Welcome back to another episode.
In this episode we went live with 92 beautiful souls.
We discovered matters of the heart together as a community.
I was right there in there with my community discovering matters of my own heart,
Speaking truths from the heart,
Discovering different forms of love,
The highest form of love,
Discovering personal grief and the journey to acceptance,
And discovering the beauty of the heart,
The journey of its wisdom deep as the ocean,
And so much more that can't even be put into words.
So let's just dive in and explore and discover matters of the heart.
Welcome.
Thank you for joining today.
Let me know where you're tuning in from.
My name is Amanda Machado and I am tuning in from Calgary,
Canada.
Tucked in nicely by the Rocky Mountains.
And I'm grateful to be here with you today.
Today we will be speaking about and connecting on matters of the heart.
But before we do so,
Feel free to say hello,
Put your name in the chat,
Let me know where you're tuning in from.
We're just going to take a moment to ground into our hearts and stay rooted through our root chakra or otherwise known as the base of the spine.
Because when we talk matters of the heart,
We want to be rooted too.
The heart is deep,
Deep truth.
The heart is feeling.
Our energetic body,
Our energetic fields,
The electromagnetic force of the heart.
Scientifically,
It's quite intense and has been studied as well.
But today we're going to talk a little bit more about the feeling of the heart.
What it is to know thyself and know thy heart through experience.
What it is to know God or the universe or something greater than ourselves,
Some people also like to say nature,
Through the heart.
Because as many of you probably know,
The heart is non-rational.
The heart is non-rational.
And it is said in many ancient teachings that we can only know ourselves,
We can only know through experience,
Through wisdom.
And while the mind provides understanding,
The crown of the head is this understanding through our mind.
And we can have understanding through a higher mind as well.
Wisdom is through experience and understanding.
And so let's take a deep breath in through the nose and see if you can center that life force energy in the center of your heart.
And as we take another inhale in through the nose,
And as we take another inhale in through the nose,
See if you can pull that energy down all the way to the base of the spine and honor your primal self,
Sometimes our less evolved self,
And honor this space.
Honor the space that it takes to truly know yourself,
To know matters of your own heart,
And to break illusion for the truth.
The heart is a sacred space.
The heart knows love,
And the heart knows absolute truth.
The heart is also known as the sacred heart,
The sacred heart of wisdom.
But we might feel,
You know,
Last time I let my heart guide me,
It got me into a lot of trouble.
Last time I let my heart guide me,
I got hurt.
And I got hurt because I let my heart guide me.
I got hurt.
And that might be so.
But there is such beautiful lessons interwoven with truth.
And we cannot have truth without lessons,
Life lessons,
Deep life lessons,
Because the heart is like an ocean.
And when we hear our heart in a given moment,
We are hearing a source of truth.
It's when we can't hear our heart.
It's when there's distortion coming from the energy of our heart that we get confused about what the truth is,
That we get pulled into illusion,
Delusion.
But nonetheless,
Truth will always break illusion.
It is a breaker of illusions.
And so where is the work?
The work is in knowing ourselves.
The work is in the cleansing of our own hearts.
And as a friend put nicely recently,
The posture of our heart.
Of our heart.
And so maybe just take a moment to tune into the energy of your own heart,
Putting a hand on your heart.
What is the truth of this moment?
Are you feeling blocked to experience this experience fully and completely?
Are you feeling open to the truth of what this experience holds for you in community today?
Do you feel an openness or a resistance to your own gifts,
The gifts that you were born with,
The gifts of your heart?
And are you ready to open the treasure chest of your heart and to see what's inside,
To feel what's inside,
To love what is inside no matter what you find?
Because while the truth may be hard to digest,
It is coming back to this profound place of love,
The love that we have for ourselves,
The love that we have for others,
The love that we have for our community,
The love that we have for humanity.
This love and feeling of experience can digest the hardest truths,
Can break the rocks of the heart and shine light on the darkness that exists there.
And just as we need daylight and we need the darkness of the night,
We need there to be this flow.
