Understanding Your Heart Chakra: The Center for Love, Self-Love, Grief & Emotional Openness
When it comes to understanding your heart chakra, there are many things to consider about how you give and receive love, not just with others, but with yourself. Within this giving and receiving energy lives kindness and generosity, but it's sometimes countered with jealousy, loneliness or grief. It is an emotionally complex energy centre.
Before we dive in, here are just a few things to consider for yourself as you explore the wisdom of this chakra in more detail:
Do you find it easier to give love than to receive it? Do you feel uncomfortable or even suspicious when someone offers you help, a compliment, or care?
Have you ever felt that love is something you have to earn through being good, being useful, or being easy to love? Or do you have feelings of conditional love towards others?
Do you keep people at arm's length after loss, without even realizing that's what you're doing?
Two other considerations for you to feel into:
your capacity to love others is actually a mirror of how much you allow yourself to be loved.
the degree to which you feel unloved by others reflects the amount of love you hold for yourself.
And… define what "love" actually means for you. For many, it is laced with a lot of pain.
This is all connected to the energy of your Heart Chakra.
What Is the Heart Chakra?
The Heart Chakra is an energy centre located at the centre of the chest. It's known as your body's centre of love, compassion, and emotional openness. This is where love moves in both directions ~ love received and love given ~ and where joy, sadness and grief all live, because you cannot stay open to one without staying open to all three.
This dynamic chakra also acts as the bridge between your three lower chakras (the physical, personal, survival-based energies of Root, Sacral, and Solar Plexus) and your three upper chakras (the more expansive, spiritual energies of Throat, Third Eye, and Crown). Thus it is often known as the harmonizer for the entire chakra system.
From a childhood development perspective, this chakra develops during roughly between the ages of 4.5–6.5 yrs old, often when a child first starts to become consciously aware of whether love is unconditional or has to be earned. At this stage, a child may test the energy of "Am I loved exactly as I am, or do I need to earn it?”
This is the age where children begin to understand love as something relational rather than automatic. They start noticing whether affection shifts based on their behaviour, their achievements, or how "easy" they are to parent. They start comparing how they're loved to how a sibling is loved.
I personally found this stage of my own son's childhood to be mildly challenging, but overall it was amusing ~ because I understood. While he was squirting sunscreen in the kids' shoes and peeing on the play structures at school (so very unlike him), I knew he was testing the boundaries on my love, which is why we can laugh about it all now.
Heart chakra energy can show up in someone's life in a variety of ways. But in general, if a child is loved consistently, regardless of behaviour, mood, or performance, they learn that love is safe, stable, and doesn't need to be earned. Thus, they feel more free to just be themselves. However, if love felt conditional, inconsistent, or tied to performance, a person often learns to either perform for love, or they close down the heart chakra to protect themselves from ever fully needing it. They may also become chronic over-givers.
The core emotion activated from an unstable Heart Chakra imprint is often grief, whether it's the grief of a love that felt conditional, or the grief of a loss that was either unprocessed or taught the heart to close. What this often results in is an armouring over the heart for protection… so it does not have to be felt again by getting too close to another. Sometimes this is masked by anger. It can result in a heart that stays half-open at best, because staying fully open once cost too much.
I've also found, with a lot of my clients, that those who grew up feeling as though they had to earn love, very often carry a deep exhaustion and resentment around relationships ... even the good ones. You see, they work so dang hard for that love, yet still feel they never fully receive it!
The Core Imprints of the Heart Chakra
Heart Chakra shapes how you experience love in multiple areas of life, and it has a dramatic impact on how you relate to both yourself and others. Below are some of the primary ways this shows up:
Earned Love vs. Given Love
Was love in your childhood something that you could trust was always there, or something you had to work for? Did affection increase when you achieved something, behaved a certain way, or made things easier for the adults around you?
