Awhile back ago I ran across this meditation exercise and was so impressed with it that I just thought I'd share it again now.

Heart Healing Meditation by Doreen Virtue, Ph.D.

Here is a powerful healing meditation to help you lose your fears about love and to cleanse your heart. You may want to tape-record this meditation with soft background music, so you can easily listen to it once or twice a day.

1. With your eyes closed, and in a comfortable position, take two or three very deep, cleansing breaths.

2. Visualize a beautiful cloud of emerald green light surrounding you. As you breathe in, you take this healing energy into your lungs, your cells, and your heart. Concentrate on your heart a moment, as you allow the emerald-green light to cleanse away any negativity that may have caused you to feel pain.

3. With a deep breath, be willing to allow the light to carry away any fears you may have about love. Be willing to release the fear of feeling love. You need do nothing else except breathe and hold the intention to heal yourself of the fear of love. Just be willing to be healed, and God will do everything else. Take another deep breath, as you become willing to release the fear of being loved, including the fear that if you are loved, you could be manipulated, tricked, used, abandoned, rejected, persecuted, or hurt. With another deep breath, allow all of these fears from any lifetime to be lifted and carried away.

4. Now, allow the light to cleanse you of any fears you may have about giving love. With a deep breath, be willing to release the fear that if you give love, you could be controlled, abused, deceived, betrayed, maimed, or hurt in any way. Allow all of these fears to be lifted completely, and feel your heart expanding to its natural loving state.

5. Allow yourself to release any old unforgiveness you may be harboring toward those who seem to have hurt you in a love relationship. Become willing to release unforgiveness toward your mother ... toward your father ... toward other parental figures ... toward your siblings ... toward your childhood friends ... toward your adolescent friends ... toward your first love ... toward those whom you dated and loved ... toward anyone you lived with or married.... Allow all of your hurts and disappointments associated with love to be cleansed and fully carried away. You don't want the hurt, you don't need it, and with another deep breath, it is lifted to the light where it is transmuted and purified. Only the lessons remain, and the pure essence of love contained within each relationship, since that is the only thing that was ever eternal and real within each of your relationships.

6. Now, with another deep breath, allow the light to cleanse you completely. Be willing to release any unforgiveness you may hold toward yourself connected to love. Be willing to forgive yourself for betraying yourself, for ignoring your intuition, or for not looking out for your highest interests. Give yourself a hug, either in your mind or with your arms. Reassure your inner self that you will never again engage in self-betrayal.

7. You now commit to following your intuition and discernment, so you could never be or stay in any relationship that would hurt you. Fully release the unforgiveness for any mistakes that you think you may have made in any relationship, including your relationship with yourself. And with another very deep cleansing breath, feel yourself healed, whole, and ready to enjoy the love that is the truth about who you really are.

As we lose the fear of love, we become more aware of the rich range of feelings that are part of our human experience.