It's a flow of light and it's a flow of darkness and it's a flow of light and it's a flow of darkness.
It's this flow between light and darkness,
The sun and the moon,
That creates a polarity so that we can actually understand,
So that we can actually gain the wisdom of our heart,
Of our soul.
And oftentimes it's through our own suffering that we recognize the truth of our heart.
Oftentimes it's through the suffering of another that we recognize the truth of our heart.
Our empathy for others can be so deep Our empathy for others can be so deep.
Our soul connections with one another can be so deep.
But what if it was for the purpose of gaining the wisdom of our own heart?
What if the profound love and empathy that we found for another's soul was about the reflection of our own heart,
Our own love that we have for ourselves,
Our own love that we have for our uniqueness,
Our authenticity,
Suffering.
And we suffer because at our base,
The base of our spine,
Primal.
That's why some fear is necessary.
It's necessary but it doesn't mean that we have to go,
You know,
In the direction of it all the time.
It doesn't mean that we have to go in the direction of it all the time.
It's honoring all parts of ourselves.
And that can be hard,
Especially when we think about grief.
And grief is an energy that also affects the heart space significantly.
It can affect other parts of the body.
It can affect the brain.
Grief can cause a deep emotional turbulence to the point where we can hardly pick ourselves up because the grief is so great.
We can hardly even think of stomaching the truth because we don't want to believe it.
And we can have grief oftentimes from actual loss,
Loss of life in someone that we love.
Loss of life in someone that we love.
Loss of relationship,
Again,
In someone that we love.
It doesn't matter what type of relationship.
Loss is loss and grief is grief.
Which is why one of the most popular cycles,
You know,
In our literature is the cycles of grief.
And it was published within a whole exhortation on death and dying.
So how interesting that the cycles of grief published within death or dying,
But also when we think about it,
Sometimes the grief that we hold is for our very own souls.
Sometimes the grief that we hold is for the souls of another.
And the loss.
And so within the cycles of grief,
You can see that there is,
You know,
This,
This part of acceptance,
Which is what I think we're all aiming to get to when we feel grief.
It's the living with,
The living with the loss,
The living with the circumstance,
The living with the outcome.
It's the holding space for within our heart,
Within the expansiveness of our heart.
But before we get to this place,
Sometimes we feel denial and we have to hold space for that.
We start to lean into delusion.
Because we don't know what's going to happen to us if we don't hold space for that.
We start to lean into delusion.
Because that's how hard the truth is to digest.
We would rather deny the reality than face it.
Because we have this refusal to accept it.
Probably because we loved that person on a very deep level that can't be explained with a mind.
We loved that experience that we had.
And oftentimes it's,
We loved that reflection of our own soul,
Of our own authenticity.
We loved that feeling of being fully and completely seen in a way that maybe we never had before.
And so that's another stage.
And then so maybe we bargain.
We try to control what's already happened or come to pass.
We attempt to regain control using our willpower.
And then when we realize that we can't because what is done is done and the past is the past,
When we realize we can't change it,
Sometimes we get angry.
We get angry towards ourself,
We get angry towards others,
We get sad,
We cry.
And just let me know if you're having any problems with the connection.
If you can see me clearly and hear me clearly,
I'm noticing something here with the connection.
We go through all kinds of emotions.
And the goal is to expand the heart in a way that we don't know what's going to happen to us.
And the goal is to expand the heart in a way,
Not to get rid of the grief,
Not to get rid of the pain,
But to accept it.
You know,
And maybe that circumstance changes.
Maybe that relationship improves.
Maybe that person that we felt like we lost comes into our life in a different capacity.
Maybe the person that died,
Maybe we recognize that we are still communing with them in spirit.
But when we shut down our hearts because of grief,
We can't hear.
We can't hear the truth,
We can't hear our own authenticity,
Our energy body becomes distorted.
Our energy body becomes distorted.
We can fall deeper into anger,
We can fall deeper into denial,
We can fall deeper into bargaining,
We can fall into mental illness as a result of grief and trying to escape it.
