connection. Feel the peace. Welcome healing of all that is not at ease. Enable the consciousness you are maintaining to release any impediment to the natural life processes of your body. Health is your birthright. Invite healing to happen wherever it needs to.

Consider that all of us have a heart and at the core of everyone’s heart is such as jewel as you have. And everybody’s jewel radiates light. See in your mind the web of light that is created by all of these heart lights shining upon each other. Billions of us on the planet carry the light. Though separated by space, our hearts are like the stars in the sky. They shine upon each other regardless of distance. See your place in this marvelous interconnection of sentient beings. Feel your energy flowing outward and feel the light energy flowing to you from billions of other lights. Your light, your energy is undiminished. In fact it grows stronger and you take comfort in the strength.