How to Open Your Heart

Do not try to open your heart now.
That would be a subtle movement of aggression towards you immediate, embodied existence.
Never tell a closed heart it must open;
it will shut more tightly to protect itself,
feeling your resistance.
A heart only unfurls when the conditions are right;
your demand for openness invites closure.
This is the supreme intelligence of the heart.

Instead, bow to the heart in its current state.
If it is closed, let it be closed;
sanctify the closure.
Make it safe;
safe even to feel unsafe.
Trust that when the heart is ready,
and not a moment before,
it will open,
like a flower in the warmth of the sun.
There is no rush for the heart.

Trust the opening and the closing too;
the expansion and the contraction;
this is the heart’s way of breathing;
safe, unsafe, safe, unsafe;
the beautiful fragility of being human;
and all held in the most perfect love.

Jeff Foster