The Wounded Child (Anahata)

       "Fear is the heart of love," I swayed as she sang along to her husband strumming his guitar, "so I never went back..." a sad line to croon, but later that day I thought it to be true.  An argument between my own partner and I led to a hurtful exchange of words that left me sitting with a deep pain in my chest.  I quietly realized that the pain was wrenching in the area of my heart as I thought about the words that hurt me, but as I turned everything over in my brain I noticed that the pain began to move.  My segmented thoughts grew into sentences and unspoken retaliations that pushed the pain up into my throat.  I felt choked on the words that I wasn't speaking, and the more I suppressed my distress the more resentment seemed to build.  As the animosity grew and settled, the pain slowly fell into my bellybutton where my energy is affected by my relationships.  Of course my husband and I worked things out within minutes, but I felt that I suddenly understood myself a little better because of this interchange.  Our thoughts, words, and actions (or lack thereof) can either empower us or suck the life energy straight from our bodies.  Why did I continue negative thought patterns and self-harming belief systems?  Fear.  Jealousy, bitterness, anger, hatred, and the inability to forgive grow directly out of anxiety, crippling our hearts to its true purpose in the divine intention of our lives.  Lucky for us that love, compassion, confidence, hope, forgiveness, dedication, inspiration, trust, and the ability to heal can pour forth from our hearts to endlessly nurture our life force.
       The heart is the energy center that separates the physical from the spiritual.  The lower three chakras are based in physical, emotional, and mental aspects of the somatic realm, whereas the higher three chakras are based in the spiritual realm.  The heart is the transforming agent between the higher and lower worlds- isn't that beautiful?  In order for the spiritual to become physical it must pass through the heart, and in order for the physical to become spiritual the heart must transform it.  Love is the power of the divine.  Love goes beyond the sacrament of marriage, it is the internal union of the self and the soul, the true motivator of the human body and spirit.  Unconditional love, love in its purest form, is what gives us the ability to forgive others, ourselves, and fuel inner peace as we release the need to evoke justice and trust in the divine plan.  To embrace our pure power we must have the courage to listen to our hearts emotional messages and inner instructions.  The "wounded child" is what Caroline Myss calls the damaged emotional patterns, negative attitudes, dysfunctional self-images, and painful memories that develop within us during our childhoods.  She believes that a child who fears abandonment can become a jealous adult, a sexually abused minor can grow into a sexually dysfunctional grown-up, and a negative self-image can turn a healthy person into an alcoholic, bulimic, or anorexic.  Loving ourselves means letting go of that wounded child's authority over us and rocking our emotions until the tears stop flowing.  Someone who was abused many years ago can hurt themselves even more by reliving that abuse in their own minds every day of their lives until they are crippled from the pain of the memory.  Self-love means forgiving others, because our wounds don't hurt the people who hurt us, they only hurt us.  Our wounded child sees the world as working in a reward/punishment system, but a fully functioning Anahata moves past needing explanations and views life through fulfilling consciousness, not fear.  The word Anahata translates from Sanskrit as "UNHURT", the spiritual place where past experiences and grievances cannot harm us.  I will be fully open to giving and receiving love.  I will instantly forgive, not only others, but myself as well.  I love myself unconditionally.  I love others unconditionally.  Love is my guiding truth, my hearts desire, and my joy.  I will live gratefully, because it is safe for me to love and be loved.  I will have unconditional compassion for myself and others as I free myself from past hurts.  For "we will all have experiences meant to 'break our hearts'- not in half but wide open."
Is your wounded child still crying?

Music by Mary and Martin Callozzo

Shall We Dance?

       I have two children, both boys, and they bless me every day.  They are my world, my existence, my love place.  After the birth of my second son I found that quite a few people were asking me if I was going to have another.  "I just had this one," I would think, but I found myself answering that maybe we would try for a girl.  I did want a little girl, but as I conversed with my husband about conceiving another child, he got my mind to wondering.  He spoke very logically about money and time and sleep, and I was disappointed.  But why was I sad about not having another child?  I was already not sleeping at night and we were both stretched beyond the limit to give them the attention and support that they desired.  Then I started to feel guilty about my longing for another child.  It really wasn't fair to the baby that I just had to immediately have another one, because then he wouldn't ever have the one-on-one with mommy time that I desperately wanted to lavish upon him.  So WHY did I feel the need to have a little girl?  Letting myself sit in that question for a while, I allowed the answers to float around in my brain until I could reach up and grab the true one.  Because I wanted a miniature me, because I wanted to see what I would look like as a little girl, because I wanted to raise a little girl to breathe fire, because I wanted to instill the strength and confidence into a little person that I never had as a child, because I wanted to protect a little girl...because I wanted to protect MY little girl.  That was it!  I had my innocence snatched away at such a young age that I was never able to truly BE a little girl.  Well, that was indeed a purely selfish reason to have another child.  So now what?  I had to find my inner child.  I had to remember who I was before bad things happened in my life.  I had to remember what it was like to feel free.  But I needed a little help remembering.  Have you ever just sat and watched your children?  Like, REALLY watched?  Aren't they little gods?  The young ones, the ones who haven't been damaged by other people yet.  The ones who are still just themselves.  They are perfect, beautiful, and pure.  They wake up when they're ready to wake up, and sleep when they're ready to sleep, and eat when they're ready to eat.  They cry when their little feelings are hurt, they squeal with excitement at the smallest of delights, and they scream in anguish when they are frightened.  They wallow on the floor and eat dirt and splash in the mud.  They strip down naked and run around laughing at the pleasure that they feel as the wind whips around their bare butts.  They laugh without restraint and dance to music that isn't there.  They don't care about rules or manners, or anything that we think they should care about.  They care about how they feel and they long to explore the world around them.  Everything is new and magical to them.  Magic!  That's definitely it.  Children believe in things that we are taught can't exist, and they're happy with that.  Children don't know why the rain falls, nor do they care.  They only want to run and play in the puddles that collect in the street.  They don't care about the mess they're making, they care about the fun that they're having along the way.  As adults it isn't always feasible to strip down and roll in the dirt, but there comes a time when we have to remember who we were.  Only then can we heal from trauma and pain that happened along the way to adulthood.  We have to go back, back to a time when we were innocent and free and unconfined.  We have to learn not to care about other people's opinions of us once more.  We have to remember how to believe in magic and how to dance in the rain when the only music playing is in our hearts.
What's your child dancing to?