Monday 22 December 2008

Opening Your Heart and learning to risk

Hello my name is Cate Mackenzie and I am a life coach and I help people to open their hearts. This can mean a lot of different things to many people so I thought I would write about what it means to me.

My experience has told me that many people have closed down their hearts in order to protect themselves or keep themselves “safe” in some way. They have suffered from loss, disappointment or perhaps a betrayal and in order to survive these experiences they have shut their hearts down. With this retraction of their heart also comes a fear of life and of living their dreams. And after a certain time some people have no idea how they would begin to open their heart and do not even know what their dreams or wishes are. It can become so bad for some that they feel totally at a loss and feel that they are a victim to life. If, in this situation, someone would then like to attract a partner into their lives this can be potentially difficult. For in order to attract a relationship, that you would truly want, you need to have a relationship with yourself. This means connecting with yourself and your heart and beginning to understand who you are and what you want.

Sometimes I may have someone come on a workshop who has come because they want to meet a partner but while on the workshop they discover the their deep desire to have their own art studio or go horse riding. The revelations can be helpful inspiring and empowering. Someone may discover that they cannot say “No” clearly and simply and that though they may have wanted a partner they were never going let one in because they could not trust anyone (including themselves) to stand up and look after themselves. Once they can say “No”, however, it does begin a new journey and they can hope that they can emotionally grow in trust and beginning to allow someone into their lives.

The workshops are all about realising that anything is possible, connecting to your deep truth, strengthening your boundaries so that you feel safe enough to be open to receiving love and taking that next step. In reality it is a very simple workshop full of creativity and play but what it does is help you reconnect to your “feelgood” place and put your vibration back on track. In short in helps you get back into your flow or feeling your “mojo”. And of course when you are feeling good you know deep inside that anything at all is possible. Not only this when you are feeling good you have often “let go” of expectations and the judgements you had around yourself and life and will allow yourself to go places, meet people or do things that you would not necessarily have done before. Like a child you are more heart-centred and in this way the partner that you might meet or the adventure you might could be a more heart centred one. Many people who met their partners soon after the workshop told me that they were not the kind of partner they would normally go for but now having gone for them they would not go back. They were relating from their heart and from an inner relationship with themselves and this reflected back to them the kind of partner they were meeting.


So really my workshops are a place to create a relationship with yourself and from this place to open up to all the possibilities of who you are. Personally I find the journey endlessly interesting. What I find helps me is to regularly slow down and connect with myself which I am doing right now and then I can connect with another layer and another part of this fascinating journey of life and find what I want to do next. At this moment it is to write this blog and to really express what I am doing with my work.


Some people have wanted to say that I am helping people to find a partner and yes sometimes some people do find partners but what I really feel I am doing is to help people find themselves and heal their hearts. Once someone has found themselves and knows more about who they are and what they want then they are already beginning to live a more exciting life.

Also for me if I am loving life and what I am doing in life then I am also much more likely to love others. Am I surrounded by love? Yes I would say so. My work in different community centres is incredible and it feels golden to my soul to do that work. I love my parents and my step Mum dearly and all my sisters (I have five) and I have an amazing extended family. Did I always feel like this? No, because my heart was half closed because of all the grief, disappointment and betrayal I felt I had received but once I started to be creative and live the life that I wanted to live (plus a lot of therapy) I felt that I could start to open my heart and live a full life. Also my work in community arts also really changed my life and opened me up too.

The funny thing for me is that I thought I wanted certain things for my life, but what I have ended up with is a varied and extraordinary career which has lead me to do all kinds of things I would have actually wished for. I now teach and coach internationally and I have amazing friendships with my friends and my family. I still have wishes and dreams and I allow myself to work out how to make them come true. Currently I am writing a book on opening the heart to love. And I am daring to write and show up at the page and see what happens.

What I hope to do is help others with is this sense of who they are with what gifts they have been born with an with the encouragement to take a risk. I was speaking to my cousin who is a successful business owner and I asked him what gave him the confidence to do what he does and he told me that he felt that his confidence grows as his business grows and the real gift that he has is to keep taking risks. He feels that that is the main difference for him. So I hope to keep taking risks myself, to encourage others to take risks and to become a channel for love.