And so,
Where is the path to peace in all of this?
Experiencing it in a safe environment.
Experiencing it,
Understanding it in a way that's psychologically safe.
Connecting to community,
Communing in the spirit.
Connecting to community,
Communing in this way like we do.
Because even as a teacher,
I am not immune to grief.
You are not immune to grief.
We all have to feel it and process it and be with it.
And perhaps somewhere on the path,
We find beauty in it.
That we could feel that deeply for that experience,
For that circumstance,
For that person,
For ourselves,
For love.
Therapy is so healthy and important.
Even if your life is going perfectly,
I highly recommend therapy.
Just having someone to talk to about the things that you don't want to talk to anyone else about.
Maybe the things that you feel shadow around,
Shame around,
Guilt around,
Lack around.
And finally,
I think experiencing your grief through writing and creativity is beautiful.
So long as you're not hurting anyone else or yourself through what you're creating.
Because they say,
You know,
Feel it to heal it.
Yes,
You can.
You can feel it.
And give yourself grace in that journey to acceptance.
Because just because you feel it in a moment doesn't mean that in the next moment,
It's going to be gone.
But will you begin to feel it in the next moment?
It doesn't mean that in the next moment,
It's going to be gone.
But will you begin to see more beauty in the journey?
Yes,
This I know.
Will you begin to see more love in your experiences through life?
Yes.
We can be so quick to cut cords,
To detach.
And yes,
We don't want to be attached to the people who cause us pain because we're running from love.
Or we don't want to be attached to a circumstance of grief that doesn't allow us to live our lives.
But I actually think it's more about witnessing the attachment.
Because if we're tethered to something,
Or we have an attachment,
You know,
Even in relationship,
The more negative attachments that don't cultivate secure relationship,
I have found it's more important to study and witness the attachment that you do have without trying to get rid of it so that you can understand yourself.
And in doing so,
You understand people around you,
You have,
You generate empathy for them in a way that you never could before,
Not in the self pitying kind of way for them.
But in the most loving way,
Like the love that,
You know,
God has for humanity.
Or the way in which the universe cares for us.
Or the way in which the universe cares for our planet.
Or the way in which nature cares for us.
Whether we like it or not,
We have attachment.
And yes,
Practicing non-attachment is important.
Untethering the soul to speak.
But witness your humanity.
Witness your attachments.
Begin to understand and gather the wisdom and store it in your heart.
And before we close today,
We're going to get into a beautiful forgiveness practice.
Because forgiveness is one of the most important matters of the heart.
Especially forgiveness to ourselves.
We want harmony between ourself and we want harmony in our relationships.
We want relational ways of being because we are relational beings.
We want relationship with our universe.
We want relationship with nature.
Those are more existential or big picture.
We want relationship with God or however you identify.
We want relationship with each other.
But not just any relationship.
We want relationship on the soul level.
We want relationship on the emotional level.
And we want relationship on the mental and physical.
We want everything in one place.
Communing with others with everything in one place.
And when that happens,
We feel it deeply.
And so different forms of love.
I've talked a lot about this through different podcasts,
Episodes.
So you're welcome to listen to those.
But I want to talk about a sacred kind of love.
Agape love.
This is the highest form of love.
It is unconditional.
It is sacrificial.
It is eternal because it is selfless.
It is timeless and it is endless.
And though I truly do believe that life is about beauty,
This is what the human chase is.
On a deep soul level.
The energy of this love.
Because the energy of this love,
It's the most powerful force in our universe.
And if even experienced for a moment,
It never leaves us.
It's like the birth of a child.
Like the sacrificing of a relationship.
Because you know that it can't be for you both to live a beautiful and harmonious life.
Like your wedding day.
In that moment where time stood still.
And even if you don't feel it in a relationship,
Or you feel like you haven't felt that in a relationship,
I think it's important to know that it can be felt.
And that it always starts with you.
