It is important to create space in your home, and work, on your computer, and even in your mind, but when you make space in your heart, you’ll discover more benefits than all of those things combined.

While your bookshelves and countertops have a finite amount of space, the capacity for space in your heart is limitless. That said, if you fill it with the wrong things, it shrinks right up. When your heart is holding more pain than love, it feels small and constricted, which might make you feel …

scared

angry

cynical

worried

hopeless

depressed

If your heart has been heavy lately, or you’ve been experiencing some of the emotions above, consider clearing out the dead weight, and creating space in that lovely heart of yours.

Identify pain

What makes your heart hurt? Is it an event or a pattern? Is it the result of what someone said, what you did, or something you thought? If you are going to fix this, you have to know what it is. Simplify the outside

Sometimes going in is too hard, so do the external work first. What surrounds you that brings you down? What is distracting you? Eliminate all of it. Nourish

Feed your heart in the simplest way possible with better health. A diet full of whole foods and a good night of sleep will help your heart feel lighter. If you want your heart to take care of you, you have to take care of your heart.

Speak your truth

The fear and pain that you hold in your heart can’t get out because you won’t say it out loud. All that holding in, makes the fear scarier and gives it power that it wouldn’t have without your silence. Say it to someone and if there is no one, say it on paper. And then remember, that there is always someone.

Stop waiting

This quote, “For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin — real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way. Something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last in dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.” – Fr. Alfred D’Souza from one of my new favorite books Thrive says it all. We can’t wait for everything to be right or get right before we start our lives.

Stop

Busyness might mask that heavy heart, but the only way to repair the damage is to slow down, pause and then come to a full stop and address your heart ache.

Give

If you want that heavy stuff to magnify and take up even more space, dwell on it. You might not be intentionally self-involved, but those negative emotions can take over. For an immediate shift, turn your focus outwards and help someone. That change in focus will melt the madness and free up massive heart space.

Give up

If you’ve been holding on to your pain and suffering like it’s your job, give up. Quit. Give it away. Release it to God, the Universe, your favorite tree in the park. Scream it out or release it quietly. There is better work to be done and you need the heart space to do it.

Get present

Worry lies in future thinking. Stay here, and get present. The best way to do that is to notice and acknowledge this very moment. Find something lovely, even in the mess. A deep breath in and out will always bring you home.

Ask for help

If your heart is too heavy, too locked up, too painful every day, ask for help. There is no shame in that. If you don’t want to do this alone, or do it at all, ask someone to help you.

Identify happiness

Now that you have space … What would make your heart happy? What would make your heart open wide? What would make your heart sing? Make a list, a love list. Now make it happen.

Why heart space is a big deal

If you want to love deeply and experience a truly meaningful life, you need plenty of heart space.

At the risk of sounding cliché … life is too short to go through it with a jammed-up heart. You deserve a big, full, open heart. A heart full of joy, wonder, love and gratitude. We deserve you to have a big, full heart too because when you do, you will discover true purpose and add light and passion to the world around you.

When you let go of the pain, guilt, anger and depression, you can begin to fill your heart with the right things, the real things, the true things. And when you do, it will open up and give you all the space you need. That’s a big deal.

Trade your heavy heart for a full heart.