Holes-In-Your-Heart

Holes In Your Heart

We are all incomplete in a sense.  I mean, we are always a work in progress.   A friend called them “Holes In Your Heart.”  That phrase stuck with me because, in so many ways, we all have holes in our hearts.  They may come from difficulties in our upbringing, mistakes that our parents made, or just plain challenges that we had growing up.  Those holes in our hearts eventually take a toll on us and can add up to other types of behaviors that we take out on others unknowingly.  Those behaviors seem unrelated to the Hole in Our Heart, but they manifest themselves with others, causing further problems.

I was talking with a relative of mine one day, and she was describing a difficulty that she had in her life with incredible frustration.  When I asked her about it, she said, Oh, that is because I grew up in such a town.  I was surprised that she blamed her shortcoming on a city, but I realized that somehow the community had left a hole in her heart.  It may have been because of observed behaviors like her own that she felt compelled somehow to live out as well, or some lack of morals and integrity that she observed.

When we discover those Holes In our Heart, we must take time to stop and take account of them.  As difficult as it is by taking time to feel the pain of that lack, we begin to realize what they had to teach us, embrace those teachings, and apply them in our lives.  Then, move on from there.  Sometimes this is easier than to do that other times, but by recognizing where those shortcomings are holding us back, we begin the healing process.  If we hold on to them, we also put a lid on our progress and self-development.

My mentor John Maxwell in his landmark book, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership”  talks about the Law of the Lid. In this teaching, he speaks about how others we lead cannot outperform our leadership ability.  If our lid is holding us back in one area, it will also affect those around us.  I like to think of it in terms of our self-image.  These Holes in our Heart affect our self-image, which affects our self-esteem, which holds us back in life.

Self-esteem is such an important concept to understand that it seems that we cannot move forward in life until we have embraced it entirely for ourselves.  When we acknowledge these thorns or the incompleteness’ of our life, we begin to recognize them as stepping stones to helping others, as an experience that we had to go through to complete our path through life.  The Holes in Your Heart are opportunities to extend healing to others, bring them forth in recognition, maybe even publicly, and allow others to acknowledge their similarities.

My take on this is that the Holes in My Heart come up in my life at the most inopportune times, which then causes limitations in my performance.  By dealing with them constructively and purposefully, I can begin the healing process on my timetable, rather than my subconscious’ timetable.  Acknowledgment may be as simple as acknowledging and then replacing that hurt with gratitude for what it teaches us and moving on.

I enjoy writing about the Heart because that is your center.  Here is another post Heart Is The Center – Dr. Rich Patterson (pattersonphd.com)

Read this article on the Heart as an emotional center at The Emotional Heart %% (myvibrationality.com)

Yours for a Better Life,

Rich