Join the Personal Growth Membership
Join now and get access to hundreds of summarized personal development books and dozens of bite sized, personal growth nano courses all in one place.
Power up your life

How To Heal A Troubled Heart
With Meditation

By Virginia Palomar
Updated January 17, 2015

Many people have a troubled heart. They inadvertently hold grudges, anger, sadness, grief and a variety of other negative emotions. The intensity of their feelings eats away at their psyche, resulting in insomnia, aches and pains and anxious thoughts. If you harbor emotions that are causing illness or discomfort, you can heal them via meditation.

The Listening Heart
There are many sayings that link the heart to emotions. For instance, “heartache” and “speaking from the heart.” People instinctively understand that their heart has something to do with the way they feel. When they talk about having a troubled heart, they tend to mean that they are experiencing an intense emotion that feels mentally painful. At times, such feelings can also be felt in physical ways.

Taking Things To Heart
When you have a troubled heart, you literally “take things to heart.” Hence, you feel so deeply that you cannot always think objectively. You may focus on dwelling in negativity, even though you are certainly not enjoying the experience.

The Heart As The Center Of Compassion
While negative emotions may be taken to the heart, positive emotions seem to stem from the heart. Thus, when you feel compassion and love, you may notice a connection physically if you are extremely self-aware. Indeed, positive emotions can create the sensation of having a full heart or a heart that has swelled.

Your Internal Critic
The voice in your head reflects the message that your heart is receiving via your thoughts. Hence, if your internal voice tells you that you should seek revenge on someone who has harmed you, your heart may fill with rage. At the same time, thoughts that triggered the voice to speak in such a manner will have come from the idea that you have been wronged, which is unjust.

How Meditation Can Soothe Heartfelt Emotions
During meditation, when you are deeply relaxed, you can gain an enhanced awareness of the connection between your heart and your feelings. You can begin to take control of creating positive emotions on purpose and transforming negativity so that you are free from mental anguish.

As you meditate, the mental chatter stemming from your inner critic ceases and a sense of peace is acquired. During gaps in internal dialog where peace grows, you can start to concentrate on feelings of compassion. Perhaps, you might think about a person or pet that you love dearly, using your senses to clearly create a mental image of them, complete with touch, sound, and maybe taste and smell.

For instance, if you pictured your mother, you might associate the scent of a particular perfume with her, the sound of her voice, and what it feels like to hug her. Additionally, you would imagine how you would feel emotionally when you held her in your arms. At the same time, you could imagine that you were breathing in and out of your heart region and feeling compassion growing.

Balancing Heartfelt Emotions
When you are filled with compassion during meditation, begin a different visualization, this time bringing into focus a mental image of who or whatever is troubling you. The person you see may even be yourself if it is you that you blame for your angst.

As your emotions are more even than usual due to meditating on compassion, you will have gained heart coherence, which helps you think in a balanced, loving fashion. Continuing to breathe deeply in and out of your heart will increase positive feelings.

Imagine that the mental image you see of what or whom your regard as the seat of your unhappiness grows small and is surrounded by a bright, white light. Breathe compassion and love into the light, and understand that you have placed the light around the image, as a form of protection for whatever or whoever is inside, out of kindness that stems from your heart.

Taking Control Of Your Inner Voice
Your inner voice will easily begin to reflect your loving thoughts when you allow it to emerge. Direct it by purposefully repeating the word “healing,” on each in breath, and “love,” on each out breath. Use the words “healing love” as a mantra that you repeat slowly in time with your breath.

00027-troubled-heart-pin Letting Go
As you meditate, you can choose to forgive others, release the burden of grief and sadness, and let go of anger. Know that when you hold negative emotions, you take them to heart. However, when you drop negativity and radiate compassion your troubled heart heals.

Bitesized Personal Growth Courses & Books For Everyone
Your path to continuous self improvement starts now!

Table Of Contents

Katherine Hurst
By Virginia Palomar
Virginia’s mother was the person to first introduce meditation to her, and has been fascinated ever since. How can I mind be taken to such a calm and peaceful state whilst still being awake? Her calling was to find out more, and help others to do the same! Now, Virginia specializes in Mindfulness Based Integral Psychotherapy and Life Coaching, and teaches her clients how to find sustainable relief from addictions, depression, anxiety and trauma-related distress disorders.

Join the Conversation

Personal Growth logo
Receive support and ideas on how to improve yourself for the better sent directly to your inbox 2x weekly.
© 2012-2024 PersonalGrowth.com | Greater Minds Ltd. All Rights Reserved | Designed with 🤍 by Empath Digital.
Personal Growth is for informational purpose only and is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. All content and images found on PersonalGrowth.com may not be reproduced or distributed, unless permitted in writing by Greater Minds Ltd.