A bold heart is a big heart. It does not play at being small. It is not tentative or hesitant. It moves forward, embracing life, creation, and its own ability to love. Most people do not carry a bold heart because their heart has been broken. We experienced rejection, abuse, or abandonment as children and so our heart was wounded. The wounded heart is carried forward into adulthood, recreating more hurtful situations for itself. A wounded heart suffers from the still unmet needs of childhood. It is always looking for that which will fix it, seeking nurturance in other people, money, food, alcohol, self pity, injury, or illness. A wounded heart cannot live fully because it is not whole.

How do we heal our hearts? How do we go from woundedness to boldness? How do we move from scarcity to abundance? It begins by making a commitment to love. A commitment to love is an intention to align with positive energy. It is an intention to heal, to seek only that which is highest and best for ourselves and others. We create positive energy by cultivating loving thoughts and emotions within ourselves.

I recall a story about a reporter who interviewed baseball umpires. He asked these umpires how they called a pitch a ball or a strike. He asked two umpires about their methods. Both said: "I call it the way I see it." He asked another umpire, "How do you call balls and strikes?" The umpire answered: "That pitch isn't anything until I say what it is."

You are the umpire of your life. Every day the world appears to throw people and events at you. These people and events aren't anything until you say what they are. You create your experience. If you see the world through wounded eyes, you will see hurt, rejection, lack, struggle, and pain. If you see the world through the eyes of a bold heart, you will see opportunity, abundance, and victory.

I may be rejected a hundred times. I may feel hurt and unworthy as a result. I can wallow in these feelings, setting myself up for more rejections, and more hurt. I can isolate myself to prevent rejection. These choices are out of fear and will lead me back into more experiences of fear. Fear becomes a way of life that I am comfortably uncomfortable in living. Have I had enough of rejection, of being hurt? Am I ready to live differently?

Choosing love, I begin to forgive all those who seemingly hurt me. I forgive myself for letting them. I forgive God and life for the suffering I thought was given to me. I change my perception, realizing that there is no such thing as rejection. There are only choices--the choice to leave; the choice to stay; the choice to suffer; the choice to be happy or not; the choice to love or to live in fear. It is a life changing decision to choose love as a way of seeing the world. This doesn't mean we never feel fear or anger. It means that we always return to love. We find ourselves in the midst of anger, of resentment, of frustration, of feeling hurt, and we choose to remember.

Realizing my suffering is self imposed, I begin to question my reactions to people and events. When I feel rejected, I step back from myself and see what is really happening. Have I set myself up for this experience? Did I fail to value myself? Did I treat this other person as an object, a prize to be won or lost? Did I care about this person or was I only concerned about winning his approval? Did I value myself enough to make decisions about what I wanted, to say how I felt, to express my inner being? Did I speak my needs, desires and ideas, or did I make the other person responsible for the relationship?

The intention to love causes me to raise my value. At the same time I value others by not imposing my will upon them. I am free and so is everyone else. I am free to be happy or not. Others are free to be with me or not. I can say to any person or thing, whether it be business or personal: "You are free to be with me or not. If you choose not to be, then I wish you well. If you choose to be with me, then let us appreciate one another as we are."

The Divine Presence has no desire that you suffer. The Divine Presence is pure love. You are an expression of this Presence. Its pure positive energy is always flowing through you. When you appreciate life, see the good in yourself, see the blessings others offer you, you align yourself with the pure positive energy of the Universe. As you spend more time appreciating self, life, and others you raise your vibration. The energy field that emanates from you becomes lighter, more approachable. You begin to attract more loving experiences.

We find our bold heart one step at a time. We find it by consistently refusing to be dragged into the depths of negative thinking. We can become aware that an inflow of negative thinking is a thought attack we launch upon ourselves. When my thought attacks hit, I say to myself: "I am not interested in this. I have seen this movie before. I wrote it, produced it, directed it, and starred in it a hundred times. It bores me; I'm not interested." I consciously change my thought to something more productive, more interesting, more in alignment with the Divine Presence from which I was created.

It takes courage to love. It seems easier to insist on being right rather than making peace; to be small and wait for the world to cater to our needs; to wear our hurt feelings on our sleeves because others don't fulfill our expectations. It takes courage to look at ourselves with honesty and compassion; to withdraw our energy from being a victim; to stop blaming.

A bold heart lives within your being. It desires to give of itself, to live life passionately and joyously, to live courageously. It is so bold that you may fear it, taking refuge in your suffering and discomfort. Love is nothing to be afraid of. It is your essence. Living with a bold heart is like coming home to your Self. You feel accepted by you, blessed by the Divine Presence, and free of fear.