My mind is screwing up my life.

. We all know about protective parents. The ones who walk you to school with a hat on when nobody else is wearing one. The ones who won’t let you go on holidays with your friends; the ones who won’t let you live. They can ruin a lot, those protective parents and it seems they certainly don’t encourage you in anything you love to do.

This protective parent could not stifle this loving heart.

It is all about them; these parents who love to interfere and who therefore make it tough for you to show up and get on with what you would love to do with your life.
Lucky for me my parents were not over protective at all but to my shock horror I have found out that I did have an over protective presence in my life that was as dominating to my Heart as over protective parents are to their children.

And that presence was . . . MY MIND.

My mind has been acting just like those over protective parents and it has made it tough for my Heart to love to its full potential.
I consider this to be a very serious matter as it has severely influenced the quality of my life.

Because love is the thing we most want in life, is it not?
Living in a $20 million dollar mansion without love present might not be as much fun as I think it is - and yet how come having love show up in our lives can be so complicated.
It is not that there is a shortage of info on the subject.
‘Return to Love’ by Marianne Willamson, ‘Love without End’ by Glenda Green, ‘Love is all You need’ by John Lennon.

All that reading to understand love!
At the moment love IS still a confusing topic for most of us and of course it doesn’t help that the Heart, the source of love, is so weakened by life.
But it is even worse - not only gets the Heart pummeled every which way you can imagine; it gets imposed upon by a well meaning but oh so limiting, over protective parent as well.

Let’s see if this explanation resonates and can shed light on the Heart/love subject for you too.

All recent literature suggests that the Heart is the clever one. It is the Heart that connects with The Source and it is the only one who can therefore access indigenous power and knowledge.
The mind cannot.
The mind is at its best only when it is a well trained servant of a strong Heart.
But when the Heart, the master is confused and dithering, the mind is compelled to do something – like a parent would when they see their child in trouble.
Here’s what I have observed; all the mind can do with a weakened Heart is to take over and become protective.
I know it is hard to believe, but when you have a good look you will see it is not that unbelievable.

It is obvious that most over protective parents mean well; most of them honestly want the best for their children. However for the onlookers it is also obvious that their controlling behavior stifles their children’s expressive and exploring nature big time. They stop their children from experiencing and learning many different things and often prevent them from falling off and getting back on the horse over and over again.

My youngest daughter went on holiday a few years back with a group of friends which included an over protected child. His mother had pre-booked a hotel room, just for her son.  As my daughter and the other friends couldn’t afford a hotel, they booked themselves into a youth hostel on arrival.
It is not hard to guess who had more fun; the friend alone in his hotel room or my daughter with her room mates in the hostel.
My daughter being allowed, had learned to be more adventurous and came home with a lot more experiences and memorable moments than her protected friend.
He was a ‘No’ to most things.
Already at his age he had given up daring to do things, because he was never given the chance to develop a very strong desire and thus a very strong will. He did not want to join them in the hostel.
His mother’s tantrums, emotional blackmail and resistance had made sure that he would not even venture out when he was away from her.
And if he did and she would find out he’d be in trouble and would never hear the end of it, so in the end doing her bidding became a way of life.

In hindsight I see that my mind has been doing exactly the same to my ‘Heart Self’ as that over protective parent did to her son.
It wanted to keep it safe and in doing so killed off any aspiration the Heart might have had to become a lovingly self expressed one.
Eeek!

From what I can see, it started in my early childhood.
As the youngest of five children with 3 older brothers, my Heart self was a very easy target.
My brothers were merciless, bless them.
If I had a toy, it was fun for them to take it off me to see me cry.
In frustration I retaliated and bit them. Sure what else could I do and then poor me got told off for biting. How unfair was that; both the Heart and the mind were in agreement there.
When I did something wrong I was mimicked at for days, how cute is that . . . NOT.
And when I helped a school mate with her homework one day and she wouldn’t help me the next, my heart got upset and was speechless. Needless to say that my mind was getting totally fed up and had many things to say, alot more than the Heart did.
And the knocks went on and on as I grew up.
No doubt, we all have endless stories about how our innocent Heart got trampled upon.
Unfortunately it is the nature of the beast. By nature our Heart is sensitive and thus open to being hurt.

So when my mind saw all this happening, seeing it’s innocent and sensitive mate being hurt in the kindergarten and playground of life, it decided to come to the rescue and take over.
It became an over protective parent, choosing control and ‘voila’ before I knew it, my Heart didn’t have a chance, just like my daughter’s friend and any child of a parent like that.

So my Heart became chicken; timidly hiding and occasionally daring to venture out.
However venturing out often backfired and when it all went wrong, the mind of course had a field day.

The beauty of this explanation is that I now can be vigilant of my mind’s dominating behavior. I can now help the mind to let go of that debilitating, protective parent role and give the Heart a chance.
I am so looking forward to have my mind and Heart work in unison together.