How to Break Open Your Heart

 

With Radical, Unconditional, Stella Self-Love

 

***Listen to the podcast to this post as you read by clicking the orange button above***

 

There was a nudge on Saturday, it popped up and tried to ruin my day but I pushed through until the smash on Monday night, oh and then it raged like a wild fire Tuesday, all Tuesday, and peaked Wednesday afternoon, before a slow come down, and a cool, calm settle by last night.

What I experienced for three days can be described as anger (or FEAR as I usually refer to it as) burning like a fiery hell inside my mind and coursing through my body.

How is this possible when I come from LOVE and give LOVE? I am calm. I don’t get angry, certainly not like this. Why am I fuming with rage?

 

Letting other people I love get to me, feeling frustrated, not feeling warm, loving, open, bubbly. I was fighting these emotions by asking why? Why am I feeling angry? I didn’t want to talk to most loved ones or spend time with them because I knew this was not really about them. My frustration over something someone had done, hadn’t done, said or not said, may have added some fuel to this fire but what I was cracking open was utterly within me.

While I knew this anger was not me; that the voices which I was used to be so loving like my intuition (or spirit guides if you will), were different. I was hearing negative things in my mind, over and over again. Lines and thoughts that made me question my heart, my love, and my purpose. A part of me was fighting with equal aggression of a mad person, analysing and questioning and wanting to swear or scream. While the StellaWarrior within me knew I had to accept this as an initiation, it was a great lesson. And I know now in hindsight that a teacher is always a student.

I was sleeping 10 hours a night, eating healthy nourishing foods, meditating, but no desire to exercise or leave the computer at any other time. I was going from anger to sadness and back again not seeing real logic, not shifting, not pushing through just feeling this rage expanding internally and being mystified how I could go from loving and giving to raging inside, but cold and detached from the outside world.

The catalyst which ignited this internal fire was Spirit Junkie – a book written by motivational speaker, life coach and author, Gabrielle Bernstein, I put aside time to read this book, to take notes on how this woman created a career from her radical road to self-love and miracles. Gabrielle believes in what I believe in, that LOVE is the answer that it all comes from within, that we need to be silent, ask and receive the guidance to follow our path. I wanted to learn more about her story so I can expand my reach sharing the light with you, my StellaTribe.

 

 

But the more I read, and got past the ‘god’ and ‘prayer’ in it’s indoctrinated manner and interpreted this in my Universal spiritual way, I was no longer reading this book for research into how I can help others with ‘self-love’, by learning from a woman who has made a career in doing so, but instead I was breaking myself wide open in a way I didn’t expect. I thought I was wide open. Clear of fear, of past experiences, I’d done my forgive the family, forgive the previous partners and Tribe members who may or may not still be sharing this lifetime with me, even thought I’d forgiven myself. But what I realised was that I don’t actually LOVE myself.

Now this came as a huge shock, I’m talking gob smacking, this can’t be right, shock. I love myself, I eat so well, I prepare nourishing loving foods daily, I exercise and meditate and connect with the earth, I give love and I feel love, I know I am made of love … blah, blah, blah.

But that, all of that, in its magnificence, is not unconditional, unwavering, I LOVE YOU, love.

I don’t remember the last time I stopped and told myself “I love you”, and actually pause to feel it. Really sit in that moment and honour my soul.

So with a few tears in my eyes I popped Spirit Junkie down and carried myself to the bathroom, sat on the vanity, and starred into the tub, I asked, “what is going on?” This is not depression, or anxiety; I do not have any real issues that need outside assistance to work through. I knew this was something only I could do.

Then I just moved, like I was on autopilot directed from elsewhere, I took off my glasses, hugged my legs with one arm and wrapped my other arm over my shoulder like a real embrace. I turned to face the mirror and I looked deep into my left eye and I spoke out loud to my soul, “I love you. You are beautiful. I love you.” Then I paused, took a breath, put my glasses back on and walked back to the couch to finish Spirit Junkie. I had work to do and I knew it wasn’t the article and reviews which were waiting beside me to write, I had to read the rest of this book and break through the anger and fear of my Unconditional Love Wall I’ve managed to secretly build to my own surprise.

 

 

As I read on I had more waves of anger and tears welling up. I realised I don’t stop and acknowledge the creations that I bring into this world on a daily basis. I prepare loving meals and raw treats for my loved ones, write them letters, cards, notes, buy them gifts, tell them how proud I am of them, hug, kiss and dance with them in celebration of their achievements – but I had stopped doing this for me.

This reminded me that PERFECT LOVE is a daily choice, unconditional, unwavering, LOVE is a commitment I must choose every day. Because I have danced around the office in celebration of my personal success and I have told myself “I love you” in the mirror before, but I couldn’t tell you when I last did that. Suddenly the burning desert of anger I was wondering lost within was slowly disappearing into the mirage it always was. I could feel the fire inside was subsiding; the tears had cooled me enough for my heart to speak over the noise of these fearful words. I was breaking through, the real me, the divine soul that is pure love … and I started taking notes.