And so,
Even for me,
I recognize that the most important thing to do is to cultivate that love within yourself.
Because it's always giving,
Never taking.
And when cultivated within yourself,
The more you can give that in your relationships.
Because the truth of the matter is,
Is that we long for the love that we are.
The love that was given on the day we were born.
It's the love that we were created with at conception.
And the love that we were birthed with,
To be able to come into the world.
And coming into the world is rarer than winning the lottery.
Believe it or not,
The fact that your parents met and conceived you,
And that you are here living and breathing the love that you were born with,
The fact that your parents met and conceived you,
And that you are here living and breathing,
Communing in this beautiful ecosystem,
Rarer than winning the lottery.
That's love.
And importantly,
This is the love that God or our creator has for creation.
And when you feel it within yourself,
You feel this deep authenticity and connection to all that is,
All that was created.
And when you experience this moment between you and another human being,
It's like experiencing God through one another.
And experiencing each other as both creation and God-consciousness,
The highest form of consciousness,
Without,
You know,
Having to take care of the big picture,
I guess you could say.
And it's sacrificial.
And it's sacrificial.
It's sacrificial because there is no,
There is no need for anything to be reciprocal.
There's no merit.
There's just complete union,
Which is what yoga is,
Which is what yoga teaches us.
It teaches us about the yoke,
Union.
It's also what Jesus taught when he taught the way.
It's what Ram Dass teaches.
It's what so many Buddhist masters of our time teach about enlightenment,
Or Zen teachers teach about a moment of enlightenment.
For me,
This is it.
And it can be cultivated in a regular human life without needing to be in a Buddhist monastery or a priest,
Or even a podcaster or a teacher of spirituality.
With this love in your life,
You are filled with loving energy.
And you're in a state of being.
And the doing part of it is your ability to connect in this way,
Open yourself up to it,
Receive it,
And give it.
It's a love that sees you fully and completely,
And inspires you to live from this space within yourself.
This is life-giving love.
And your purpose is to know it.
We might have individual purposes in the sense of the hats and the titles and the things that we wear.
You know,
A hat that I wear is I'm an epidemiologist.
I like science.
I like nature.
I like science.
I like nature.
I bridge that with spirituality as a spiritual teacher.
But that's what I do.
It's not who I am.
It's a purpose in terms of a career.
But my purpose is to know this love just as yours is to know this love.
To be open to it.
And so how do we open ourselves up?
How do we open ourselves up to this kind of love?
Well,
Set an intention.
Every intention that I've put in my heart has been delivered to me.
It might not have been delivered to me in the form that I thought that it was coming,
But I've often put my hands on my heart and said,
I want to know God.
I want to know what consciousness is.
Show me true love.
What is true love?
Other times,
It's in your heart already.
And you don't even have to know it consciously or conceptually because someone will find it.
Someone will see it within you.
And they will help you bring it out.
This is soul relationship,
Soul connection,
Soul mates of various kinds.
Hi,
Sandy.
Hi,
Teresa.
Thank you for saying hi in the chat.
Vicky says,
How do you put the intention out there?
So I think it's less about putting it out and becoming aware of it inside of you.
What is my deepest heart's intention?
And so I guess,
You know,
How do you vocalize it?
How do you put it out?
How do you say,
This is what I want?
Rumi says,
What you are seeking is seeking you.
And I believe that when we want something too badly,
Sometimes our intention isn't in the highest good for ourselves or others.
And so usually when this happens,
We're not able to cultivate it with ease.
And usually there's a very good reason for that.
It could be that it is out of line with our true authenticity,
Our soul,
Our deepest truth,
Our highest self.
But say,
For example,
You wanted to know this love.
You could put your hands on your heart.
And with your most sincere presence,
Completely focused inwards,
You could say,
I want to surrender to the highest form of love.
And it may not happen tomorrow.
It may not happen the next day.
It may not happen the next day.
Ever since I said I wanted to know God,
I've been knowing and learning about God since,
And our creator and creation for like a few years now.
