Living in the Heart and Spiritual Bypass
By: Shira Stardrift
Tags: Spiritual Growth, Wisdom, Heart, Awakening

Love isn’t the work of the tender and gentle; Love is the work of the wrestlers. The one who becomes a servant of Lovers is really a fortunate sovereign. Don’t ask anyone about Love. Ask Love about Love….~ Rumi

One does not know the Heart if one does not understand that we, as humans, are designed to live in the Heart at all times. Yes, it is possible. Yes, it is our birthright.

No, it is not naive seekerism. No, it is not spiritual bypass.

The disastrous correlation between living in the Heart and a perpetual state of bliss denigrates the Heart and misconstrues the Heart altogether.

This correlation has been a successful manipulation tactic for the disintegrous spiritual communities, the uninitiated “coaches and spiritual mentors” and is the dangling carrot of successful indoctrination into nefarious religious cults- who have lost their root. Patriarchy feeds on this correlation because it hooks into the deepest trauma loops and momentarily pascifies a longing for -fill in the blank.

Calling out spiritual bypass is popular right now. On one hand, highlighting the shadows is necessary for healing and rebirth, but on the other hand I see some “spiritual guides and well known speakers” capitalizing on people’s inner cynic and belonging wound by now building their business on calling out spiritual bypass. But that’s where we are folks. And it’s actually ok.

False promises rise from this corruption of the Heart. The shadow of seduction rises from this misperception of the heart. If someone ( almost every single business- including mostly uninitiated and ungrounded spiritual coaching businesses) promises you a redemption from your suffering ever- you are being manipulated. The caveat is this- suffering is actually optional. But the Heart must be fully understood, integrated and followed to understand this fundamental philosophy of true spirituality.

The Heart is not this one thing that feels good ie) joy, ecstasy. And it is always in joy and ecstasy once the emotions of humanity are no longer identified in states of duality. However, in the beginning, one cannot know any opposites without duality. And opposites are how we can orient ourselves to new patterns when coming out of trauma. Once this is understood then the experience of varying emotions and sensations can rise and be felt as a part of the Love and wholeness rather than a threat to the Love and wholeness. The identification of emotions as good or bad falls always and one can simply (or not so simply) recognize vibrational energies as different- and perhaps still opposite- but not good or bad.

This cycle of thinking that one is only in the Heart when there is a sense of Love — also denigrates and misunderstands Love. It perpetuates suffering and addiction to extremes and spiritual bypass. To actually live in and from the Heart means one has excavated their Soul, felt deep into their body, allowed the depth of neglected sensations and buried emotions to come fully alive. That is Love. To be alive with all that is- is Love. To sit face to face with the fire of Life is Love. To release and follow the deep current, dammed up and stagnant, is the way home to Love.

God lives everywhere. The Heart is the living mystery inside all beings. One does not have to be in despair to be redeemed. There is equilibrium. There are also moments of extremes, but extremes are not meant to be the constant state of our being.

The mundane naturalness of one’s moment to moment daily life, and the feelings that arise inside of stillness and simplicity, is where this Love lives the most. When this place is embraced, when the sensations of each moment are given permission to rise to the surface with curiosity and compassion, then you are living life as you are meant- you are living life in the heart.

The Heart is what navigates the terrain of life by its direct connection to Source or Womb. The Heart is vividly wild, organically feral, sharp with instinct, embodied and connected to intuitive rhythm-when allowed to communicate fully with the deep currents that birth mystery into being. This current is also what carves each individual’s destined path- the Heart knows how to follow that path. We all deeply desire to follow our Heart’s path (our Soul path) because it is innate and destined in all of us. Institutionalized systems of supremacy know how to manipulate this wound by providing false paths glamorized enough to seduce one away from their destiny. And since we all live within this system- everything we build is subject to having the residue of this disease living alongside its good intentions. Slow medicine, embodied discernment and an alignment to the structures that provide a true and indestructible foundation will begin to flush this out and reveal those who know how to authentically Shepard Life in alignment with Heart.

Living in the heart means that one has embodied their full humanity without shame, ridicule and bypass. The art of letting the emotions trapped in the body, perpetuated by the loops of the mind- always trying to do a job it was not designed to do- requires a finely tuned consciousness and willingness to meet oneself in all stages of life. Without this, one can never ever understand themselves fully and therefore open the doors to self love and living in the Heart.

The mind scrutinizes when out of balance with the Heart. Over calculating and constant scrutiny lives inside serious distrust in life and perpetuates self loathing and punishment. The Heart does not distrust or trust- it just knows without projection of good or bad. It simply moves away or moves towards. So, yes that does grow a trust in Life- but more than a trust, it is a regaining of a wisdom, of an is-ness, that what we are made of also supports and guides us. And in that making lives every single sensation and human potential.

The mind is a miraculous accessory that provides expression into the external world from the Heart. It is also a portal to organize incoming stimuli to feed to the heart for true embodied discernment. We have it backwards. One cannot follow their innate path from the mind. “Some force” knows that if the mind is in a position of power then it is almost impossible to ever fully connect to the innate naturalness of divine rhythm, the path of the soul, synchronicity, right relationship, regenerative life practices and on and on. The mind- and what it has unfortunately had thrust upon it- will dissolve its false inheritance when one begins a path of rewiring their naturalness. Control, fear, separatism- are dismantled as are the structures built upon such hierarchical ideologies.

The moment the mind exhales and relinquishes its mistaken identity as compass, is the moment one awakens to the realization that every aspect of Life is naturally designed to organize itself to the frequency of the Heart. It is a contract of reciprocity and unity, not domination.

The one greatest beauty of the heart is that it sings in harmony with Earth and Sky. This brilliance will ask that you relinquish all false hymns and hand yourself over to a symphony of miracles. It is a choice at every moment. It is quickly becoming a necessity.

This way of being is not an idea I adopted. It has engulfed me completely into a state of healing, of loving, of laying down IN MY HEART at night- no matter what has happened in my day and what tugs at my emotions- in peace. I know what supports me and I allow myself to fall back and be held daily. I have to. I have lived the opposite.

As a recovered/ing trauma addict, I felt like I was dying first. To be fully alive and keen in my natural sensibilities was shocking to my body even though my mind “knew” what I was doing. There was a lost-ness, and an emptiness once I surrendered the identities and personalities attached to ways of cyclical, scrutinizing thinking based in false inheritance. The profoundly hard work was when I braved listening to the Deep Voice and followed its intuitive guidance. Rather than the new clearing inside my soul being overtaken again by old patterning- it was repatterned in the mandala of all that is sacred- which is everything.

I am not stating anything new. I sense we have misconstrued the ancient teachings because so many of them got caught in the patriarchal shuffle (it’s not a fun dance). And I am not stating something I read- although I have read such things many times. I am able to state this because it lives inside of me.

I am not claiming “this is the way to salvation” (what does that sound like?!). It is a challenging time to profess a path as The Path while we are decolonizing indoctrinated false promises inside our collective nervous system. I am sharing what moves in me as Truth. What I have come to know, what I have intimately tasted and let satiate me, is that I have nothing if I don’t have this connection. There is not a transition that I cannot meet with Love. I will meet death, pain, loss and many aspects of humanity. But I will arrive centered inside the incorruptible part of me that will continue to beat on and on no matter what my destiny is at this time.

Blessings during this potent time. May you be born anew. May you brave the One Voice. May you live in the Heart.