Living in the Heart Is Not Spiritual Bypass.
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“Love isn’t the work of the tender and the gentle;
Love is the work of wrestlers.
The one who becomes a servant of lovers
is really a fortunate sovereign.
Don’t ask anyone about Love; ask Love about Love.
Love is a cloud that scatters pearls.” ~ 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 pacifies 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 cynicism and belonging wounds by now building their business on calling out spiritual bypass. But that’s where we are, folks. And it’s actually okay.
False promises rise from this corruption of the heart. The shadow of seduction rises from this misperception of the heart. If someone (there are so many who do this) promises you a redemption from your suffering if you pay them a certain amount of money, which then proves your self-worth, following which you acquire self-love, you are being manipulated.
The caveat is this, continued 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 through joy or 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, 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 them. The identification of emotions as good or bad falls away 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. To actually live in and from the heart means one has excavated their soul, felt deeply 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.
To sit face to face with the fire of life. To release and follow the deep current, dammed up and stagnant, is the way home to love.
God lives everywhere. The Goddess is in everything. 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 live life as you are meant — 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, and 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 shepherd life in alignment with heart.
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 be present with what is. Without cleaning this lens, one can never fully understand themselves 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 live alongside doubt and distrust in life’s immaculate mystery. This 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 that, 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, emotion 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 embodied discernment and direction. 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 so on. The mind will dissolve its false inheritance when one begins a path of rewiring their naturalness. It feels like an exhale inside the brain.
Control, fear, separatism are dismantled as are the structures built upon such hierarchical ideologies.
In this 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 proven vibration of the heart beats in perfect rhythm with the heartbeat of the Earth and pulse of life. It is a birthright. This way of being is not an ideology.
In my surrendering to building my life by this primordial blueprint, I have healed addictions that were sure to take my life. I have met mysterious wondrous friends that live inside this highly vibrational world from all times, spaces and ages. The animals speak my name, I know because I hear it inside of my heart.
I rest inside of myself before I close my eyes at night without that deep voice, that one constant voice, tugging at me to come out and play, to shine, to love, to trust, to allow myself to follow the guidance inside of my soul and heal. The heart holds the inner healer so the gift of the soul can shine.
I am not stating anything you have not heard, but if so, you’re welcome. I sense we have misconstrued the ancient teachings because so many of them got caught in the patriarchal shuffle. And I am not stating something I read, although I have read such things many times. My words come from my body, the wisdom-keeper of life’s great love story. From the embodied heart.
It was not easy to repattern the manipulated pathways. My nervous system shook a bit, but I braved the discomfort in the name of “I have nothing left but to follow this voice, I have to try love on for size.”
I am not claiming “This is the way to salvation.” 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.
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Shira Stardrift is a Wisdom Keeper of the Feminine Arts. Her cosmology rises from the womb body, physically, spiritually and archetypally. Her devotion to the Goddess in their many faces, and Love of this crazy human experience, is expressed through her writing, her music and in the way she expresses her Life. This is all woven into the medicine bundle that holds space for her client’s journey in this mysterious Life.
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