Hello, and welcome back to practicing human, the podcast where every day we're getting

a little better at life.

I'm your host, Cory Muscara, and in today's episode we're going to talk about opening

the heart.

More to come on that in a moment, first let's settle in together with the sound of the bells.

Okay, so the topic of opening the heart is top of mind for me as I'm running a retreat

on this topic this weekend, May 20 to 22nd, and anytime I run a retreat, this is an online

retreat, and I do different themes every couple of months.

It's always something that I am deeply connected to or have been working through my own life

and I'm speaking to and direct from direct experience.

And this topic has been an interesting one for me over the years because the first meditation

retreat I ever went on was a loving kindness meditation retreat, the first serious meditation

retreat that is where we were practicing intensively, it was a seven day retreat and loving

kindness meditation is a practice specifically designed to cultivate a certain kind of unconditional

love and acceptance.

One that goes beyond the mind and is more just a general expression of a sense of connection

to oneness to others, and it's a beautiful state, but I really struggled with that retreat.

The particular phrase is that we say and the way it was instructed, it just wasn't landing

for me and I was initially drawn more to mindfulness-based practices, there was something more scientific

algorithmic about it that I think I was drawn to, this certain kind of observing the true

nature of experience, understanding impermanence, I could just wrap my mind around it better, but

the idea of opening the heart and developing compassion or sending myself love, it felt

...