As with anything that involves the ego, there is always a duality that exists and there are traps that one wants to avoid in using heart-centered awareness. The first is using the technique to avoid an experience and the pain and suffering from an experience. When you develop heart-centered awareness, moving into the observer state of consciousness allows you to take on fully the pain of the suffering. While this is good, you have now used heart-centered awareness as another defense mechanism. You can avoid this simply by setting the intent that you want to take on the whole experience with an open heart.

The second trap is sitting with something in meditation, such as taking on your unworthiness for hours at a time, during times when you are not in a state of heart-centered awareness. Then you will victimize yourself by being present with unworthiness, and it can overtake or overwhelm you. When you meditate with a pattern or a dynamic, limit your time in meditation and be sure your awareness resides in the heart chakra; otherwise, you will victimize yourself and wallow in your own illusions and false beliefs of who you are.