The Open Heart That Doesn't Abandon Itself

Twenty-some years ago, I was introduced to something called a heart circle — a practice, a held space, where you get to speak about your own experience, the joy and the sorrow, and be witnessed in a way that lets your heart actually open, both as speaker and as listener. No one is there to comment, fix, or offer advice. You just speak — and there's a quiet power in that, in knowing you're safe, that no one's going to throw their spin on what you just shared. That was my doorway into all of this. Heart circles deserve their own post — their own room, really — so I'll leave that door cracked for now. Reach out if you want to go deeper there.

One of the practices inside a heart circle is the "I statement." "I went to the store and..." instead of "You know when you go to the store and..." It sounds small. It isn't. An I statement owns your own experience without asking anyone else to agree with it — it just asks to be witnessed. That ownership gives you sovereignty to reclaim your power, too. A you statement, even a gentle one, can land like a quiet request to change someone, or an assumption that we all have the same experiences.

There's a version of sovereignty happening right in our word choice. "Don't do that" aims to control someone else's behavior. "I don't like when you do that" hands sovereignty back to both people — you get your reaction, they get to keep making their own choice, now with better information. I've noticed this pattern especially in spiritual and healing spaces over the past few months — people leaning almost entirely on "you" statements — language that controls another's behavior — while believing they're being sovereign, holy, or enlightened, without ever quite making room for the other person's actual experience.

The Same Practice

Real sovereignty and real open-heartedness might be the same practice, showing up in how we talk. (It's part of why "speak from lived experience" is one of our community agreements — using "I" keeps things grounded and non-hierarchical, and trusts each person as the authority on their own inner life.)

Many Eastern traditions don't separate heart from mind at all — they call it one thing, citta, heart-mind. Opening up isn't just a feeling. It's also how we speak. It shows up as curiosity about another's experience, not an assumption.

There's a line commonly attributed to the Dalai Lama that's stayed with me: "When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new."

This week in circle, we sat with one of the precepts I've been developing for Humanity Recalibrated — moral guideposts, or bumper rails, aimed at open-heartedness, light-heartedness, and kind-heartedness. Here's the first:

Aware of the guardedness in the world and of what becomes possible when we make room for one another, I stand in the presence of all who came before and all who are yet to arrive, and vow to cultivate the open heart that can hold another's experience without abandoning my own.

I read it once, slowly, and asked the circle: how does that land?

What Open-Heartedness Actually Looks Like

This is where it got real. One member of our circle pushed back, gently — wanting to feel more of what other people are feeling, craving more access to that emotional experience, and not feeling like he could. He labeled himself as closed. Said it never came naturally, wasn't something he was shown growing up, and it still sometimes feels forced even now.

I told him, half-joking, I'd give him a shot of mine — because I feel it all, sometimes more than I'd like. But what I was really hearing was that he could be mentally open to someone's experience without it bothering him, while his heart stayed closed off, removed. I shared what I'm actually aiming for: compassion. Touching someone's experience without taking it on as your own, without absorbing it, without abandoning your own well-being. "Oh, I see you, I feel for you" — without losing your own ground in the process. Another member of our circle put it well: connecting and witnessing without absorbing is still opening. You don't have to carry someone's pain as your own for your heart to actually be open to them.

Both landed on the same real question, from opposite directions: where's the line between opening and abandoning yourself? Between staying closed and staying whole?

We didn't resolve it. I don't think it's meant to be resolved. It's meant to be practiced.

The Barometer

How often, in your own life, do you experience a closed heart versus an open one? There's no right or wrong answer here. No verdict that you should always be open, never closed. It's a tool — a way to explore where your heart actually is, in relation to this connection, this ability to hold somebody else's experience.

Zoom out, and it's the same question as open-mindedness versus closed-mindedness — open citta versus closed. Open-minded is willing to meet you wherever you are, with whatever idea or experience you're having, and say: that's not mine, but I honor that you're having it. Closed is narrow — a fixed definition of what life or experience is allowed to look like. That's where the judgment creeps in.

And there's a second layer worth exploring: what does it feel like to be on the receiving end? One member of our circle named it as the difference between feeling judged and feeling safe — like you're allowed to be exactly who you are without it being a problem. Another named it as presence itself — someone who is actually there with you, not just physically in the room, but unguarded, meeting whatever's arising without flinching from it.

Presence with walls up is still walls up. What we're actually pointing at is presence without the barricade — being willing to meet whatever surfaces, even if it contradicts our own experience, and honor that it's real and true.

The Moment of Noticing

Then something happened that I think was the real teaching of the night.

One member of our circle told a story about accidentally interrupting someone at a small country store — walked up, said hello without realizing the person was already mid-task. It was nothing, really. But something in him closed. He felt himself freeze, wanted to name it, apologize, come back into the moment — and didn't. The fear of making it worse kept him quiet.

When he named it out loud in circle, I told him: that's great. Noticing the closing — that's the win. Because next time, he'll catch it before it's closed. He'll notice, and adjust. That's the name of the game. It's a game of awareness.

That's the practice: awareness of the closing, and the commitment to return — to opening — when that's actually available. Because closing isn't always bad. Sometimes it's protection, until you can get to safety. Just notice: is this closing out of habit, or out of necessity?

The Invitation

Notice, this week, where your heart closes, and where it opens. Just notice — the way you'd notice weather, no rush to force change, no grasping to stay. What triggered it? What did it feel like in the body, right before it happened?

And notice the same in another. When did you feel someone meet you with an open heart? What did that actually feel like — in your chest, your shoulders, your breath? And when did you feel someone close to you out of their own guardedness? What did that feel like to receive?

You don't need an answer. You need the noticing. That's the whole precept: aware of the guardedness in the world, and of what becomes possible when we make room for one another.

We closed circle the way we usually do — going around and naming what opened our hearts that day. Real connection with a friend. A pet excited to see you at the door. A friendship where people show up more open than we're often taught men are supposed to be. A concert that felt less like a performance and more like a conversation.

Small things. All of it, heart-opening. All of it, available.

With love,

Sherwood