Heart Talk

I have just read an Email from an old coaching friend of mine.  When I say 'old', I don't mean she is elderly - I mean she has known me for a long time :0).

She picked up on a couple of things I have previously written in my blog, "joining the dots" as she so cleverly put it:

• "sobbing my heart out", in Fighting the Tears
• "my husband is my heart on legs", in my Intro Page.

So, she asked: how is your heart?  Is it in, it is out?.....

Her questions really 'rattled my cage', so I knew she was on to something that was highly likely to be of great learning value to me.

As I sat there bemused in front of her Email, I felt inspired to ponder a few questions of my own:

• WHERE is my heart?  In a loud internal voice, my brain said "what a ridiculous question!".  In a tiny internal voice, my heart said "here I am.  I am both inside and outside.  I am in everything you are and everything you do.  I am in your breath and in your words.  I am in your eyes and in your voice.  I am in your touch and in your belly.  I live inside of you AND you live inside of me". I am not entirely sure I fully understand what that means but I sure feel it.

• HOW is my heart? "I am OK but I do feel a little squeezed, as if there was pressure around me.  It would feel so good to get rid of that sense of constriction". What the heck do I do about that?  Loosen the elastic on my bra??

• What is my heart SAYING to me? In truth, I don't know.  I won't play the 'what if I knew' coaching trick because that would feel disingenuous right now :0).

• I have just spent half-an hour holding the question whilst looking out of my bedroom window onto the beautiful park across the road.  Slowly, I heard it: "there is pain".  "I feel constricted when I feel I am not allowed to hold pain.  The pain I feel is the pain of failure".  And the tears flowed.....  In spite of all my positive thinking  - which doesn't allow my heart to feel negative - and all the rational arguments I have come up with, I still feel the pain of failure.  I have failed to reach any of the goals I set myself when I moved to Wolverhampton four years ago.  In fact, I have failed to do so in a spectacular fashion! Nothing half-arsed about it.....  yes, I know, I've been ill and I have some pretty damned good excuses BUT I have still failed.  The painful truth is this: I feel a failure.

• What does my heard NEED right now?  "I need to be allowed to feel failure - that's the only way I can make room for success.  So, stop fighting me and let me be".  That's clear enough.  

I am now off to have a good head-to-head with my brain.  It needs to get the message that feeling a failure for now is OK and that it doesn't condemn me to "live in my wounds" forever (another great comment from my old friend). Squeezing our heart is a knackering habit because it squeezes energy and life out of ourselves. Continued for too long, it can also suck our souls dry.  Not a brilliant thing to do....

Thank you Old Friend - you taught me a lot today :0)