The most challenging “Heart Led Living” principle to embrace and integrate is “be attached to nothing”. It requires a lot of patience to unwind all the thoughts and beliefs in our minds. In my book I use the experience of death to teach the essentials around this principle.
While I have done a lot of unwinding from my fear of death, especially my fear around others dying, a few weeks ago this principle came in like a spear through my heart and I realized I reached another deep layer that needed healing.
In this last year or so my husband and I have been practicing “Radical Honesty”. It is a tool that came in for us when I was questioning our marriage. We had grown apart and our communication was lacking. It was the practice of Radical Honesty that essential saved our marriage. (I was inspired to record a radio show and blog about this practice if you are curious to learn more)
During one of those radical honest sessions I felt this heavy emotional wave wash over my heart. Feelings of deep grief, loss and fear surfaced. With tears pouring from my eyes like someone had just turned on the facet, the words “I am afraid to love you because I am afraid to lose you” came flying out of my mouth.
I knew in my heart my husband was fully committed and willing to do anything to save our marriage. I wasn’t afraid that he would choose to leave, the fear that was surfacing was my fear that he would die. For months I was having visions of him being in a car accident or having a heart attack. While the images were persistent I kept dismissing them and moving on. I wasn’t willing to look directly at the fear because I was too afraid. Yes I was afraid of fear itself. But through the conversations with my husband I realized on a subconscious level I was more afraid of love than I was afraid of fear. My heartwork every day became opening my heart to receive his love fully along with looking directly at my fear of him dying.
I know it sounds like a morbid thing to do but in order to release fear we need to look directly at our fear. If we don’t it remains active somewhere deep inside our subconscious influencing all our behaviours. Our ego uses it as a point of weakness to keep us acting in fear and prevents us from making a conscious choice for love. It took me a while but I finally came to a deep place of surrender and acceptance around the fear of losing my husband. I felt peace and was able to love him with my whole heart without the fear of “losing” him lingering around.
All seemed to be going well until a few weeks ago. I was on Facebook and felt guided to click on a video of a X Factor UK audition. Josh Daniel was the last audition of the day and choose to sing a song “Jealous” by Labrynth in memory of a friend he lost recently. The lyrics were powerful and the audition was deeply moving. It was moving enough that even Simon Cowell shed tears.
As I pressed stop on the video I received a text from my husband saying he was on his way to the hospital. There was a chlorine gas leak at the pool he works at and his heart rate was extremely high when the paramedics examined him. Although he had no symptoms of exposure to the chlorine gas they made him go to the hospital to get checked. My immediate response to his text was calmly asking if he wanted me to meet him at the hospital. He said no, he was fine and it was just a precaution.
Suddenly I felt this deep fear around losing him rise up once again. It came with a vengeance this time. I was shaking, crying and felt a wave of panic. The fear was intense almost as if I had just received news that he had died. I created space for all the emotions to arise and reached out to Lisa to be a compassionate witness. I had a session with a client in less than 10 minutes and I needed to find my footing quickly.
After 8 minutes of emotional expression I found my footing and was grounded enough to join with my client. Curiously the session was all around death and the fear of a loved one dying. As I was sharing the words of wisdom that came through my heart I was listening as well for myself.
A few days later I received the following words in meditation “Love him until he leaves”. These words brought comfort. I don’t want to live each moment in fear of losing him. My chose for love is to love him deeply for the moments that we have together. Whether that be one day, one month or 40 years.
The words “love deeply NOW” have been my mantra. I admit I am still unwinding from the fear but our radical honesty practice helps. I refuse to live in fear and I make a conscious choice for love.
Yesterday I listened to a friend and fellow author, Nadine Sands read a blog post called “Spaghetti and Quickies”. She wrote it four months after her husband passed away. Nadine had been the primary care giver for her husband through his decline from ALS. As the tears filled my eyes I was reminded once again to love deeply NOW.
Practicing the “Heart Led Living” principles have truly transformed how I live each moment. I have been living, breathing and teaching these principles for years now and I have been witness to many miracles. I have been focusing on Choose Love and Be Attached to Nothing.
I encourage you to reflect on the 10 “Heart Led Living” principles below and choose one to focus on each week. Choose the one that resonates the most in this moment.
1. Choose love ~ LOVE deeply NOW
2. Be open to anything
3. Be attached to nothing
4. Be curious
5. Be willing to heal
6. Hold your light
7. Fill your heart first
8. Lead with your heart
9. Take inspired action only
10. Expect Miracles
Invite the principle into your awareness and set an intention each day to see how it plays out in your life. If you need some heart work and tools for integration you can check out my book “Heart Led Living ~ When Hard Work Becomes Heart Work”.
I am honoured to share my life with you. May these words inspire you to LOVE deeply NOW.
Heart hugs,
Sue
Watch the video that inspired this post below:
