personal heart social heart
meditating just now i had a vision of my two hearts. my personal heart is where i negotiate my own life, my own lessons. i have taken great care to heal my personal heart. i have learned many fabulously challenging lessons and amazingly found what i can call lasting peace. finally.
i pay good attention to keeping my personal heart strong because i know it affects everything in my life. my work, my relationships, my parenting, my sense of well being, my connection to nature, my activism. i have learned to allow all of my feelings to flow freely and this keeps my heart clear. my personal heart.
then there is my social heart. this is where i negotiate being in community. i have always worked to keep this heart flowing as well. recently the current affairs, especially in ferguson have been both extremely sad and angering. i have even at times said, we are living in hell. this heart feels and flows, but it wasn’t until recently that i realized some people think this is the same as my personal heart. sweetsweet people have reached out thinking i am in personal pain and suffering.
while my personal heart very much connects and supports my social heart, i am expressing my social heart. i will not say that it is comfortable or easy to keep my social heart flowing in these times. my personal heart has learned through experiences of domination and being scapegoated, so i have empathy. but i know that this is not affecting me personally. personally i am fine. and if and when my social heart begins to burden my personal heart, i always take time out to attend to my personal heart.
i continue to learn how to keep my social heart open and strong. feel all the feelings. allow them to flow through and not get stuck. apply what i have learned with my personal heart while knowing all along that my personal heart is separate and sound. this gives me the strength i need to keep having the sane response of rage and grief without being weighed down and unable to act with power. because i have attended to my personal heart these strong feelings do not attach there.
i have two hearts. one is my heart of hearts, my private lessons and life.
and one is the heart i share with everyone. our common heart. the heart that is learning with everyone else to negotiate true equality once and for all.
i open this heart. i keep my feelings flowing however uncomfortable. i express and do not repress with the hope that the more i do this, the more heart we can share as a people. our one shared heart.
tu eres mi otro yo.