 

I wrote:

I haven’t been loving myself – I do loving things but I have not been demonstrating unconditional ‘in love with me, the soul and the body’ LOVE, daily.

I have not been giving myself enough credit for every day achievements, and celebrating these before I go onto the next.

LOVE is a daily choice – when I don’t ACT on this daily, FEAR sneaks in, builds up, and then wiggles it’s way into the control seat of my mind and over shadows my heart.

 

I hadn’t left the prison of my mind and these walls for three days before I reached this conclusion. I even dropped my phone and broke the screen inside so I well and truly cut myself off form the world while I conquered this internal challenge.

After I finished Spirit Junkie yesterday afternoon, I drafted some notes, did all the work I had intended doing earlier, then I stepped away from the screen. I went into my studio and I put on some Michael Bublé, very, very loud. And I danced to a How Sweet It Is before I sat down and painted and entire piece for the first time in months. On a high I went into the kitchen with Bublé still crooning me and I made some raw bliss balls and a block of raw dark chocolate. Later, I meditated right before I went to sleep, and right at the end of my meditation I was told to “embrace Venus and tomorrow wear a floaty dress.”

 

 

I had a sudden desire when I woke up today to break open my heart stronger than ever. I feel lighter, I can hear it in my voice, I notice the way I carry myself, and I even danced right before I sat down and wrote this. After my lemon water, The 5 Tibetan Rites, meditation and brekky this morning, I showered and I did put on a long, floaty dress and I smiled loving at myself in the mirror. I also checked out my arse and was rather impressed. I welcomed peace and balance, and my inner feminine.

I accept I am a child of the earth and the moon, and thus like the tides my emotions can be cool and calm and then out of nowhere rage before they subside again. And while I am a loving soul, made of love, who can easily love, forgive and support others, I must never forget to give that same unconditional love to myself.

Today the moon moves into Libra, which is about peace and harmony. Libra is also ruled by Venus, the planet of beauty and love.

 

My internal breakthrough was like that of the Rainmaker;

Because to create rain in a drought the rainmaker meditates on restoring their own imbalance between receptive and active poles so that the feminine element of water returns to the sun scorched land.

 

We need balance, we need to give as we receive, and we need to nurture from within.

 

So, how do you break open your heart?

 

1. Believe you are worthy of love

 Tell yourself – “I am worthy of love”.

 

2. Love your self

Beyond doing ‘loving things’ you need to actively tell yourself “I LOVE YOU”, speak to your soul. Do this with mirror work, with meditation.

 

3. Demonstrate your ‘Self I LOVE YOU’ daily, through words and actions

Write your self a love letter. Set your alarm with an affirmation, which reminds you of LOVE, and pause throughout the day to take a deep breath and check-in with yourself. Love yourself the way you would want others to love you and the way you demonstrate your love to them.

 

 

4. Demonstrate your love for others daily, through words and actions

This continues the LOVE feedback loop of what you give you receive in return. Receiving LOVE from others will remind your heart how wonderful LOVE is and encourage you to keep choosing LOVE by LOVING yourself and them.

 

5. REPEAT THIS DAILY, moment by moment

This is a freaking big commitment. Your relationship with your self is the longest relationship of your life. It is also the most challenging and the most rewarding. Challenges will take you by surprise (let me attest to that!), they will require you to confront them and overcome them with LOVE in order to grow. They will make you question your LOVE, make you fight to open heart and not choose anger and fear. Face these challenges head on. Choose LOVE and come from the heart.

 

Because there is one thing I can tell you with certainty, and that is LOVE conquers everything … even karma.

Through radical, unconditional, Stella self-love, with our hearts broken wide open to let the LOVE pour in and radiate out, we can make a difference. We can bring more lovelight and miracles to each other’s lives and share that with the world to make our beautiful planet a wonderful place to live.

Be brave and break open your heart.

 

I LOVE you! I LOVE me! And I LOVE that we are sharing this Stella Journey.

 

 

Id’ like to say a big thank you to fellow StellaTribe member Hayley for lending me your copy of Spirit Junkie.

Frany, thank you for continually showing me what soul sisterhood and the StellaTribe family is all about.

Thank you Mum, for teaching me what unconditional love was before I could give it a name and for continuing to show me this every day.

My Champion, thank you for the serendipitous late night email of open hearted LOVE that you sent; it was the cherry on my breakthrough.

And thank you Gabrielle Bernstein, for sharing a radical road to self-love and miracles from across the globe.

 

Now go forth, beautiful StellaTribe, break open those courageous hearts of yours so we can truly make a difference right here and right NOW!

 

I’ll talk to you soon.

 

MWAH!

 

With Love, S*M