Guarding Our Hearts
The journey from guarding our heart to locking it away is often a slow one, the journey is slow and insidious, one small decision at a time. A slight change here, a small choice there, until we’ve closed the door and locked it away.
Just like the story of the frog in the pot, not noticing the temperature rising, slowly cooked to death, so it is with our hearts. We close off our hearts to protect ourselves from pain and yet that very process numbs joy, connection with others, and ultimately connecting with ourselves.
We’re called to guard our heart for it is the wellspring of life, the centre of our faith, and it is written “Hope deferred makes the heart sick.” I believe hope deferred is like locking away our heart where we feel it is safe from pain. The problem is, we can’t lock out one feeling, one emotion, without locking out them all. So a desire to avoid pain leads to the numbing of joy and hope and love.
Open hearted living can be scary; can be painful however it’s real. If we close our eyes to painful things in our world, we also close our eyes to the beauty.
I read today “allow the tears to flow because they keep your heart tender” that is so true. Locking away our tears numbs our heart and although the pain of the tears can feel overwhelming they bring release.
Guarding our heart means nurturing wisdom and boundaries, it means staying connected with ourselves so that we know our truth. Locking away our heart carries the cost of disconnection, the very opposite to how we are called to live.
