This week – December 20-25, 2010, Joy Holland from Unfolding Your Path to Joy is hosting the Blogging Week of Love. Over 60 writers are taking part in this initiative to share their stories and moments of the transformational power of love. I am honored and happy myself, to take part in this beautiful initiative and write about something very dear to my heart on the subject that Joy has introduced.
Joy asks the following reflective questions, to which I will share my answers below. I invite all of our readers to take a moment after reading this perhaps, or some other opportune time this week, to give these reflections some time and formulate your own answers to these questions.
What is the defining moment that you opened your heart to Love so extraordinary, it transformed your life?
What did it feel like to you? What did you feel like as you processed it?
How has the miracle called Love touched your life and impacted your journey?
A Defining Opportunity of Love
In my life, I have had many small opportunities to open my heart to love and experience a transformation. In fact, these moments tend to happen on a weekly, if not daily basis. Every day, life presents us with moments, with opportunities, with experiences which give us the choice to open our hearts and to choose love. It all depends what we choose to see.
However, I have also had a few big moments in my life where going completely out of my comfort zone, and opening up myself wholly and fully with my heart and soul, I have experienced a most transformational shift. In fact, one such moment stands out in my heart and soul, and it will I have no doubt, forever be my defining moment of the power of love.
What is this moment? It was very powerful and moving, and has forever changed my life. However, I will choose not to talk about the specific example, because what I will share below applies across the board to so many examples where we are faced with a choice to open our heart and act with love, or not. And so I do not want to get caught up on the details of the story and limit it, but express the greater and very powerful lesson from it.
There was a time in my life a good few years back, where I was faced with a situation, one that seemed very difficult. I had attracted into my life something that I have longed for, for a very long time, however it came in a package, which was against my being at the time to accept.
So what was I to do? Here was something that I wanted so much, longed for so much, coming to me in a package that seemed so difficult to look past, to process, to accept.
I did in that defining moment, what perhaps most other people in my situation would have done. I closed my heart. I turned my back. I did not accept my gift.
Surely how could something that I had wanted so much, come in a package that seemed so impossible for me to accept it in? I was confused. I was angry. I was sad. But I made my choice, I refused it and thought it was best to walk away from it, leave it behind.
That was my mind talking. That was my Ego, influenced by years of conditioning, of other people’s thoughts and beliefs talking. That was my unconscious lower self being itself.
Opening My Heart to the Miracle of Love
I thought I made my choice. I thought everything was reasoned out and the only logical thing to do was to refuse my most longed for gift. And yet, my heart had other plans.
Within a few days of making my decision, my life started changing. Something wasn’t right. Something was terribly off. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it….
And then a miracle happened, I opened my heart, I allowed it to finally speak, I allowed it to finally lead. I shut off my mind. I tuned out my Ego. I turned a deaf ear on what society and all the rules, regulations and limitations tried to remind me of. I began to listen to my heart.
It was scary at first, so very scary to walk into a completely new territory, to go against everything I have ever believed and stood for, and yet something about this felt so right.
As the days went on, my spirit shifted, my mood shifted, my energy soared. I was becoming someone new. My life was taking on a completely different turn. I revisited my gift, except this time, I saw it through the eyes of love, through my heart. And when I did, I thought to myself, what was I thinking?
And it is clearly that. Often times we get these amazing opportunities to act as the love that we are, to live with an open heart and instead of going forward into what can be our greatest moment of bliss, we let our fearful mind cripple us. We let the rules and limits of others dictate our actions. We paralyze our own happiness.
The day I made my decision with my heart, changed the rest of my life and more importantly it changed me. That day, I stepped into completely foreign territory, and while it was scary at first, I simply allowed my heart to guide me.
That day pushed me past so many blocks, so many limits, so many “no’s” and “can’ts” and “shouldn’ts”. That day was the first day of many more days where I would learn to follow my heart and lead with love.
Conclusion
I have never regretted my decision to accept my gift, and I know as much as the saying goes “never say never”, I never will. From that day on, living and approaching life with an open heart has only become easier and easier. It guides me. It sustains me. It is me.
That is the transformational power of love.
This holiday season, or at any other time of the year for that matter, may you find enough courage to be guided by your heart. May you too face the moments in your life, the gifts, the people, the places with an open heart. And may you too be blessed to experience the transformational power of love.
