The closed heart hears all the good advice - "open your heart - feel the love - create loving kindness" - and then the closed heart retires back into the safety behind the protective walls of the brain and the heart's fortress. - To open your heart is not always an easy operation, so here is some advice if you want access to a by-pass operation for the closed heart:

Take a look at the smile of Buddha, the smiles of the ancient Greek statues and the smile of Mona Lisa: The archaic smile - the same faint smile greeting us through the centuries. Now smile to yourself - not the "Say Cheese-smile" of our modern camera-focused time, but the smile of Buddha and Mona Lisa - a faint upward curl of your lips - notice the effect on your eye-muscles and the effect on the muscles in your neck and throat - did something happen to your breathing when smiling the Buddha’s Smile to yourself? Take a few moments to smile to yourself and notice the muscles in your throat and neck, the muscles in your abdomen and your stomach and the muscles surrounding the center of your body at the level of the heart - try to follow the smile on its journey into your body.