Matters of the Heart <3

Happy Belated-Valentine’s Day. Typically, this holiday focuses on our external relationships…or brings attention to the lack there-of. With restaurants pushing price-fixed menus for two, stores stocked with chocolates and sweets, and every corner market flooded sky high with pink and red roses, its easy to get swept up by the over-commercialized messages and lose sight of what this holiday is truly about. Valentines Day holds significance worth applying to our everyday lives....remember, relationships come in all forms!  In lieu of this recent holiday, begin thinking about the love you’re directing inwards.  Regardless of whether you spent Valentine’s day with champagne and chocolates or Chinese food and Netflix, I encourage you to use the holiday as a platform to think about the most important relationship of all…the one you have with yourself. Visualize your own heart (the actual organ, not a paper cut-out) through this heart-based art exercise, helping you to tune-in, explore, and release. 

Directions: 

Materials: Paper, scissors, writing utensils (charcoals, pencils, pens), glue. Optional- watercolors, markers, colored pencils, etc.

- Think about what frustrates you or holds you back…. What’s keeping you from living your life with an open heart? What’s standing in your way? Imagine your heart…if you could see these blocks, what would they look like? Focus on several words or images and take 5-10 minutes to do a free-write exercise in your journal or on a piece of notebook paper. Try not to over think it, instead just writing about the first issues that come to mind.

- On a piece of drawing paper, using pencil or charcoal, draw an anatomical heart. Feel free to trace the attachment included in this posting. Cut out the heart and glue it onto a separate piece of paper (any color is fine).

- Fill the nooks and crannies of your heart with words and phrases from your free-write exercise, placing your personal blockages throughout your heart.

- Look at your image. Imagine moving through these blockages. What would it take to open your heart? What would it feel like to overcome these barriers? Focus on several words or images and take 5-10 minutes to do another free-write, related to this topic. 

-Using your 2nd free-write, write phrases, words, and/or sentences related to overcoming your blockages flowing out of your heart vessels. 

Add any additional color or design! Breathe, let-go, and release!

"You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection."

Buddha