Have You Built a Wall Around Your Heart?

Part 1 – Exploring the quiet ways we protect ourselves, often without realising

Last week I attended an energy healing and natural remedies summit. One of the speakers, Dr Bryan Ardis, recommended a book called The Emotion Code by Dr Bradley Nelson.

The title felt familiar, and I wasn’t surprised to find it already sitting on my bookshelf, unread, along with many others.

A small reminder to myself: we don’t learn anything from unread books. But I also feel we read something like this when we are ready and not before.

Within two days I had read it from cover to cover, and I could see why it had been recommended.

One question in particular stayed with me:

Have you built a wall around your heart?

I knew, without even testing, that my answer was yes.

It is something I have been aware of for many years and have been working to release through different approaches, including Heart Intelligence and Network Spinal Analysis.

Looking back, I feel it began very early in life. I was separated from my mother shortly after birth and placed in a nursery for the first ten days, only being brought to her for feeding. Life, as it was in the early 1960s.

Since then, various experiences have added layers upon layers.

Reading this, I found myself wondering how many of us carry something similar. For some, the initial answer may be no, but when the question shifts to “do you have a hidden wall around the heart?”, the answer is often yes.

These layers can feel as though they are many and deeply embedded, formed to keep us safe, to protect us from overwhelm, from grief, and from the many experiences life brings.

They may keep us safe, but they can also prevent us from fully feeling.

For myself, until recently, it has always been far easier to give than to receive. Yet for true wellbeing, giving and receiving need to be in balance.

What are these layers made of?

These layers are not something visible, but something felt. And we can only feel them if we are are in tune with our bodies and curious enough to explore. A good practitioner who is good at sensing energy may also feel them.

They can appear in many forms and can be thousands of layers thick. The body seems to express them in ways that feel meaningful to you, whether that is brick, crystal, cloth, wood or something entirely different.

For me, they feel like wood, building over time like the concentric rings of a tree.

All the inner work I have done over the years has brought many changes, and releasing these layers around my heart is just one part of that journey.

Using the charts Dr Nelson provides, I have been able to identify what I feel are the remaining layers. It seems natural that these are the ones connected to the deepest experiences, so I am taking this slowly, at a pace my body feels comfortable with.

Have you ever felt you protect your heart without realising?

Over the next few weeks I’ll be writing a series of reflections on the heart, emotion, and healing.