Invest In YOURSELF: Open Your Heart
Jeanne Muhammad
Life & Happiness Expert - Empowering Women who face CHALLENGES and have lost themselves in the Challenge
“You don't have to say anything. You don't have to teach anything. You just have to be who you are: a bright flame shining in the darkness of despair, a shining example of a person able to cross bridges by opening your heart and mind.”―?Tsoknyi Rinpoche,?Open Heart, Open Mind: Awakening the Power of Essence Love
A Closed Heart Misses Out On So Much
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If you picture a closed heart, it appears as something contracted, small, and lacking in vitality.
For me, it is a cartoon image of the Grinch’s rapidly shrinking heart as he plotted to steal Christmas (from the tale by Dr. Seuss in its 1966 adaptation for television, How the Grinch Stole Christmas). This is potent for its simplicity.
The truth is, when you shut down your heart, blocking others from gaining access, you reduce your world and in so doing your avenues for joy.
We evolved as social beings and there are core aspects of our health and the overall quality of our lives that are intertwined with and dependent upon relationships.
In the absence of meaningful connection, we are less than we otherwise could be.
To underscore just how far-reaching the consequences of a closed heart are I will discuss in detail some of the specific losses that this behavior induces.
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A Closed Heart Narrows The Mind
A closed heart invariably leads to the narrowing of the mind because protecting yourself from others and from the unknown leads to suspicion, prejudice, and an undue fixation on your own needs/wants/views.
According to Psychology Today, “virtually all antisocial behaviors arise from excessive self-preoccupation and the assumption that one’s own interests should take precedence over those of other people.
When people commit crimes, they have put their own interests so far above other people’s well-being that they feel entitled to lie, cheat, steal, physically harm, and even kill others to get what they want.
At the extreme, terrorist actions are rooted in abject egocentrism and selfishness, and most wars begin when some party feels justified in attacking someone to obtain something it wants” (Leary and Marano).
This thorough indictment of selfishness is a cautionary tale against closing the heart.
A closed heart is one of the cornerstones of selfishness.
So, actively put some distance between yourself and antisocial behavior by opening both your heart and your mind.
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A Closed Heart Makes The World More Ominous
When your heart is closed your primary goal is self-preservation.
An extreme emphasis on this necessary skill can make it more of a pathology than a boon to your life.
When you shut out those people and situations that are unfamiliar to you the resulting closed-mindedness can lead to premature and poorly executed assessments of risk, others’ intentions, and the degree of personal safety in each situation.
A study for The Open Psychology Journal conducted by Wastell et al. demonstrated that “high closed-mindedness predicted seizing and freezing on a view which was associated with less information processing.”?This “seizing and freezing” resulted in higher degrees of assessed risk than the information presented warranted (Wastell et al.).
In other words, being closed-minded makes you more likely to reside in your preconceived notions of the world than to take in the situation at hand.
In addition, it makes you more likely to experience a sense of threat even in the absence of one.
The world already entails enough challenges, you do not want your heart and mind to create more of them.
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A Closed Heart Creates Isolation
How many opportunities are missed by those who have shut down their feeling center?
A trademark of this type of person is that they fail to appreciate the importance of human connection.
This compels them to pass on opportunities to interact with others.
It can also result in them putting an undue amount of pressure on the few relationships they do have.
This can lead to both isolation (an objective measure of limited social contact) and loneliness (subjective feelings of isolation).
According to Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, “Mental and physical health are interconnected. Social isolation’s adverse health consequences range from sleeplessness to reduced immune function. Loneliness is associated with higher anxiety, depression, and suicide rates. Isolation and loneliness are also linked to poor cardiovascular health and cognitive function” (“Understanding the Effects of Social Isolation on Mental Health”).
Simply put, being isolated and lonely is bad for the body and the mind.
Having a closed heart significantly increases your likelihood of experiencing both of those things with the resultant degradation to your well-being.
So, if you find yourself shutting down, think again, your life might depend on it.
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A Closed Heart Is No Fun
Being shut down and limited is not a path to an enriching, enjoyable life.
It is often manifested as social aversion, loneliness, numbness, trouble forgiving, anxiety/depression, etc.
These traits are not enjoyable, they represent contraction whereas a healthy balanced person pursues expansion.
To be expansive is to feel warm, light, joyful, engaged, equanimous, with a sense of awe, etc.
Those are some of the qualities that are lost when you close your heart, making you a less pleasant person to be around, and simultaneously a less pleasant person to be.
According to NIH News In Health, "those who are adept at savoring positive emotions have extended activation in a reward center of the brain called the ventral striatum. This protects them from ill health in part by lowering levels of the stress hormone cortisol. On the other hand, negative emotions often activate the amygdala, a brain region associated with fear, anxiety, and aggression. In addition, these people tend to recover slower after a disturbance and have a greater risk for multiple health conditions" (“Positive Emotions and Your Health”).
Few people would say that they want to be unhappy and unhealthy and yet, closing the heart leads to both of those things.
If you want your experience of living to be one of exuberant well-being and joy, invest in yourself and OPEN YOUR HEART!
This will make you a better companion and make the experience of being "YOU", a great deal more fun.
It Starts With YOU!
References:
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Life & Happiness Expert - Empowering Women who face CHALLENGES and have lost themselves in the Challenge
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