Guard your heart. That is what my mother used to tell me as I was growing up. The rationale behind those words for her were based on what she had been taught by her mother. She told me that everything you are stems from your heart; words are said, sentiments are carried forward, and beliefs are formed. By guarding your heart, you understand the value of it not being broken, so you become more mindful of how you treat others and more likely to do so with kindness instead.
It’s certainly a graceful approach, and when you see someone with that quality characteristic, it’s quite beautiful and rare. Over the last two blogs, we’ve looked at a couple of facets related to guarding your heart. The first dealt with taking time to listen to the wind song and humming to the tune beating upon the drum of your heart. This is important, because the song of your heart is what you sing every time you relate with another person; be it on social media, a face to face interaction or even in passing while out in the community. The second blog relates to replenishing your source of love after being let down, potentially leaving you wondering if love exists at all. But as we accept that we are all taught differently about the meaning of love, and with our willingness to forgive, we can find ourselves a bit more compassionate, or empathetic to the heart of others. Ultimately, we realize and internalize that the way we love other people and accept their love, is from the song we hear in our heart.
As we take time during this COVID moment of stand-still, we have an opportunity to understand just what it is about our heart we should try to guard.
It’s clear these are contentious times. Not only are we struggling with months of isolation from society and from our loved ones, or with trying to agree on which civil liberties are being violated; we are also experiencing perhaps the greatest divide our society has seen in our lifetime. History shows us that divisions are typically based on how we desire to segment ourselves. We create labels that make us feel better about who we are. Those labels can cause us to struggle with our internal identity, and from there, contempt builds from the need to defend that identity As we read postings on social media, it’s easy to get embroiled by people’s varying positions. But what is it that we are so emotional about, really? Isn’t it just a person’s interpretation of religion, gender, color or creed?
I believe that we categorize certain people based on labels we have placed over our heart, or the labels we ask others to place over their heart so we may understand who they are. You may say, “I am a Christian and my way is right because it is of God. Everyone else’s way is wrong.” Or, one could just as easily apply the same comment whether you’re Muslim, Jewish or Hindu. Regardless, the disparity can create hate. Yet, we tend to break our identity down a little further by saying, I am republican, or I am a democrat; I am pro-choice, pro-life; I am a feminist… or whatever— we end up creating more labels, and hence more division, and that starts to place people in hateful buckets. Sometimes it doesn’t stop there, because next we feel the need to grate it down even further; by skin color, gender, sexual preference or to a personal affiliation of a man-made ideology.
And suddenly there are so many labels that one has placed over the heart, we have forgotten who we are - human beings.
And because we have forgotten, we struggle with this strife internally which we then project onto the people we love. Suddenly we begin to argue, taking offense with every word said and we begin to feel divided; we separate ourselves in anger, sadness, hurt, possibly shame or guilt. And I wonder— where is the peace in that?
If we can see and accept that, then we can begin to strip off the labels we use to separate us. Instead of saying, I am a single, heterosexual, feminist, with a hippie heart and a punk mind, I can simply say, “Hi. I am Rachel.” And that’s it.
When we decide to refer to ourselves by a label, shouldn’t it be the one we were born with? Our name is the label seared to our heart. Any label placed over that one negates who you are— at the core. By removing all other labels, we see more clearly our true heart. And that is what you guard, because everything you are stems from here.