*Photographs credit Evolving Scenes Nature Photography
About the author:Evita Ochel, B.Sc., B.Ed., CHN - is the founder and editor of EvolvingBeings.com – an online publication featuring various topics on spirituality and metaphysics. Evita teaches consciousness expansion and heart-centered living to help people attain deep meaning, peace and happiness in their life. She is also a nutritional science and holistic health expert for optimal health and longevity. Learn more about Evita Ochel or Follow her on Twitter.
22 Comments to “The Transformational Power of Love and an Open Heart”
This is really beautiful, Evita. I think that too often, we get caught up in what love is “supposed” to look like or feel like that we don’t recognize it when it hits us. Kudos to you for recognizing the signs that were pointing you back to your gift, and then for embracing it. I don’t know what “it” was, but you say it transformed you. If that’s true, then it helped to make you the woman you are today, and I am grateful for that. You touch so many hearts, and you help so many people. You are a blessing and gift to the whole world.
Hello Jay,
It definitely transformed me and made me the woman I am, and because of my choice to open my heart, everything changed forever. I continue to evolve because of it to this day. And it feels so good.
And Jay you are so right, there is no right or wrong when it comes to love. We simply have to look within and take what feels right for us. But we really have to look within, and make sure it is coming from our soul, our heart, not our mind. Don’t get me wrong, I love the mind, as it is needed to balance us as the physical beings that we are, but as I knew from my own example, our mind can be our greatest obstacle in how we act, speak and think.
Blessings to you always!
Evita, love is simple and yet at times it seems so complex. What would love do? Love allows me to be gentle, but still passionate, and yet I can still be in conflict. If love guides me to stay the course, but the journey unsettles others, does that make love a peaceful emotion? I feel that love has transformed me, but it has also hurt me and others around me. Love is a powerful companion. With love, Simon :)
Hi Simon,
Oh how true Simon, how true!
Yes, love is not always making everyone happy, love is not always putting a smile on another person’s face, if it means sacrificing ourselves. Love is looking within our heart and truly acting from that space. Most of the time it is simple, but sometimes, actions from love can seem unloving to another. An easy example is the parent who cannot allow the child to run into the street playing, no matter how much the child wants to. The child may see this an unloving and yet the parent acted out of love.
The same goes for many situations in our own lives…. we may do something that we know is the loving thing in our heart, but the other may not always perceive it as so, and so to them, they got hurt, when to us, we simply acted from the space of love which we know as true….
Ah Simon, so simple and yet so complex indeed….
Hi Evita,
I can relate to your story. I had the same experience in the past. At first I too refused the “package” but over time it grew on me and then suddenly one day I looked at it differently. It was as if someone had re-wrapped the “package.” What had once been off-putting about it became quiet endearing.
Thank you so much for sharing this story.
Happy Holidays and best wishes for a wonderful new year!
Hi Angela,
It is amazing how a change or shift in our site can make all the difference. And how powerful when we look at something with our heart, instead of always our mind. That alone has the power to change and transform everything!
Thank you for stopping by and a beautiful holiday and New Year to you!
Evita,
Opening our hearts…something I have spent much time digging more deeply into over the course of this past year. And for me – I’ve found that there’s something very trans-formative in “the heart”. The collective heart…when my heart connects with your heart. When your heart connects with mine. When we make those heart-based connections with others, we touch upon life in a whole new realm. Connections based upon love. Love that touches upon deep understanding, care, and belief….
Evita, I see this so beautifully in you. Love. And in that, I’m drawn into your heart…
Much love to you…always…
Lance
Hi Lance
Yes indeed Lance! It is amazing how much transformation takes place when we look within. When we allow ourselves to be vulnerable and feel and see life with our heart.
Thank you for sharing your love here today Lance – it is a beautiful reminder of how connected we really all are.
A beautiful story. It’s amazing how often the ego rushes in to say, “No, no, no! I can’t have this. I don’t want this.” But the heart truly has other plans. I’ve come to start calling different aspects of our selves intelligences, i.e. heart intelligence, mind intelligence, body intelligence, etc. It’s not a new concept, but it’s truly transformative what happens when we connect with our natural intelligence, which sounds like what happened for you in your heart. Thank you for sharing. — Jim
Hi Jim,
Yes, the Ego is an amazing entity which seems to love to resist. Its mechanism for self survival seems so strong, that anything new and different is immediately rejected.
And I love your terms for the mind, heart, body intelligence. What a great distinction to better understand ourselves and how we approach life and all that is in it.
Thank you for your beautiful comment!