And I don't think it's going to be like a one and done.
I think it's going to be a lifelong journey.
And so it's allowing it to be a lifelong journey.
Allowing it to cultivate within different seasons of your life.
And importantly,
For you to know it through experience,
For you to live it.
And so putting your intention out there is not just about saying the words.
So speak it into creation,
Just like the universe was created by God.
And then live it into your life through conscious action.
So that's another thing I teach.
I teach conscious living,
Conscious action.
And it's not these miraculous,
You know,
Cliff jumping steps.
Sometimes it is on the spiritual path,
But oftentimes it's in the small moments.
It's like,
I want to know the love of God.
It's like,
I want to know the love of creation and humanity,
The highest form of love.
So it's looking at my garden,
Looking at a flower,
Understanding the beauty that is life from this flower that bloomed from a small seed.
And just by looking at it,
Understanding this deeper,
Knowing that I'm not separate from that beauty,
That I am part of it.
And so are you.
But when we get lost in the busyness of life,
Or we're trying to cultivate too many things at once,
Or we want the things that aren't good for us,
And we chase those things,
And we chase those things,
Instead of being in the things that are loving,
And that are good for our heart,
And that are truthful,
Instead of spending the time discovering matters of the heart,
And where our heart is guiding us in the most truthful way,
When we are busy chasing those things,
Or we're in the busyness of life,
We miss things.
Sandy says an acorn has the massive oak within.
Yes.
And the truth of the heart will understand what that actually means to know it on a level beyond conscious awareness,
Beyond words,
Felt.
And then over time,
You will understand through the crown of the head.
And the energy that moves through the crown of the head will become integrated with the heart,
And then integrated with your willpower,
Which is around your belly button,
Integrated with others,
Relational,
Sacral energy,
And then rooted through our primal selves,
The base of the spine.
And this feeling,
This love,
This is flow,
And there is an endless abundance of it.
To be wealthy,
To be rich,
That's what it is.
It's not material things.
It's an abundance of the flow of love.
It's an abundance of expansion of the heart.
The heart can expand endlessly.
It's to feel it within your own body,
To know it,
To be it,
To share it with others.
And so an openness is needed for that to take place.
And then,
We can create conscious relationship,
Importantly within ourselves,
And this is structure.
Because energy flows in,
Flows out,
Right?
Flow right in through the crown of your head and can flow right back into the earth because we're so connected.
But how do we remain consistent in this consistency,
In this vibe?
How do we live from this place and how do we live from this place in this vibe?
How do we live from this place?
We create conscious relationship within ourself.
This is structure.
We have flow and structure.
Flow being energy,
Love.
Structure being the container or the vessel.
We are the vessel.
This is what it means to have spiritual sustainability,
Energetic sustainability within our body.
To bring energy in and to harness it within our body,
To be shared in the world again,
To be recycled just like nature does.
An openness is needed.
A maturity is needed.
An understanding.
And there's like a compatibility here,
Which is why we have compatibility between people and things that we like,
Things that we enjoy.
And there's an empathy that needs to be cultivated within ourselves or rather tapped on because all of these things are not unique to me or unique to you.
It's shared.
Just like the abundance of the earth was meant to be shared by all.
And so we're going to move into the practice because I think part of being able to open ourselves up to put our intention out there is to truly is to truly be forgiving.
Forgiveness is a powerful practice because it clears out space in the heart.
It removes the darkness.
It shines a light on the stone.
Importantly,
The forgiveness that we have for ourselves,
It creates reconciliation,
Healing.
It restores balance and harmony so that we can feel this within ourselves and so that we can give it and feel it with others.
And so today we're going to borrow a practice from the indigenous Hawaiian community.
I'm sure many of you know of it as you're part of this community.
And it's called Ho'oponopono.
It's a sacred spiritual practice that became popular in Western culture because it's known to change people's lives.
It's been studied through science and shown to have miraculous effects in people being able to open themselves up again to this beautiful power that love is to their own hearts and so that you can cultivate all of the beauty in your life and you can cultivate all of the things that you want for your life.
