You would think that when the heart chakra awakens it would be a super time of celebration. That we then will have the capacity to give and receive love without bounds; NOPE! I would like for you to look at a heart awakening like this: Say you are walking around your home with all of the lights off. You stumble over things a bit, but not too much because you have become quite familiar with your home and know where the big sharp furniture and objects are that can hurt you; so you know how to avoid those things, but still you are stumbling. As you are stumbling, say someone turns the lights on, now you can not only see the furniture and the sharp objects that you have learned to navigate around, you also see the little objects on the floor that you had no idea on how to avoid, but posed a huge stumbling block for you. Eureka, you see it all, but in seeing the room lit up, you not only notice the things within it, you also notice that the rooms are untidy. Because of the light, you realize that the room can no longer remain untidy, so now you have to go about the business of cleaning it up.

Energetic Impressions of the Heart

When the heart chakra Is awakened through the power and volition of Unconditional love, yes, we feel the light airy feeling tone of what we term love, and we may also feel connected to all things around us, and some of us, at or around the time of our awakening, will become conscious of our Divine Counterpart. These are the outcomes that we absolutely love and feel are a blessing. Yet, just like a room that was once dark that is now full of light, you will begin to feel and see the blaring contrast of things within ourselves that do not love, and are not connected. Now depending on your heart chakras’ energetic impressions that were programmed within us as a child, we usually will react to love or relationships in one or two ways; you may respond to love relationship by OVERCOMPENSATING, having a fixation on your relationship, engaging all of your energy into it. Another response could be that you can become AVOIDANT, you disassociate yourself from the feelings or relationship, you minimize the experience and pull your energy away.

Early Childhood Experiences

We experience life through using our energy. We respond to the various experiences of life according to the imprints or impressions that are etched in our chakras or energy centers. Our chakras or energy centers usually are developed in parallel with our physical development in childhood. As we learn to become accustomed to the people and world around us as a child, we also learn how to respond energetically to what’s around us. Say for example you grew up in a large family and you are the youngest child. As a child, you feel the flurry of busy , larger people surrounding you. There is so much energy swirling around you, and although you may be getting your physical needs met, you are having a hard time as a child getting your emotional needs attended to. So, a child usually respond in one or two ways, you either INCREASE your energy in your heart chakra, because you feel a longing, a yearning for more emotional attention, you feel as though you need to exaggerate your behavior so that someone, anyone can pay attention to you. In another instance, you can respond my DECREASING your energy. By decreasing, you pull back your energy and go within yourself, sort of like a means of protecting yourself from all that seemingly overwhelming and dangerous energy, you retreat. These two states usually trigger an adrenaline response in our body known as fight or flight. This energetic response to our environment becomes programmed into our energy center by the adrenal system, therefore whenever we come into a situation that resembles that feeling tone of love , we automatically react from the energetic imprints of our earlier years. And in the case of a child that experienced any type of abuse or neglect, these two reactions are even stronger!

Balancing the Energy of the Heart

The soul mate and twin flame connection is a journey towards unconditional love, but most believe that this love is automatically within us and it has to be deflected outward towards another person or groups of people. But the journey BEGINS WITHIN FIRST. The heart centered awakening acts as a catalyst to get us to see how we have been functioning in the name of love. And when our beloved pull away from us, we have an even greater opportunity to see and feel our reaction to what we call love.

Prior to our awakening, we have responded to love through those two coping mechanism: Avoidance or Overcompensation, and when we have experienced a deep dissatisfaction or pain in our previous relationships, we no clue as to why, often blaming our partners for our inner angst. But when the heart awakens, we find that we can no longer respond to our soul mates and twin flames through our hardwired coping mechanisms. Through much pain and confusion, we find ourselves going in circles trying to get our beloveds to be with us, and not understanding that the heart must first come into balance before experiencing and appreciating any real love. We begin by first identifying what is our coping mechanism style, is it avoidance or overcompensation? And here’s the kicker, usually our Divine Counterparts imbalance energy in the heart mirrors our own!

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Balancing the Avoidant Heart Energy

The imbalanced heart energy that copes through avoidance approaches relationships from a deficient point of view. Their behavior is such that they are easily manipulated in relationships, they over extend themselves, they pick inappropriate people to be involved with, they fear intimacy and eventually lack empathy for others. They also suffer from feelings of powerlessness and low self esteem.

To balance this energy so that we can respond much more presently and authentically to love, we can:
 Begin by setting the INTENTION to open ourselves up! We must muster up the courage to feel our fears AND resist retreating into fear or chaotic relationships that fulfills our dysfunctional perceptions and response to love.
 We can further along our healing by taking time throughout our day by doing deliberate breathe work. Inhaling air fully, allowing the oxygen to fill our chest, this will in turn open up and clear the heart chakra.
 Journaling is also another method to clear our subconscious fears and also helps us recognize our patterns of avoidance and to identify when we are being triggered.
 Lastly, we can join a support group such as Codependents Anonymous or Al Anon Family Group or any spiritually-based confidental support group that focuses on creating healthy relationships as well as self love and care.

Balancing the Overcompensating Heart Energy

The Overcompensating coping mechanism is demanding of others and possessive. They fixate on the behaviors of those that they want attention from. They parade around as those they are being loving, but really is a mask that hides the truth of their motives, and that is to get someone else to fill the energy of their heart. Their thinking and behavior becomes codependent.

To balance this energy, the person that has overcompensating energy can do the following:
 Set the Intention to take full responsibility for addressing their own emotional needs and self love, and release others from doing what only they can do for themselves.
 They can FORGVIE those in their past that they believed have robbed them from experiencing healthy loving interactions.

 They can also do breath work, in addition to doing a simple exercise of extending their arms out as they are inhaling. This will open and loosen up the overabundance of energy in their heart chakra center.
 Lastly, join a spiritually-based support group that will support them in reprogramming their love programming for self and others.

In conclusion, balancing the heart energy is a spiritual journey that we must take responsibility for. When we experience the confusion and pain from our Divine counterpart, let this be an indicator to YOU that there is some balancing that needs to be done IN YOU. We must resist focusing our attention on their behavior and blaming them for not meeting our ‘needs’, and place the focus back onto ourselves!