Are you disconnected from your heart?

If you’ve struggled with anxiety, you may have asked yourself: If I know that I am safe and that there is really nothing to worry about in my life, why am I still feeling anxious? Is there another reason for the anxiety I am not aware of? I love this question, because it points towards one of the most important – and perhaps most overlooked – root causes of fear and anxiety: The disconnection from our hearts.

A client once told me that his anxiety stopped when he started to be honest with himself. “Whether at work or at home, I have done many things that were out of alignment with my truth. At my job I accepted the, at times, shifty dealings of my boss; with my family I behaved in the same authoritarian ways as my dad, even though this at times scared and upset my loved ones. The longer I pretended to be somebody I am not, the more stressed and anxious I became. It wasn’t until I became real with myself and made some course-corrections, that I no longer felt anxiety and dread when I woke up in the morning.”

Whether you are troubled by anxiety, depression, loss, grief, whether you question your self-worth, or are caught up in addiction or obsessive/compulsive behavior – all of these struggles share a common theme: they reflect a broken relationship to the core of your being, your own heart.

It is when we are disconnected from our heart and out of integrity with our truth that our subconscious creates anxiety, to alert us, that we are off track.

I have experienced personally and countless times with my clients, that the further we are out of alignment, the more anxious we feel. But how do we reconnect with the innate wisdom and truth of our hearts, when all we can feel is anxiety and pain?

My special guest on Empowerment Radio this Thursday is Lee McCormick, co-author of The Heart Reconnection Guidebook. Here is a message from him:

“Our heart and mind are meant to work together. When we are detached from our heart, the mind resists change. The mind identifies with our beliefs, and without the guidance of the heart, it becomes fearful and defensive, and when it is questioned, it goes into lock-down. Change originates in the heart, and the heart literally teaches the mind. The nature of our heart is love, and love has no past, present, or future; it simply is. As our heart creates new beliefs based in love and respect, our emotions update, and our mind relaxes. Our personal truth overwrites the old lies, and bonds of relationship strengthen. We create a deeper, truer relationship within us that is reflected into our relations with others. As we learn how our mind and conditioning work, our natural curiosity returns. When we can’t help but wonder, what would it be like if I didn’t react that way? Our creativity comes to its feet and applauds. We can imagine our transformed future in present time and feel the feelings and emotions of our healed state going forward. Curiosity isn’t easily stopped; throughout the day, you find yourself wondering, What it would be like if . . . and, at that moment, you are further unbound to the problem; you are writing a new story, and your mind and body feel it. A curious mind and an active imagination are strong medicine. They move you along the healing path and toward whatever goal you set.

“Life has its paradoxical moments; what first appears as a curse can turn out to be a true gift. Some call it hitting bottom; others call it grace. Or, as Alice Walker says in her book The Temple of My Familiar, “A heart breaks open.” Our broken heart can be the opening through which we find our way back home. There is light on the other side of the suffering. We are called out to look into the mirror of time and life and question ourselves. We can look into our own eyes and see a new vision. We can find that glimmer of light reminding us that there was a time before all challenges and heartbreaks took over our life. We recall who we were before we sought refuge in the behaviors and ways of coping that now have us trapped. Our capacity to heal is far greater than our suffering. As we step into our healing, we step into the light of self-awareness and the gifts of personal redemption that call up our spirit’s greatest strengths. This is the hero’s journey. It can be a tough one, but it is a journey for which we were created, and we have the resources we need to prevail.”

Join me and Lee McCormick this Thursday, August 15th on Empowerment Radio (here, or on Facebook Live) and learn how through guided self-exploration you can move toward clarity, emotional freedom and self-acceptance; and how through refocusing on the truth of what the heart reveals, you can leave behind the chaos of the mind.