Forgiveness is the root from which compassion springs. These qualities regulate the energy of the heart chakra (called anahata in Sanskrit), our physical and energetic symbol of love. The heart chakra acts as the spiritual bridge between the manifested world and the unmanifested universe.
If there is a blockage in the heart chakra, it can impede your ability to move forward not only in your life, but also in your spiritual growth.
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The quality of love is a vibration and not necessarily an emotional feeling. We may think that we love someone or something, but when they do something we feel is wrong, we are hurt and withdraw what we call “love”. In this sense, it is not unconditional love, a love that permeates all action, no matter the consequence.
Unconditional Love
Unconditional love is not as easy as it sounds. The foundation to move through the high vibrational qualities of the heart chakra begins down the road of forgiveness. Each time you are given an opportunity to forgive someone who has wronged you, you are also given the chance to forgive yourself.
At the root, all of life—people and circumstances—are reflections of yourself; your thoughts and how you treat yourself. There are many lessons to learn along the way, and they always lead back to your own self.
Often, we search for love outside of ourselves, but the greatest act of love is to love ourselves unconditionally. The lesson of the heart chakra is learning how to make loving yourself the highest priority.
Read: Yoga for Self Love: Tapping into Your Heart Chakra
When we hold grudges against other people or ourselves, we quite literally block ourselves from the receptive qualities the heart chakra offers: compassion, empathy, gratitude, joy, and peace.
Life will feel like you are a turbulent tumbleweed being tossed around a desert highway because you are giving your power away to that person or idea of vengeance. You may feel like you are looking for answers in all the wrong places to cover it up, but the truth is, you must let it go.
Let It Go
A key part of forgiveness is the ability to release and surrender what has hurt you. When you forgive, you are able to let go of low vibration emotional frequencies such as anger, guilt, shame, and resentment. When you let these go, you are able to up-level and move on.
However, forgiveness requires an actual shift in your mental and emotional attitude for it to be effective. This is why working with the energetic qualities of the heart chakra is so effective. You can begin to open the heart chakra for forgiveness.
In the end, it doesn’t matter if you’re going through a breakup or a stranger spilled their drink on you at the coffeeshop—what matters is that you forgive and move on, instead of dwelling on the situation or the past.
Some situations may take longer than others and that’s okay. As you work on opening the heart chakra for forgiveness, your capacity to respond out of love instead of fear or anger to difficult situations and mistakes will expand.
Read: A Heart-Opening Visualization Meditation
How to Open the Heart Chakra
One of the easiest ways to connect to your heart chakra is to simply sit or lie down and place your hands over your heart, in the center of your chest. You can begin to feel the gentle rhythm of your heartbeat as you take long, slow, deep breaths in and out.
As you do this, feel as if you are pouring love into your body. There is no right or wrong way to feel this, as everyone’s experience of love is unique and individual.
Very slowly, you can begin to lift your hands away from your chest as you expand the loving vibrations of your heart space. Here you begin to feel the energetic space of your heart chakra.
You can visualize either color of the heart chakra, which are green and pink. Green is the color when you are giving love outside yourself and pink is when you are giving love to yourself.
You can also work with positive affirmations that reinforce the qualities of the heart chakra. For example:
- I love myself deeply.
- I forgive myself and I forgive others.
- Giving and receiving love brings me great joy.
- I am open to my heart’s desires.
You can also create your own!
Read: Ong So Hung: A Heart-Opening Mantra
Once you feel your heart chakra begins to open, forgiveness will become a more natural and regular occurrence. However, if you are still unsure where to begin, try the following exercise.
A Heart-Opening Exercise
First, consider the circumstance and person you wish to forgive. It may even be yourself. If you made a mistake at work that’s really holding you back, that’s a great place to start. There’s no right or wrong. It could even be something from your childhood you’ve never let go of!
Write down what happened and remember how you felt. Close your eyes and let yourself experience those emotions one last time.
Now, write down “I forgive….” and fill in the blank for the person or situation. Repeat it out loud as many times as you need until you begin to feel a shift in your energy.
Begin to send your loving energy toward that person. Fill yourself with gratitude for the challenging situation and the lessons it taught you. Let it go and surrender it so that you get a fresh slate to start over again.
Afterward, notice how you feel. Observe any sensations in your body. Where there were once denser energies, you can now fill those voids with your unconditional, radiant love.
Read: Understanding the 7 Chakras
Living Forgiveness
With time and practice, your heart chakra will become more unblocked so that you can be guided into the deepest expression of yourself via the throat chakra and use your loving energy to channel your intuition via the ajna, or third eye chakra.
Additionally, when the heart chakra is balanced and open, your ability to manifest will increase, as it has a positive effect on the lower chakras as well which govern willpower, creativity, and stability.
Read: How to Know Which Chakra Is Out of Balance
There may also be moments in your life where you will be on the other side of the coin and need to ask for forgiveness if you have wronged someone. It takes courage to do this, but you can use the same exercise to open your heart and know that by doing so, you take a step in the right direction for the betterment of all.
During These Times of Stress and Uncertainty Your Doshas May Be Unbalanced.
To help you bring attention to your doshas and to identify what your predominant dosha is, we created the following quiz.
Try not to stress over every question, but simply answer based off your intuition. After all, you know yourself better than anyone else.