When a child feels loved early on, they learn:
I am loved for who I am, not for what I do
My worth isn't up for negotiation based on my performance
I can rest and still be loved
But when love is not passed around freely, a person often learns:
Love has to be earned, every time, over and over
Slowing down or being "too much" risks losing love
I have to keep proving I'm worth keeping
One that I see often is the translation of "who do I need to be in order to be loved?" into "how sick do I need to be to receive love?” Why?? Because many children learned a pattern that when they got sick, this was when mom and/or dad displayed the most love, cut back on negative punishment, or maybe redirected their love from a sibling, over to them.
Another dynamic I have seen a lot in my client community is that many people had to be the good, responsible, quiet child in order to be loved, often because there was a sibling in the mix that created chaos for the family. This translates into: if I keep myself small and quiet, people will love me more.
Damage to the Heart Chakra at this level often leads to chronic overachieving or people-pleasing in relationships, and always trying to secure love that should never have had to be earned in the first place. The problem is, even when love is freely given later in life, it can be nearly impossible to actually receive it as real.
2. Grief - Shut Down or Transform
Have you experienced an early loss or repeated loss in your life, whether through death, divorce, abandonment, or a parent who was emotionally unavailable?
If so, how has this shaped your ability to remain open to love and receiving?
One of my niches in my business is supporting people through grief. The reason is because the loss of my father was what opened me up to the world of energy healing. While this loss was tragic for myself and my family, it was also one of the greatest transformational experiences of my life. You can read more about this in my blog post about it HERE.
This imprint isn't really about the loss itself. It's about the decision your nervous system makes afterward ~ that actually feeling the grief and sadness might be a task too hard to bear, so closing off is a way of staying safe.
When a child's pain and sadness is supported early on, they learn:
Grief is a reflection of how much I loved someone, and it's allowed to move through me
Loss doesn't mean I have to close myself off from future love
I can feel the full weight of loss and still choose to love again
When unsupported, a person often learns:
It's safer to love a little less, just in case
Staying guarded protects me from being hurt again
If I don't get too attached, it won't hurt as much when it ends
I believe grief is one of the most misunderstood energies connected to the Heart Chakra. So many people think healing grief means "getting over it," because life must go on. But really, unprocessed grief has the ability to shut down so much joy in your life, and can even make some people physically sick. It impairs your connection to others.
When you allow yourself to experience this deep painful emotion, you are forever transformed, and many things begin to shift in your life. You actually become more open and resilient.
One of my favourite teachers' words ring in my mind whenever it feels needed: we must fully experience the grief and sadness in order to find the joy again.
There is much freedom in fully experiencing these emotions, yet so many people are afraid to let themselves go there. But as many people ask the question… how do I move through this? My observation is that everyone seems to have their own unique process, but some level of balanced support along the way is often key.
3. Giving as Identity, Receiving as Threat
Did you learn early on that being needed felt safer than being loved? Do you find it easier to give help, offer gifts, and shower others with compliments, than to receive any of these things yourself?
So many of my own clients are over-givers. And while this tends to be a pattern held more strongly in women, most of the men I work with carry the same pattern too, as they are quite sensitive and caring individuals.
When giving and receiving are balanced in life as a child, they will learn:
Who I am is not determined by how much I give
Receiving isn't the same as being a burden
I can accept help, love, or care without immediately needing to give something back
However, when it isn't balanced, a person often learns:
Being needed is safer than being loved
Receiving feels uncomfortable, suspicious, or undeserved - "am I being manipulated?"
My value comes from what I give, not from who I am
I've worked with so many clients whose entire identity was built around being the giver, the fixer, and the one who holds everything together. Then they come to me when they are burnt out, dissatisfied with life, and sometimes suffering an illness, or extreme exhaustion.
Learning to receive is a process for many. Even something as small as accepting a compliment without deflecting it is often one of the first real cracks in this pattern.
What Are Other Signs of a Heart Chakra Imbalance?
There is more to be said than just those core imprints. When this chakra is balanced, you move through the world with an open, generous heart that can hold both love and loss without collapsing under either.