Love is such a huge part of my life. The moment that I knew I wanted to spend my life with my wife was my moment. I stopped worrying about my own happiness and worried about her happiness more. I felt lighter and more free.
I love that you stood toe to toe with your ego and learned how to harness it’s energy. It’s not easy, but the more work we do on ourselves the closer we get to infinite love.
Hi Karl
That is such a beautiful story about you and your wife! Blessings to you both always, for the best union ever that is love and heart based.
As for the Ego and harnessing it’s energy, oh it was an amazing lesson for me indeed and the first of many which tore a whole in the Ego’s perceived safety net, and allowed me to explore the world like never before!
The opening of my heart took place when I was at death’s door. Opening my heart to love became the catalyst for my healing process. From then on I knew alone was responsible for where I was at in my life. I started thinking outside the box and charted a course for changing the life I was living and began to live the life I wanted to live. I stopped seeking other people’s approval to determine my own self worth and I learned to love myself. I have yet to achieve fully conquering my ego ..lol :D Like most, if not all others, I’m a work in progress.
Thanks for sharing your story and prompting me to share mine. Have a wonderful holiday season and an fulfilling New Year.
Hi TimeThief,
You are most welcome and I am so grateful that you indeed shared your story too! We learn from each other and through each other. Your story is a touching and transformational one as well, as you hit on something so important and that is truly learning to love yourself, not seeking love or approval from the outside world, whatever it may bring.
I wish you continued healing and a blossoming heart which continues to open to embrace the fullness of the love that it is!
[...] Evita at Evolving Beings for transformational love. [...]
Hi Evita .. the post is lovely set against the open flowers .. beauty at its best. Interesting story .. let love in, and be open to love ..
Especially now – so important .. with love to you and all your readers .. and a Peaceful blessed Christmas .. Hilary
Hi Hilary,
Thank you Hilary. Your words warmed my heart, because I feel the love you share so openly with others, and with yourself. You have taught me a lot about love, through the example of you and your mom. It is nothing short of a beautiful miracle in how your care for her, is also healing and caring for all others who know of and share in your space.
A blessed holiday season to you and all the best for the New Year!
Hi Evita .. thank you .. your thoughts encompassed my heart .. as I am having a few of these challenges at the moment .. Mum is fine .. it’s the ups and downs of life .. so your understanding is wonderful to have .. you too – let’s all have a New Year in which to love. Thanks so much .. Hilary
Evita,
I think perhaps you opened your heart to share this store..that in itself is beauty filled–thank you for sharing!
Simon’s comment affects me..Love does not hurt, us or others..Love is Divine healing..what others choose to do with that love may hurt them if they are anything less than open to it..
I live a heart led life..it is the way I know. In that, then, there are moments that I open my heart that others counsel to close it. I open my heart to serve everyone, maybe sometimes especially those that are fear filled and would like a hand to hold. When I release expectation/obligation I release long standing barriers and experience such freedom that *anything* truly is possible. I have witnessed the healing power of that touch others as magically as it touches me. Amazing!
I agree that there is not a right or wrong, but I do believe that there is a peace filled, less than peace filled..I choose peace filled..
Hi Joy,
Thank you Joy – you inspired something so beautiful within myself and within so many others out there through this amazing initiative.
What a great addition and explanation you add to this space. May we all, always remember the divine power of love, when it comes from an open and pure heart. And yes, you touched upon something so important too, in terms of the fact that we cannot control what others choose to do with the love we act with or are.
When it comes to love, your words and your actions Joy speak so louder, louder than most people I have ever had in my life and the purity and authenticity with which you speak is also a healing gift in itself.
Many thanks to you for the love that you are, and the love that you share and spread!
As one opens one’s heart to love….
The answers come flooding in
where intentions are resolved
and Angels transmit their messages
and sing their songs amidst ringing bells,
And long forgotten stress is revealed and unsealed.
All the Weight has been lifted
and all the cracks have been mended
And continuing questions vanish beyond the blink of an eye.
All one knows is here and now
where all is perfect and all is in true union.
What is before us is now a calling that has been drawn to us.
It is the gift of presence.
So perhaps love reveals that which is beneath form where all we see is then taken in to heart. Every moment then delivers to us kindred spirits that touches upon our very soul. Every encounter is a match made in Heaven.
Hi Evita
What a brilliant article!! The article itself actually does what it purports to describe…it’s a heart opener!..really touched me and encouraged me. What a blessing. Thank you so much :)