Heart Minded: How to Hold Yourself and Others in Love

by Sarah Blondin

Overview

A treasury of meditations for living from your heart—from a top teacher at the #1 online meditation service InsightTimer.

In our noisy, noisy world, it can seem nearly impossible to find ways to turn off our busy minds, which so often flood us with worry and unending lists of tasks. So how do you find your way off the negativity treadmill? When you feel overwhelmed and afraid, how can you return to a place of groundedness and connection?

“When we turn toward our hearts, we arrive like a bolt of lightning in the present moment, and all our arguments against ourselves and life go quiet,” teaches Sarah Blondin. “No matter where you are, no matter what you are doing, you can touch this place in yourself to feel free and alive.”

With poetic brilliance and skillful instruction, this renowned teacher brings you a treasury of meditations and spiritual teachings to help you detach from your busy mind and tune into your feeling heart. As the students of her popular online trainings can attest, these simple and powerful practices can instantly bring you into a deeper connection with yourself and others. And you can go back to these meditations whenever you feel overwhelmed, disconnected, or afraid.

Read Heart Minded from front to back for a full course in living a life guided by the wise heart—or open to any page for a reminder that, beneath your burdens and troubles, you are fundamentally whole and free.

This book includes links to free guided meditations on audio, presented by Sarah Blondin.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781649630490
Publisher:	Sounds True, Incorporated
Publication date:	02/07/2023
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	124,635
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Sarah Blondin is an internationally beloved spiritual teacher. Her guided meditations on the app InsightTimer have received nearly 10 million plays. She hosts the popular podcast Live Awake, as well as the online course Coming Home to Yourself. Her work has been translated into many languages and is in use in prison, recovery, and wellness programs. For more, visit sarahblondin.com.

Table of Contents

Introduction xi

Some Notes and Suggestions Before Moving Ahead xix

Part 1 Loving Ownership

1 An Introduction to the Heart 3

2 Mind, Meet Heart 6

Practice: Mind, Meet Heart 11

3 Waking to Grace 14

Practice: Leaning into Grace 21

4 Retrieval of Our Sensitivity 25

Practice: Seed of Sensitive Softness 32

5 Retrieval of Our Feeling Body 36

6 How to Retrieve Feeling 39

Practice: You Are Allowed 41

7 Give Name 43

Practice: Free the Feeling 49

8 Retrieval of Personal Permission 51

Practice: I Give Myself Permission 55

9 Retrieval of Our Body of Light 58

Practice: From Shadow to Light 66

10 Retrieval of Shameless Vulnerability 68

Practice: The Heart Without a Wall 70

11 Soul-itude 73

Practice: Sitting and Staying 83

12 Cultivate Love of the Self 87

Practice: The Breath of Love 91

Part 2 Deep Tissue Massage of the Spirit

13 The Sleepy Undertow 95

14 Comfort When Numb 98

Practice: Finding Your Heart at Your Edge 102

15 Comfort for Deep Suffering 104

Practice: Calling on Fierce 108

18 Your Pain Is Valid 111

Practice: Calling on Grace and Kindness 112

17 Tenderizing Pain 114

Practice: Pain as a Portal to the Divine 115

18 Commitment to What Is Good 117

Practice: Voting for the Heart 118

Part 5 Heart-Minded Intimacy

19 Letting Go of Conditional Love 123

20 There Are No Wrong Choices 131

Practice: Seed of Wholeness 135

21 When We Harm Instead of Love 138

Practice: A Prayer for Growth 140

Part 4 The Heart Outside Its Cage

22 The Awakening: A Poem about Heart-Minded Seeing 145

23 Sit Awake Before the World 148

Practice: Vow of the Heart 151

Acknowledgments 155

About the Author 157

Editorial Reviews

We suffer when we become separated from our deepest, truest nature. Heart Minded offers us guidance on the sacred journey home . . . helping us to awaken from our busy, never satisfied minds to the heartspace where love is always and already right here.” —Tara Brach, author of Radical Acceptance

“A relevant, practical guide, full of inspiration to help you clear the channel of your heart and follow your truth.” —Elena Brower, bestselling author of Practice You

“Gentle and wise, Blondin’s approach is characterized by the bedside manner of devoted midwife to your healing process. Like her voice, it is a soothing poultice for the weary-but-spirited seeker. Heart Minded will crack you open down the middle from page one. It is all at once a centering meditation, a practice, and an olive branch extended into the depths of your soul.” —Pixie Lighthorse, author of Prayers of Honoring

“There is so much that can be said about this collection of work. It embodies a bold truth that encourages self-reflection. Heart Minded unleashes the inner magic of unfolding to bloom.” —Alexandra Elle, author of Neon Soul, Words from a Wanderer, and Love in My Language

“In a world fraught with separation, anxiety, and distraction, there can never be enough positive attention given, never enough prayer, never enough books about love. Heart Minded is the antidote, the great reminder, to be heart- and love-focused moment to precious moment. Raw, direct, and accessible, this book invites and instructs you, as Mary Oliver once advised, to ‘love the soft animal of your body.’ Sarah Blondin, with equal softness of voice and heart, says, in effect, yes, it’s safe ‘to step into the wisdom of your own sensitivity’ with heart wide open (listen up, fellow men, this is not a book for women alone!). Here you will find healing, creativity, and bright awakening beyond your wildest dreams.” —Albert Flynn DeSilver, author of Writing as a Path to Awakening

“Seems the great 14-century Persian mystic Hafiz may have written an endorsement for this book years ago. As a famous rendering of some of his verse by me goes:

‘How did the rose ever open its heart and give to the world
all of its beauty?

It felt the encouragement of light— of love—against its
being, otherwise one might remain too frightened.’

The heart, even on its better days, can be just one wing needed to fly.
The other wing—love from someone else, or from a beautiful creature,
or some synergy with a gorgeous mountain or sky—can cause your
spirit to awake, unfurl, give thanks and know joy.

Sarah Blondin and her love, and this beautiful book, can be a golden wing, I bet, to many. I hope this book helps the whole world to dance.” —Daniel Ladinsky, international bestselling poet and author

From the Publisher