An Underactive Heart Chakra may manifest as:
Feeling withdrawn, cold, or emotionally distant, even with people you care about
Chronic loneliness, even inside a relationship
Difficulty trusting others enough to let them in
Cynicism about love, or a belief that it's not safe or realistic
Struggling to grieve, or feeling numb where sadness should be
An Overactive Heart Chakra may manifest as:
Over-giving to the point of self-neglect or burnout
Poor boundaries, especially around other people's emotions and needs
Taking on other people's pain as your own
Codependent patterns, or feeling responsible for someone else's happiness
Seeking love or validation externally to fill an internal void
How Is the Heart Chakra Connected to the Physical Body?
The Heart Chakra is closely tied to your heart, lungs, chest, upper back, shoulders, arms, and the thymus gland ... the physical seat of love, breath, and immunity.
Based on its location, some physical experiences may include:
Tightness or heaviness in the chest, especially during emotional moments
Rounded or hunched shoulders (protecting the heart space)
Shallow breathing, or a tendency to hold the breath - indicates the inability to receive life and/or to let go and grieve what was
Cardiovascular issues
Immune system sensitivity (connected to the thymus gland)
Upper back and shoulder tension
A tendency to physically cross the arms over the chest
Love and connection hormones ... these are created in the heart-brain
The heart is also known as the "heart-brain," and is considered an endocrine gland as well. It has its own complex network of neurons, and produces hormones related to bonding, bliss, love and connection.
What physical symptoms do you hold in your chest, shoulders, or mid-upper back that might be a reflection of a Heart Chakra issue? Or do you have trouble feeling bonded with others?
For example, you may have a lot of immune system issues, like chronic colds, infections, or autoimmune disease. These can be connected to self worth, self acceptance and self love - all energies of the heart chakra. And in the cases of these physical symptoms, you also may struggle with love connections.
Your shoulders represent heart protection. If your shoulders are sore, injured, or held up higher than they should because of tension patterns (especially the left side), this is an example of how the body physically armours up for heart protection, or may hold sadness from a loss in a shoulder.
When I am moving through some deep heart energy shifts, my armpits almost always smell like "onions", as the heart meridial energy runs through this area. When I am uncomfortable in a social situation, I often have to fight with myself to uncross my arms so that I can remain open. And currently, I have rib out - the ribs protect the heart, so I have been exploring what this means for me. The other thing I experinced during a deep healing cycle a few years ago was a lot of pain in the palms of my hands... where we have mini heart chakras.
There are so many examples I could give you of how we protect our hearts, both energetically, emotionally and physically, and how it can show up.
How Do I Heal My Heart Chakra?
There are many ways to heal this chakra, and for most people I work with, it is certainly an ongoing process. Just practicing self love is a start, but it's only the tip of the iceberg for most.
If love was inconsistent, conditional, or withdrawn as a form of punishment your whole life, practicing self love will help you move in the right direction, but you will need to address the deep underlying beliefs that were formed as a result of this relational pattern in your past. Or, if you've experienced real, significant loss that never got the space it needed to be grieved (as SO many of my clients have), you will likely benefit from some support to unlock this stuck energy from your nervous system.
The truth is that many people have deep trauma affecting their Heart Chakra, whether it's early attachment wounds, unresolved grief, or very strong beliefs about what they have to do to be worthy of love.
I have also seen on occasion where my clients have cords into their Heart Chakra, most often from ex-partners, family members, or even people who have passed on. These cords can keep a person energetically manipulated via the heart, or tethered into grief, long after the relationship or the person is gone from their life. It is often mistaken for "still loving them," and wondering why they are unable to let go, but in the end these cords just end up keeping both people stuck and unable to move forward in life, rather than actually connected.
I once supported a cord release from a Heart Chakra, that came from a parent who was jealous of my client. This jealousy was around the clients success because supporting their child (in a co-dependant way) was what gave them value.
The client "agreed" to this energy cord because the fear was that if they achieved any level of success, the parent would abandon them. Thus, my client was unable to step into their true value and worthiness.
