The Green Heart

I want to invent a new trend.

This past year, I discovered many of my personal shadow sides. As much as I always do my absolute best to BE love and live from love, I discovered I do this mostly to others but lack being love to myself.

The more you learn to embody love for yourself and to others, the more you notice the difference between people doing loving or being loving to you, too.

*doing love might look like love but is actually lacking love.

I figured out for myself that within the moments where I moved away from being love to doing love that I then no longer embody love and am simply becoming inauthentic, oftentimes out of fear of disappointing the other – my shadow side – yet therefore ending up disappointing myself. You end up doing love in the hopes you feel better, but as you’re not operating from a truthful loving place (often from a fearful place), you actually end up feeling less love or loving instead of more (which steals even more energy away from you). Yet being love feels like love (on the giving and receiving end) and actually adds energy to your system and to the energetic body of others.

Due to my burnout, I discovered that, as much as people were “showing me love” by continually checking in on me, it was not always received as love by me, as I simply felt like every notification or phone call was pulling on my energy, which I didn’t have. Every message, invitation, or notification was becoming a major attack on my nervous system, as I became overly sensitive to each sensory or energy change. 

At this point, my people are used to receiving responses 3 to 15 business days later, yet even within those moments, this oftentimes still felt like I was betraying myself. ’Cause every answer or message or call was me putting energy into others, while my cup was still absolutely empty. Each message I answered was coming from a place of me doing love by answering, yet was me lacking being love to myself.

Trust me, I don’t want to sound ungrateful here, ’cause I love support! But support needs to feel like support to the one on the receiving end too, right?

This made me think, and I was like, “Why don’t we invent the GREEN HEART?” 

Each moment someone is sending you a message, yet you simply don’t have the capacity to answer, you can answer by sending back a Green Heart while still being love to you and others.

Believe me, I tried telling people I don’t have the capacity, over and over again (it's been a long year). Yet sometimes, this was completely ignored, and me repeating “I don’t have the capacity” or “I have a burn-out”  would take me even more energy. So you can see, it was a never-ending journey of me and my zero energy against the world.

People might look “fine” in your eyes and still be far from fine. Please don’t be fooled.

I was having the hardest year of my life this past year and have been taken back by the lack of understanding I felt sometimes, ’cause people may have assumed I looked okay or simply weren’t hearing me. Not taking away all the loving, energetic moments which did fill up my cup!

Why the green heart? ’Cause your heart chakra is green and the green heart stands for: I have received your love, yet I currently don’t have the capacity and/or energy to respond to you. I want to send you love so I can also stay in love (to self and others), but this currently can’t be received or responded to, ’cause me answering back to your needs is equally taking away from my personal needs. Currently, my body is asking for recharging and is asking me to use every bit of energy to put back into my own vessel and energy system (which eventually is a win for me and you).

For people in a burnout, this could be an absolute game changer, yet I also think that in regular life this could be a great new tool. It makes the one sending the message feel less personally attacked or ignored, and the one sending the green heart can feel like fewer people are pulling on their energy. ’Cause often when I did answer, it was me doing this out of love, not being love, and far from being loving to myself, which means I was moving away from love, and, in the end, it is my responsibility to keep my purest relationship for my (self)-love and for my love to others.

I also noticed this year that most people have no idea what a burnout means and therefore have zero idea how to best support someone who is going through it. 

*You might be thinking from your point of view that you’re supporting someone, yet I learned in life it’s very important to support and love others the way they need to be loved and supported, so they can actually feel your love and support. 

So, I decided to share some of my personal tips on how to support people who are in a burnout.

Check in once and then leave them alone. Honestly, you may want to be there for them, but every phone call, message or sensory change of impulse is an attack on their nervous system. Simply tell them the first time (not checking in at all, is simply inhuman) that you are willing to be there for them, and tell them they can always call you if they need anything. Otherwise, please let them be – no asking weekly how they are, as there is no energy to answer. People in a burnout, and sometimes even people in regular life too, are barely able to breathe or have the energy to keep their own cup full (’cause it’s absolutely empty and overly sensitive to incentives). Every reach into their energetic field is an attack on their completely out-of-balance energetic system. You’re actually making it worse instead of better.

Tell them once that you care, and lay the ball in their court. Of course, make sure at least one person is there to take care of them, yet it’s better to call the people around the person who is sick than to keep reaching out to the person her/himself. ’Cause yes, we are sick, even though many others barely see it or get it. Energetically, we are sick.

If you really want to help and be love, great things to do are to send them food or clean their house – anything which saves energy for them.

Book them a massage or any treatment of care (if they even have reached the stage to be out in public, as this could create new triggers too).

Still feel empty handed and want to support more? Send them flowers or scented candles, a playlist or meditation, anything which could elevate their living space to help calm their sensory overload.

I believe, each body has the ability to heal itself when given the time, the right environment and the frequency that supports its natural healing process. Have patience and trust the person will let you know when their energy is rising (again).

Until then, be ready to receive a back and know this comes from the purest place of love.

We live in a culture where everyone assumes that when you reach out to the other person (with the best of intentions), the other person is ready, willing and able to receive your call or message. Yet, oftentimes, is this even appropriate for the one on the receiving end, especially when they are energetically sick or incapable?

I believe the green heart can be the perfect solution in our day-to-day life: I received your message, and when I can, I will come back to you. Until then, I’m sending you green – heart chakra  LOVE. From now on, I will be using the green heart in life in general. Yet this still could take me 3-15 business days to send. 

Some important questions to consider: When you are supporting people, are you sure you are supporting them in the way they need or are you supporting them in the way you wish people would support you?

Don’t be afraid to ask HOW you can help instead of assuming your help is actual support. Sounds simple, but, trust me, supporting another is really not as easy as you may think. It’s very important to support and love others in their supporting needs or love languages, rather than your own.

Because true support isn't just about what you do for others. It's about the intention, awareness and energy behind your actions. Are you acting from your own fears, expectations and needs or are you genuinely coming from a place of love?

Which brings me to a much deeper question:

Are you doing love or are you actually being love?

Doing Love is often inauthentic and driven by fear, control, manipulation, selfishness, attachment to identity, avoiding the confrontation of one's inner shadows. 

Being Love is the pure embodiment of love. It's authentic, empathic, compassionate, free and dreamy, rooted in one's true essence. 

It's worth asking yourself daily whether you are truly being love towards others and yourself, or whether your actions (perhaps unknowingly) are making you or those around you unhappy.

*It's important to remember that this post is written from my own experiences and the inner shadows I had to face. Your shadows might look completely different. While many of my lessons might be about learning how to love without losing myself, yours might be about learning to give more love to others instead of focusing so much on yourself. We all have different shadows to confront, different lessons to learn and different ways in which we are being called to grow.

The invitation is not to judge ourselves or others, but to become aware of where we are acting from fear/control/selfishness and where we are truly being love/free/compassionate.

Food for thought.

Super grateful for the lessons learned and for all those pure, beautiful moments when real love is truly felt.