15/10/2025
The Troubled Heart ❤️🩹
Here’s the problem: the heart space often doesn’t feel safe.
Something happens — an event, a thought, a memory — and this emotional center closes up. It curls inward, tightens, guards itself. It says, I’m not safe here. And immediately, the monkeys jump in to interpret that feeling: There’s a big problem! There’s danger! Something’s wrong!
The body listens, too. It tightens up. Shoulders roll forward. Breathing shortens. The whole system organizes itself around protecting this closed heart.
And that’s where we live most of the time — with a frightened heart, overactive monkeys, and a body locked in support of both.
Opening The Treasure Chest 💎
The Breath of Kindness — this next phase of our work — is about changing the shape of that system.
Through deliberate breath, we’re going to begin to open the treasure chest — not metaphorically, but literally. We’re going to shape the body, and especially this emotional heart space, into the shape of safety.
Even if the emotions don’t yet feel safe. Even if the monkeys are chattering warnings about all the lions and dangers out there. Even if the body’s last orders were “stay tight, stay small.”
We’re going to override that old programming — kindly, patiently — and give the body a new set of instructions: It’s safe to open.
Because when this space opens, a whole new kind of garden grows.
We’re not doing this breath to be fitter, stronger, or more efficient. We’re doing it to shift the foundation of our being — to let the emotional center of us feel the shape of safety again.
When that happens, the monkeys calm down. The body relaxes. The awareness on the balcony begins to shine through the whole system.
