How Do You Know Your Heart Is Healing?
- Prema Posner
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
We talk a lot in yoga about opening the heart.
But I have come to believe that healing the heart isn't really about opening it wider.
It's about learning to stay connected to it.
To love without losing yourself.
To feel without drowning in what you feel.
To grieve without closing yourself to life.
To have boundaries without building walls.
To remain tender and strong.
This is the beautiful work of Anahata, the heart chakra.
The heart holds more than love.
It holds what happens because we love.
Grief.
Longing.
Heartbreak.
Disappointment.
Forgiveness.
Hope.
And when we have been hurt, the heart often learns to protect itself.
I don't necessarily think of this as a blocked heart.
Sometimes it is simply a heart saying:
Something here still needs my loving attention.
So how do you know your heart is healing?
The signs may be quieter than you think.
You can remember something painful without completely returning to the wound.
You can grieve and still experience joy.
You can love someone and still say no.
You can give without abandoning yourself.
You can receive without feeling you have to earn it.
You can create a boundary without closing your heart.
You begin noticing beauty again.
And perhaps, little by little, you allow life to touch you again.
This doesn't mean the grief is gone.
It means your heart is becoming spacious enough to hold more than one thing.
Try this now.
Place one hand over your heart.
Take a slow breath in.
Exhale and soften.
Again.
Inhale — receive.
Exhale — soften.
Then quietly ask:
What is my heart carrying today?
Don't search for the answer.
Listen.
And then:
What would allow my heart to soften by just one percent?
Maybe it's rest.
A boundary.
A cry.
Forgiveness.
Being held.
Or simply your own hand on your heart reminding you:
I'm here.
Take one more breath.
I don't have to force my heart open.
I can meet it exactly where it is.
I can love and still belong to myself.
This is why, after so many years of practicing and teaching yoga and meditation, I continue to return to the chakras.
They give us a way to listen more deeply.
Through the body.
Through the breath.
Through stillness.
And sometimes healing begins with something very small:
A deeper breath.
A softer heart.
A clearer boundary.
A willingness to receive.
A moment when you notice beauty again.
Maybe a healing heart isn't a heart that no longer hurts.
Maybe it's a heart that has been through something—and is slowly learning that it is safe to love life again.
With love,
Prema
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