"What does it look like to develop the heart?"
Well, life really is synchronistic, especially when you pose a question to the universe and then find yourself in a conversation a week later that offers you an explanation to your question!
Special thanks to Jessica for offering this little gem of insight :)
The answer came in this form: "In North America we are taught to focus on, value and honour one type of love: the man/woman relationship and expression of love. We are taught from a young age by society/views/media that this is the main type of love to focus on and achieve.
But in other cultures around the world, there are many kinds of love, and they are cultivated within the members of those cultures from a very young age such that love is an expression that is all around them and not just dependent on another man or woman being there for love to be present.
Rumi and many other poets wrote countless examples of expressions of love for nature, love for our brothers, sisters and cousins, our homes, our land, our connection to nature and on and on so that we could cultivate an understanding of love in many different forms.
What perhaps, is missing from our North American view on love is that when someone like our mother expresses her love for us, we're conditioned to not even recognize it. We are programmed to not see all of the love that is already present in our lives, from the many different sources.
When I pause and think about that for a minute, I realize that love is not something outside of us to be achieved. You don't need a "partner" to have love be present in your life.
"Lack" of love starts to disappear when its existence doesn't depend on another human being as its source and we begin to understand that love is already within us. As my sister and Wendy like to say, "you are love."
Perhaps then the truest form of love starts to emerge where we create relationships with all the different people in our lives from being love on the inside versus needing love from the outside to feel like we are enough?
Could this be what it means to "develop the heart?" I think so.
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