My good friend, Lysa Black’s new book Divine Purpose is being released worldwide on kindle this week and to celebrate I’m sharing the abbreviated 8th Chapter with you. This chapter is all about healing the heart chakra; bringing focus to the practice of ‘reciprocating love’ and letting it flow both ways.
Lysa’s book shares real life accounts of women who healed their hearts after great loss to find their power and purpose. Enjoy the chapter she has generously shared below and you can grab a copy of the complete book on Kindle here.
Chapter 8 – Reciprocate Love
“What you vibrate out into your world, the universe echoes back.” Panache Desai
Love, in its finest and highest expression, is an experience of reciprocation. It’s when two hearts freely share, connect and raise each other up. I’ve noticed there’s a view that giving love is a higher, more worthy act, while receiving love is less noteworthy. However, when we are solely in the act of giving love, we can attract the ‘takers’ or ‘receivers’ of love. Powerful ripples of true love emanate when two hearts connect and vibrate in mutual devotion.
Lilah was a lover. She cared deeply for others. As a natural healer, she was remarkable at nurturing others with her highly sensitive empathic gift. Her heart was incredibly discerning of emotional needs and she naturally found herself lifting and loving those around her. A conversation with Lilah was a sure way for others to walk away feeling supported and reassured.
But when Lilah came to me, her gift was out of balance. Her great capacity to love was limited by an inability to know how to love herself and allow herself to be loved. While she was easily aware of the true emotional state of others, she was often disconnected and out of touch with how she really felt.
She regularly used her spare time to care for others and it was taking a toll on Lilah’s emotional well-being, leaving her emotionally brittle, volatile and reactive. Lilah came to me after hearing about the shifts a friend had experienced through my work. She was wide eyed and incredibly curious. Helping her to understand her gifts and natural aptitude to love gave Lilah a newfound respect for herself. Knowing she was empathic helped her to see why she was so good at meeting the needs of others and also explained why she preferred to avoid her own feelings. An empath realises early on that they feel better when the people around them feel better. So, naturally, they believe that helping others is the fastest and easiest way to ensure they feel good. Unfortunately, not everyone wants to feel better and so an empath can feel stranded and powerless if she continues to think she can influence her own emotional state by first bringing love to another.
Empowered empathy is when we become devoted to bringing love, attention and devotion to our own inner emotional world, while also imparting it to others to whom we feel inspired and led. Together we began by turning Lilah’s loving heart in on itself. Supporting Lilah to find ways to enjoy her own company, reflect on her own feelings and pay attention to herself brought new confidence, rejuvenation and awareness. Lilah could see how she had actually never ever been truly ‘with’ herself. She began to take care of herself in the ways she needed to. Getting enough sleep, eating well and regular exercise was a given. Beyond this, recognising what she was feeling, reflecting on what she could sense within and devoting herself to a life that brought her joy and fulfilment created a totally new perspective.
The more Lilah paid attention to her feelings, the calmer and more grounded she became, until she noticed a clear pattern emerging. Any time Lilah was around her friends who had partners, she began to feel jealous. She would cringe at the sight of loving couples, whether she was at a wedding or trying to unwind with a romantic comedy at home. She found herself reacting on an instinctive level and feeling emotionally out of control.
Lilah saw other women could attracting men so easily, but she didn’t feel as though men really cared for her. I invited her to forget about the gender of those in front of her and instead focus on a man’s heart; genuinely caring for her companion and intently finding out about his life, dreams and current circumstances. Lilah’s loving heart could be generous with friends, family and strangers, but when it came to men she found it hard to be herself. She began to practice this new game with co-workers and quickly experienced something very new; when she showed that she sincerely cared about the lives of the men in front of her, they reciprocated and were truly interested in asking about her life as well. Rich, open, enjoyable conversations with men created a whole new dynamic with the opposite sex for Lilah.
It was time for dating, and with her new skills in hand and an open heart she found a new ease in connecting with the opposite sex. It wasn’t long before Lilah had attracted an adoring boyfriend who appreciated her, found her attractive and genuinely cared about her. Lilah was astonished! However, even after dating for a few months she found herself too scared to fully open to her boyfriend’s love. Lilah wanted to really give herself permission to be herself and receive his love wholeheartedly.
Together we returned to her first relationship. Lilah had just left home and had found herself naturally drawn to Trevor, who was generous with his compliments and knew how to treat her in a way that demonstrated how much he cared. She loved loving Trevor, and even though she compromised and didn’t honour herself, she figured enduring a little discomfort in the name of love was a worthy sacrifice. Reflecting on this past love brought a sweeping recognition that Lilah had been subtly betraying herself in an attempt to keep her old boyfriend’s love alive. A cathartic emotional surge erupted within, as Lilah saw the cause behind her pattern. Lilah was now able to see her desire to love without being loved and this epiphany gave her full permission to open her heart and allow herself to be vulnerable enough to receive.
Visualisation
To bring loving awareness to the heart chakra, allow yourself to see rich emerald green swirling beautifully around your heart area.
Healing Affirmations
- I am worthy of the investment of love
- My capacity to love expands as I receive
- True love is a reciprocation of care and devotion
- Every soul is worthy of love
- I extend love and feel loved in return