Healing the heart chakra is often not just about the heart on its own, it's also about understanding the Heart Chakra's role as a bridge in the entire chakra system.
Unlike Sacral and Throat, which function as more of an energetic pair, the Heart Chakra sits in a different role entirely. It's the bridge between your three lower chakras (Root, Sacral, Solar Plexus), which govern your physical safety, emotions, and personal power, and your three upper chakras (Throat, Third Eye, Crown), which govern your expression, intuition, and spiritual connection.
This matters because a blocked Heart Chakra doesn't just affect your relationships. It can cut off the connection between your grounded, personal-power energy and your more expansive, spiritual energy. Nothing from the lower chakras can fully rise, and nothing from the upper chakras can fully descend, without passing through an open heart.
To sum it up, healing your heart isn't just about love in the relational sense. It's about restoring the connection between your material connection to the world, your voice, and your spirit.
And my experience is that when we are working through the deep healing layers of the lower chakras especially (which are so tied to our family of origin), I find we're also addressing the Heart Chakra indirectly, as belief systems about love and acceptance inevitably come up along the way.
A Note on Healing
Energy healing can be incredibly powerful in this process. It allows grief and attachment wounds to be witnessed and released in ways that traditional talk therapy doesn't always access.
That said, there is no one "right" path. There are many ways to heal, but what matters most is that you seek healing in whatever way feels best for you! Find a way to help you address the root causes, and use daily self-practices to integrate the healing into daily life.
Remember, you cannot force any healing - it just does not work that way. Instead, set intentions and begin by allowing space for it. This is not a one and done thing. Healing is a process which unfolds in its own time with the right support.
Daily Practices to Support Heart Chakra Healing
Below is a list you can pick from to start this healing process on your own.
Breathwork focused on opening the chest (the Heart Chakra responds directly to breath)
Placing a hand on your heart during moments of stress or emotion and slowing down the breath with a longer exhale, resetting your nervous system into a more receptive state
Wearing green or pink clothing, or a rose quartz or green aventurine crystal necklace (the Heart Chakra is associated with the colors green and pink)
Gentle chest and shoulder stretches or massage to release protective tension
Essential oils like rose or bergamot
Practices that may be more specific for expanding your capacity to give and receive:
Practicing receiving a compliment without deflecting or immediately giving one back
Letting yourself ask for help before you're desperate for it
Allowing grief to move through you and to feel it in the moment it arises, rather than pushing it down with distractions or drowning it out in some way
Journaling about your grief or anything about love that you have experienced and need to process - getting the energy out creates space for other things to come in
Noticing when you're giving from love, versus giving from neediness or expectation
Bringing It All Together
Healing the Heart Chakra is something I work with a lot, both with myself and with several of my clients. In fact, so much of the work I do eventually leads back to love, worthiness, and self acceptance, and the lower 3 chakras need the trauma to be released as part of the process,.
Eventually, when you do this deep work for yourself, you will begin to understand that:
I also notice that when I play with the level of how open my heart chakra is, (especially in relation to my other chakras) I receive more positive and genuine attention from others. They sense it on a subconscious level, and it is fascinating to observe the difference in my interactions.
It can be quite a journey to self love, self worth and self acceptance. However, with time, your healed Heart Chakra will allow you to give and receive love freely, hold both joy and grief without losing yourself in either, and let your personal power rise and your spiritual connection descend into the heart. You begin to live freely from your heart.
If you recognize Heart Chakra issues within yourself, and you're ready to open a container for your own healing ~ so you can love and be loved with more ease ~ I will be grateful to be your guide.
Click HERE to Book Your Healing Session Today!
If you wish to join my waitlist for a 7 week group chakra healing series: CLICK HERE.
In the meantime, if you have not read my other posts in this Chakra Series, you can start with the Beginner's Guide to the Chakra System HERE. Or if you are wanting to learn more about Energy Healing before booking a session, start with my post called Understanding How Energy Healing Works.
Next, we move into the Throat Chakra - where your voice and truth come online.
