Habari Gani? Soften Your Heart.

Do you remember how effervescent you were before the world got to you?

Sunday, October 27, 2024

Do you remember how efervescent you were before the world got to you?

This world has a fascinating way of hardening us, toughening us up to deal with the challenges of life, often forcing us to prioritize things like responsibilities and making money over the things of the heart.

How many times have you wanted to lay in bed with a loved one, or spend more time with your kids, but you had to pull yourself away and drag yourself to work?

How many times have you had a moment of creative inspiration to write a book or to paint or maybe even to start a business, but the project just fell by the wayside because you had to focus on "more important things" aka things that make you money?

How many times have you been disappointed or hurt in life causing you to place a(nother) layer around your heart so that you can compartmentalize the pain and go about your business?

Maybe it's just me, but I can pinpoint actual moments when life hardened my soft little heart, bit by bit; the moments when life began to take my joy and contain my spirit into a box that was easier for others to manage; the moments when I had to ignore Liveology and my desire to be an entrepreneur because I needed to make money to pay bills; the moments I began to build a hard shell around my heart in order to function in what I perceived to be a cold, dog-eat-dog world.

We often don't realize these moments of hardening in the moment they are happening. In the moment, it feels practical and like self-preservation. But just like cholesterol slowly and quietly hardening the arteries, there comes a tipping point where it suddenly becomes unsustainable, and our heart has become so hardened that it no longer functions normally.

This subtle hardening meant to protect us from the coldness of the world over time can prevent us from feeling true love. This practical focus on making money to support ourselves and our families over time can turn into a loss of our creativity and our passions. This reasonable desire to fit in with general society over time can cause us to wear a mask for so long that we totally forget who we really are.

Have you become hardened as well?

As many years as I have been "doing the work" of self-study and personal growth, the work is never finished. I recently experienced a moment of great self awareness. A mirror was held up to me, showing the hard layers still calcifying my heart. Some areas of my heart were so hardened that, like a silent heart attack, had died completely, and I couldn't even perceive them anymore. That is, until through grace, they were revealed to me.

When you have moments of enlightenment, you always have two choices: Ignore the new information and stay the same or address it and change. It can not only be difficult, but painful to change. If you have been building up hard layers around your love, or your creativity, or your soul for a long time, it might - no it will hurt when you realize that the very thing you built to protect yourself from the world actually walled you off from parts of yourself.

But these great moments of awakening happen so that we can get out of the rut, realize the walls we have created so that something new can happen, so that breakthrough can occur.

In what ways do you need to soften?

So here is a question for you. Where have you built hard layers around your heart? Where have you to stifled your creativity or put yourself into a box? Where have you to dimmed your light?

While at first it appears that these efforts are practical measures to function in this world, ultimately it never does us any good. Time and again, people reach the end of their lives and wish they had spent less time purshing that extra bonus and more time with their families. Time and again, people reach the end of their lives and wish they had put forth more effort to pursue their dreams. Time and again, people reach the end of their lives and wish they had softened earlier, forgiven earlier, and returned to the effervescence they had as a child sooner.

So what's stopping you? Do it now. We all have many layers, and so here is some encouragement to you as I do this within myself. Peel back one of the layers of of your heart today. Find a place where you can soften and return to that childlike innocence and light before the world got to you.

You might do that through simply sitting in prayer and meditation, asking God to heal and soften your heart. You might do that through painting or journaling. Whatever you do, take one step to remember who you were before the world got to you.

And soften.

Christina V. Mills is the creator and editor of Liveology® Magazine.

Read more from her column, Habari Gani?.

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