My heart space—the heart space—is the reason I am alive.

The heart space:

The beautiful—often forget it’s there—especially when a parking ticket is waiting on my window—I look at my bank account after an afternoon downtown—I have an office conversation with hierarchy— I run into an ex that still doesn’t know how much he effected  my heart—I get yelled at by the woman at the beach house next door because my dog barks too loud.

The place that physically sits deep within the chest hugging the front and back body, that emotionally hangs in the background or takes center stage and that energetically opens or closes based on environment, genetics and mindset.

The place  that—when I let it—when I see it—makes my life so powerfully beautiful, I can’t even comprehend it. The place that leaves me—the talkative Italian, center-of-attention, Jersey girl—completely quiet.

It is always physically, emotionally, and energetically present, yet only 4% of people live from this space.

Where is the love?

It is easy to call my ex a mindless-smoke-all-day-surfer-dude-idiot (and laugh at the fact that he has a broken ankle and can’t be in the waves all summer long).  It is easy for me to secretly give the vacationing snob next door the finger from my living room window.

To say fuck authority.

To make an offensive joke about the cop who gave me a ticket.

To blame the -$12.58  in my bank account on the other drunk idiots who were with me.

Where is my heart space?

The thing is, my heart space—the heart space—is the reason I am alive, the reason I am here, the reason I am able to write this blog, get a parking ticket, max out my bank account…

Because of this, it doesn’t make sense for me to live from anywhere else but my heart space; to love my heart space; to use my big, Jersey mouth to speak from this place.

The heart space is the fourth chakra.

It is the bridge that binds the lower, more physical chakras, with the higher, more subtle chakras. Sure, there are asanas (backbends like wheel, bridge, camel and heart openers like downdog, the warriors and cactus arms), color theory (green is the vibration of this chakra—surprisingly not pink or red), sound theory (listening to windwood, air instruments or sounds in the key of C), foods (green vegetables and fruits from the earth or eating anything grown and cooked with love) and aromatherapy (jasmine and thyme) that will balance this chakra.

But maybe the most potent is to live mindfully—honoring the mantra—the words that honor the heart space. To vow:

To open the heart.

To let the heart shine.

To live from love.

To see every situation through eyes filled with love.

To not give in to the easy—the negative, unloving thoughts and actions that 96% of us give in to—the un-heart space.

When I do this, I see the world from a speechlessly beautiful place; a place that reminds me that I love every part of my existence on this spinning blue ball in the middle of an unfathomably large universe that  is providing me all the experiences that make the perfect story of my life.

My (actually) amazing ex, my not-normally-empty bank account, my (hot) ticketed car, my opportunity-giving boss and my cute barking dog have all occurred to lead me to where I am physically, emotionally and energetically, in this moment, right now.

I know where I am right now is where I belong.

For my story is only occurring because I have a heart space. So it’s time to, always, love it all.

To use my heart space and make it 95%.

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Assistant Ed: Stephanie Sefton/Ed: Bryonie Wise