Did you know that the way to our heart is through our bellies? You’ve heard this before as it relates to food, yes? At some point in your life whether you expressed it or not, you may have thought “feed me something really good to eat and I’ll love you forever.” I’m enjoying exploring that there is deeper wisdom in this sentiment than we may have believed.
Stephan and Ondrea Levine introduced me to the idea that our bellies are the doorway to living with an open or closed heart in their book, “Embracing the Beloved, Relationship as a Pathway of Awakening.”
We armor our hearts as we store pain, tension, and grief in our bellies.
You can get a sense of this quickly. Close your eyes, breathe in deeply, and allow yourself to notice your belly. Do you notice tension there? Tight muscles? Many of us will notice layers upon layers of tension to which we’ve become accustomed. Your belly hardens as you tense up in preparation to a perceived challenge. As you tense up, you restrict access to your heart and subsequently your full response to the situation before you.
Living the soft bellied life is as easy being aware and relaxing your stomach muscles and tissue. Yes, go ahead and let your belly soften like that of a baby, kitten or puppy. As you soften your belly, your heart opens to create room for the people, situations and events that make up your life.
I’ve been practicing a meditation to soften my belly and notice how I’m much more relaxed and confident. I stay much more centered even as events and challenges ebb and flow in and out of my life as usual. In fact, instead of tightening my muscles, I check in often throughout the day and purposely relax my belly.
I use meditation to heal and release grief. You can do this by entering a relaxed state through deep breathing and a quiet focus on your belly. With each breath relax your muscles at deeper and deeper levels. I’ve also found it helpful to imagine the hand of god or the divine soothing tissues deep within your belly with love.
I know that suggesting that we go soft, especially in our bellies, is contrary to popular health messages. Of course it’s possible to have a flat and soft belly, as well as a big belly that is hardened. Since adopting this point of view though, I have a different perspective on my larger that I want it to be belly. I see my belly fat as both protection for hurts I’m carrying around AND a reminder to go soft, and possibly very little to do with eating ice cream.
However you go about it, here’s to living life with a soft belly and an open heart.
December 13th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
I really like this idea
it fills my mind with such fabulous thoughts
I will have to go spend some time with this idea .. I have been noticing my abdomenal muscles very relaxed as I’ve been tweeting these last couple of months..
thanks
gratitude
see you in the stream