Listen to the quiet whispers of your heart
For they are windows into your soul.
Through the cracks and crevices of your being
Lie the hidden treasures within.
Over the holidays, I savored two artful pieces that left a residue of deep, emotional introspection. The first piece was the movie, Whisper of the Heart by Hayao Miyazaki, about a bookish, teenage girl who, in the process of falling in love with an aspiring violin-maker, found her own courage to pursue her passion for writing stories. The second piece was Brene Brown’s latest book Atlas of the Heart, which is about building meaningful connections through deepening connections with ourselves and learning the language of our emotions. Both of these pieces led me on a beautiful, fully embodied journey into the kingdom of my own heart, to uncover the deeper truths of my soul.
For a long time, I thought I understood the language of the heart and the terrains of my heart space. Physiologically, the heart is an organ located on the left side of our chest. It is the power organ that is responsible for pumping oxygenated blood to all of the cells in our body to keep us alive. Energetically, the heart chakra or Anahata, is located at the center of our chest. It is the seat of Love and temple for our soul. It is where we feel and experience the depth and richness of our emotions.
To me, the heart was beautiful but delicate, like the glass Christmas ornaments that had to be carefully wrapped in layers of tissue paper, securely placed in a box, and carried with tender care. As a highly sensitive being (or what some calls an empath), I carefully tucked away my heart, only to be brought out for special occasions, in the company of the right stewards.
When I had my first major heartbreak, I experienced the fragility of my glass heart. As my heart shattered into a million little pieces, I felt lost and fumbled to find my path. Without my inner compass, my inner terrain became black and white, barren and devoid of the richness and depth of what life once had to offer.
However, according to the laws of physics, energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only converted from one form of energy to another. What I didn’t know at the time was that the energy of the heart never ceases. Instead, the heart energy simply was going through its own transformation, to become whole again, in a new form.
The shattering of my glass heart was actually an open invitation to explore the uncharted and rugged terrains of my emotional landscape. The whispers of the heart are not heard but felt through the body, in the quiet moments when we are still. Over the last two years, the gentle whispers of my heart guided me through the depth of the undulating valleys and down the deep unraveling roots to where my soul resides. By giving myself the permission to listen, I uncovered a world of of beauty, magic, and interconnectedness. Being with the fields of lush greens interwoven with majestic waterfalls and crisp air filled with the sweet scents of blossoming roses, I dwelled in the rich biodiversity of feelings and experiences, all perfectly orchestrated in the symphony of life.
After finishing the movie and the book, I realized that my soul was seeking to express itself through me, through writing. Writing is nourishment for the soul. According to Socrates, an unexamined life is not worth living. Writing is the process of decoding the hidden messages behind our emotions. Through writing, we capture the delicate details of life that create the atlas of our soul so we can find our hidden treasures within.
Our heart speaks the universal language of love and its greatest desire is to radiate its infinite love through the vessels of our being. Writing sets our hearts free from the tyranny of fear by giving us the permission to write our life stories and weave the dream we want others to experience with us.