And this can be used as a daily practice.
And it's simple.
You can sit however you like.
I like to put my hands on my heart just so I can connect to my heart.
But it starts with,
I'm sorry.
So this acknowledges and you take responsibility because as we know,
Some circumstances,
Maybe we don't feel like they're our fault but we always have a role to play.
And sometimes that is as the victim or the perpetrator.
But we don't remain the victim or the perpetrator.
But we still have to take responsibility for whatever's there,
Even if it's from our ancestry.
So we say,
I'm sorry to ourselves and we can also hold space for others but I recommend starting with self.
The next thing we say is,
Please forgive me.
This is forgiveness for any wrongdoing.
Next,
We say,
Thank you.
This is gratitude.
And this is embracing the healing process and starting to reharmonize the imbalance.
Even the imbalances that we are unaware of because oftentimes it's the things that we are unaware of that are guiding our lives behind the scenes.
Vicky says,
I love how you say,
Thank you.
Pono pono.
Marcus says,
Hi from Italy.
Hi,
Italy.
Marcus,
Nice to have you.
And after thank you,
We say,
I love you.
Because this is the greatest gift.
This is the thread that connects us all.
It is the love that we have for ourselves,
The love that we have for others and the love that we have for our humanity.
And so feel free to close your eyes or leave them open and just place your hands somewhere on your body,
On your legs,
Wherever feels comfortable.
Eyes can stay open if that's uncomfortable for you or triggering or comfort is important especially when we're practicing forgiveness.
Womb space is another wonderful place.
And so we say,
I'm sorry.
Please forgive me.
Thank you.
I love you.
I'm sorry.
Please forgive me.
Thank you.
I love you.
Just repeat that a few more times to yourself.
And notice how you feel in your body and cultivate acceptance for whatever you're feeling.
Whatever is there just as it is.
There's a famous quote that often comes on these yoga tea bags that I get with my tea and it says,
Beauty just is.
There's beauty in whatever is there for you in this moment.
And I invite you to do that practice daily.
As we move into fall in Canada,
Which is a season of letting go,
A season of acceptance,
A season of letting go and letting God.
I'm going to be doing this practice as a spiritual teacher and as someone who also needs healing in community because we all need healing.
Also needs healing in community because we all face the same suffering at times,
The same challenges on different levels.
And before we go,
I'm going to play a beautiful song.
And it's from the Hawaiian community.
And so we're able to connect with that community,
Someone who,
Or a community that has brought this beautiful practice to our lives as an act of gratitude and love.
And so you're welcome to sing along with me,
But also know that just by being in the experience,
You're able to benefit.
So follow your comfort level.
This is actually proven by science that our mirror neurons in our brain,
I learned this just the other day from a beautiful teacher.
Our mirror neurons in our brain allow us to get the same benefits as if we were doing it when we watch somebody else do it.
And so I'm going to be very brave and sing,
Sing along with me.
I can't hear you or see you.
So there's no one to impress.
And you might surprise yourself.
So sing along with me.
I don't really know the words either.
So I'm just going to see how it goes.
And yeah,
We kind of just catch on as we sing.
And this is heart opening singing to yourself.
So I also recommend singing to yourself on a daily basis.
And you can close your eyes or leave your eyes open.
Just closing out this session in a beautiful,
Harmonious,
Loving vibe.
I'm sorry.
Please forgive me.
The truth is I love you.
I just want to say thank you.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Please forgive me.
The truth is I love you.
The truth is I love you.
I just want to say thank you.
I just want to say thank you.
I just want to say thank you.
I just want to say thank you.
I just want to say thank you.
I just want to say thank you.
I just want to say thank you.
I just want to say thank you.
I just want to say thank you.
I just want to say thank you.
I just want to say thank you.
I just want to say thank you.
I just want to say thank you.
And now it's going to be in Hawaiian,
Which is a really beautiful way to close with the community who made the practice.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
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I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
