A big focus of my work is on healing and clearing old issues and past pain that act as energy blocks. These energy blocks restrict and limit situations in your life and cause you to experience frustrating repetitive patterns.

One of the energy blocks I see very often is in the heart area. There are many causes for this including heartbreak, painful experiences in the past or from a past life that caused you to close off your heart in order to not feel that pain again. But today, I'd like you to consider what it would be like to let this go. I'd like to show you what it's like to live with an open heart and what that allows you to experience in your life.

The reason why old pain harboured in a closed heart causes repetitive patterns is because you attract into your life what matches your energy. If you are holding onto heartbreak and pain, you will continue to attract situations that bring out that exact heartbreak and pain.

If you are holding onto hurt from betrayal and have closed your heart to protect yourself from the same pain happening again, you are actually not protecting yourself at all.

Your energy matches that hurt from the betrayal so you will attract more betrayal, or opportunities to heal that betrayal, until you have let that old pain go. It doesn't even matter what you do, how you act, or how you choose a partner. If you carry this old pain within you, the Universe can only bring into your life that which matches it.

That's why, when I experienced the pain of betrayal myself recently for the second time in my life, I knew it was time to face this pain and to heal it. So I could truly love and be loved fully. So I could live with an open heart and the loving Universe could bring me only that which matched the huge, open, flowing love in my heart.

The first time I had experienced betrayal I was shocked and couldn't bear to feel the pain so I decided to close off my heart. I created a belief that I can't trust people and that if I let someone in I can get really hurt.

Obviously this did not work as I ended up experiencing much of the same thing years later. And more than ever I realized that closing off your heart causes you to live at the minimum. You can only experience half of the joy available to you, half of the love available to you. You can not love or be loved fully with a closed heart. You can not live fully with a closed heart.

So I got at a much deeper level than ever, that being closed and holding onto pain is not as safe as we think it is. Letting go of the pain and old energy tied in with it is the the only to live this life I have to the fullest, to not experience that same pain again.

Having an open heart is the only way to experience the love you know you want. And being willing to heal whatever is there, rather than to guard it is how you can prevent pain in the future. Maybe not all pain, but at least that same old pain you're used to.

So when I found myself in fear recently and noticed it was because my heart was open and I was totally vulnerable, I quickly switched from fear to celebration! And with that realization that my heart was open came a deep sense of trust welling up from deep inside. And a knowing that my life, particularly my love life is about to get even more amazing than I could have conceived of when I had my heart closed off.

It takes courage to live with an open heart. Yes you are vulnerable, yes you can get hurt. And while you may get hurt at some point, at least you will be living your days fully. At least you will be loving fully. At least you can receive love fully. At least your life is more rich and full.

It takes courage to live like this. It takes courage to take responsibility for your life and for all that you attract into it. It takes courage to choose trust in the Universe, faith in life. It takes courage to face the pain you are carrying, to look it dead on and to be willing to move beyond it.

I have found that with the courage to face the darkness and the willingness to change comes the biggest gift I could ever know. The freedom of knowing that life will only get better and better. That with each shift, with each issue I see and release comes a whole new level of joy, love, freedom and expansiveness that I never knew before.

So I invite you to consider what you may be carrying around in your heart. What is it time to let go of? What painful experiences do you keep having repeatedly that is showing you the pain you are holding in your heart?

I want you to see this pain differently. Don't see it as just pain you don't want to feel. See it as an opportunity for making your life even more amazing. An opportunity for you to let go of an old way of being that is restricting the love you want from coming to you. An opportunity to truly heal and to experience greater depths of love and trust in your life.

The Universe is here to support you. You decide when it's time to heal and let the Universe know. You will be given the tools you need. Don't worry about how. Instead, just be willing. Be willing to change so you can love and live more fully with an open heart.

Copyright (c) 2008 Fia Crandall