Love begins with us when we consciously reject narrow-minded thinking and selfishness to make room for qualities such as tolerance, compassion, and genuine kindness.

Expanding the Heart: Overcoming Barriers to True Love

Love begins with us when we consciously reject narrow-minded thinking and selfishness to make room for qualities such as tolerance, compassion, and genuine kindness. Our ability to accept people as they are becomes a source of true soul transformation. Each of us can expand our heart if we start to rid it of negative passions like envy, pride, and excessive self-esteem. By purifying our inner world and returning to the simplicity of relationships, we gain the ability to perceive tenderness, forgive, and give love. This path requires courage and perseverance, but the outcome justifies the effort: a heart freed from unnecessary chains can embrace the fullness of love that life has to offer.

What might contribute to the presence or absence of love in your heart, and what barriers do you think hinder it?

In my view, the presence or absence of love in the heart is linked to the qualities we cultivate versus those we suppress. Love appears in the heart when positive traits such as tolerance, compassion, and the ability to accept others as they are predominate. When a person works on himself, striving to free himself from selfishness, envy, pride, and other negative traits, his heart “expands” and fills with true love. In this regard, it is essential to eliminate excessive self-love and narrow-mindedness. As one source puts it:

"To widen your heart, you need to remove something from it: get rid of self-love. If the ivy of self-love and narrow-mindedness that chokes you withers, then your spiritual tree will be able to grow freely. I wish that your heart will soon be completely freed, grow, and expand. Amen." (source: link txt)

The presence of tender, open feelings and the ability to forgive help the heart to both perceive and give love. However, if the heart is dominated by qualities such as greed, self-love, vanity, envy, pride, and malice, these act as barriers preventing the emergence of pure love. One text emphasizes:

"How can a heart, filled with greed, self-love, vanity, lust for pleasure, anger, resentfulness, envy, pride, and other lawless passions, hold the love of God within it?" (source: link txt)

These obstacles envelop our heart, hindering it from opening up to true love. Therefore, for love to truly reside in the heart, it is necessary to consciously remove these barriers – to renounce negative passions, purify our intentions, and work on ourselves by returning to the simplicity and sincerity of our relationships.