Living wholeheartedly is a journey, not a destination.

At least that's what Brené Brown, author, speaker, and shame researcher, has discovered.

“Wholeheartedness is like a North Star," she said. "You can never get there. But you know when you’re heading the right way.”

For Brené and other teachers who help guide us to whole and openhearted living, the first steps along this path lead us back to ourselves. It may seem paradoxical that in order to show up with our whole hearts—in our relationships, in our work, and when dealing with challenging circumstances—we need to look inside first.

Instead of spending our days in silent, habitual self-judgment and criticism of various real and imagined inadequacies or shortcomings, we can begin to recognize those negative voices and learn to interrupt them. Then, maybe we can choose instead to give ourselves a break and treat ourselves with the same kindness and care we'd give to a good friend.

“Perhaps most importantly, having compassion for yourself means that you honor and accept your humanness,” said researcher and author Kristin Neff when definining self-compassion. “The more you open your heart to this reality instead of constantly fighting against it, the more you will be able to feel compassion for yourself and all your fellow humans in the experience of life.”

Pema Chödrön also explains how our various and fleeting attempts to deny or “fix” our pain actually serve to distance us from our most tender, open hearts and close us off to our true nature. Rather than turning away, our task, she says, is to embrace the difficulties of our lives.

“It is so basic in us to feel that things should go well for us, and that if we start to feel depressed, lonely, or inadequate, there’s been some kind of mistake or we’ve lost it," she wrote in Lion's Roar. "In reality, when you feel depressed, lonely, betrayed, or any unwanted feelings, this is an important moment on the spiritual path. This is where real transformation can take place," she said.

Giving Up Who You Think You Are

Connecting consciously with ourselves and others requires us to recognize and drop the stories that we use to define ourselves. If we are not trapped by who we’ve been conditioned to think we are, if we don’t confuse the circumstances of our lives with our true nature, then we can then show up not as a function or a role, but as what spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle, author of A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, describes as “the field of conscious Presence.”

“Give up defining yourself—to yourself or to others. You won’t die. You will come to life. And don’t be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it’s their problem,” said Eckhart.

Spiritual teacher Adyashanti also points out how susceptible those on a spiritual path are to building stories, and the value to others when we drop our ideas of who we think we are.

“It is in the absolute surrender of all conditions and requirements that liberation is discovered to be who and what you are. Then the love and wisdom that flows out of you has a liberating effect on others. The biggest challenge for most spiritual seekers is to surrender their self-importance, and see the emptiness of their own personal story. It is your personal story that you need to awaken from in order to be free,” he said.

Opening Up On the Road to Intimacy

Intimate relationships can provide very fertile ground for recovering our wholeness—especially when the open heart that comes with falling in love begins to close down. It is when our partners want something from us that we feel we don’t want or have to give that it may be time to stay and focus on our own hearts, according to Harville Hendrix, cocreator, with Helen LaKelly Hunt, of Imago Relationship Therapy.

“When we understand that we have chosen our partners to heal certain painful experiences, and that the healing of those experiences is the key to the end of longing, we have taken the first step on the journey to real love,” said Harville.

In The Seat of the Soul, author and teacher Gary Zukav defines that journey as a spiritual partnership between equals for the purpose of spiritual growth, as opposed to the perpetuation of personalities. “You begin to see that what is necessary to the health of your partnership is identical with what is necessary to your own spiritual growth, and that each of you hold the pieces that the other is missing….It requires the heart, not the intellect.”

Showing Up as Our Professional Selves

Although the spiritual quest for wholeheartedness may seem to be in conflict with the demands of the workplace, there are practices that can help us stay present with ourselves, our responsibilities, and our coworkers. Wellness expert and entrepreneur Bizzie Gold urges us to stop searching for perfect work-life balance by assuming it doesn’t exist and, instead, celebrate the moments that do. And even if our day-to-day doesn’t align well with our innermost desires, there are opportunities for self-discovery and transformation if, suggests nondual spiritual teacher Amoda Maa, we’re willing to stop looking for security, status, fortune, or fame.

“It’s not about bringing your spiritual qualities to work; you don’t have to be calm, loving, or even compassionate when boundaries are violated, you’re treated unfairly, or you’re bullied or ignored. It’s also not about having a job that fits in with your spiritual ideologies," she said. "It’s really not about the external form, which is likely to change over time. It’s about your inner state of consciousness. What you do does not matter, but how you do it does.” 

Finding Openheartedness In Dark Times

We face the opportunity to proceed toward wholeheartedness every day, whether our days are punctuated with mundane challenges or profound. Even in our moment of darkest grief, wrote Viktor Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning, about his spiritual survival as a Nazi concentration camp prisoner, there is a “choice to respond with malice, aggression, and blame, or reach deeper into your being for compassion, love, and beauty."

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves….Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way,” he wrote.

Mark Nepo made this kind of choice when he went to sit with his dying father. Instead of being able to connect with the man he’d known his entire life, he realized that he had to meet the moment exactly as it was—without past or future.

"I was challenged to feel the unnerving moment that I was erased from the consciousness of the man who fathered me and to enter a reality that existed beyond my feelings, my story, or even my life. Without denying either. It was also a deeply personal moment of knowing that all things are true. As a person, we must feel both the break in our heart and the current of life that lifts and twirls and carries us. This is what it means to be openhearted," said Nepo.