Begin to listen to your HEART– a how to…

“Your true heart is not subject to chaos or limited by pain, fear and neuroses, but is joyful, creative and loving…It is the core, the essence of your being, a reservoir of joy, powerful love and infinite compassion that lies within you.”

Ed and Deb Shapiro, in Listen Up! Why Being in Your Heart is Better Than In Your Head

Light in the Darkness

I have been talking a lot about listening to your heart these past few posts. But what does that actually mean and how do we do it? The ancients, philosophers and physicians alike, believed the heart to be not only how we “know” something (as the Hebrew people believed) but actually the very origin of thought, emotion, passion and reason. All those years ago, the wisest knew what we have forgotten or repressed. In our busy, logical culture, to suggest listening to one’s heart is tantamount to elevating emotion, sentimentality, impulse and passion above reason and logic. But that’s incorrect – the heart is the center of both reason and emotion,  practicality and passion. Listening to the heart certainly isn’t about being unreasonable or out of control in any way, but rather being at peace, centered, calm and connected to an inner wisdom we all possess if we will but listen.

To do that, as I mentioned the other day, one must silence the mind to some extent. Not ignore it…just get it to rest while we think with our hearts first. The mind is capable of exquisite creativity but it’s also bound to the physical aspects of life…with all its fears and uncertainties – will this work? Will I have enough? Will I succeed? But the heart cares only about our well-being (both physical and emotional), our happiness, and our spiritual growth and enlightenment. So how do we start to listen?

First, we have to consciously confront our bias in favor of the mind. Making decisions, we are almost certainly going to seek the rational and logical answer and ignore any intuition that suggests that might not be the best way to go. Intuition communicates an inner heart wisdom to us in many ways and we must recognize the signs in order to really listen. Have you ever made a logical decision about a career path, a relationship, an opportunity but had your stomach tie up in knots? Suddenly, you’re not so sure – some other center of knowing is giving us a different answer, suggesting that our decision may not ultimately be the right one. More often the heart speaks in hunches, sudden insights, or a profound certainty that is different from our analytical and linear resolution to our problem.

The first actual step toward listening and living from the heart, then, is to quiet the rational mind. How? Well, the ancients, especially in eastern thought and philosophy but also in Western religious thought, knew that one had to substitute one repetitive sound or thought for all the racing noisy thoughts that fill our heads all the time. Adopting a mantra (a Sanskrit word that means to “protect from or free from the mind.”) is a very effective way. Traditional mantras include the well known “Om” – a sacred syllable representing the source of life. Pronounced Aum with an extended resonating hum, this sound is one of the most natural to all human beings and combined with a technique of breathing in on the first part of the syllable and breathing out and holding the second part, this mantra can quickly rid the mind of extraneous thought, opening it to “hear” the messages from the heart. But you can accomplish this same purpose by repeating any single or double syllable word that you associate with something greater than the mind. Christians and Jews might use the Aramaic word “Abba” which means “father” or more intimately, “daddy.” It is considered one of the sacred names or titles of God.

Sitting comfortably with eyes closed and repeating some mantra is one of the first tools of meditation…and that’s the second step toward quieting the mind and opening the heart. I’m no expert and I’m not as consistent as I wish with meditation practice but I do have some thoughts and some guided meditations designed specifically to open the heart or “clear” the heart chakra. That’s where we’ll go next time – releasing the energy of the heart. I'll include a soundtrack for a guided meditation and some other suggestions for how to get started or improve your meditation practice. Till Tuesday then...I'll leave you with this profound truth from Franz Kafka - 

Why we should listen to our hearts...

"...the only way to know yourself, is to be yourself. And the only way to be yourself is to listen to your heart."

Mike Dooley

Entrer Dans Mon Coeur

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One of the most important aspects of wholehearted living...living from the heart...is learning to listen to what your heart is actually telling you. Certainly, we've all heard that advice before - follow your heart, your heart always tells you the truth. But how does one actually do that? And is there any reason to believe that the heart really can communicate something different than what we "think" in our heads? Yes, actually there are a number of scientific reasons to believe that "listening" to the heart is important and how to begin to do that. 

Believe it or not, there is a significant amount of research that suggests that the heart controls the mind rather than the other way around. This is tremendously difficult for many of us to accept, living as we do in a mind-dominated society where logic and analytical thinking seem to be the driving force behind our decision-making. But according to Dr. Joel Kahn, in an article entitled, "7 Scientific Reasons to Listen to Your Heart (Not Your Brain), the heart is actually the "little brain" with 40,000 neurons communicating with the brain and the whole field of research into this communication is called neurocardiology. So the heart speaks to the brain and the body in four particular ways - through the nervous system, by hormones produced in the heart itself, biomechanically through blood pressure waves and with "energy" information from the electrical and electromagnetic fields of the body. 

The findings are rather surprising - the heart communicates with the brain far more often than the other way around and the heart emits far more electrical energy than the brain as well. Probably one of the most startling facts to come out of the research is the fact that the electromagnetic field of the heart can be measured by EKG anywhere on the body but also from several feet away! 

Here's the kicker though -  "Activity in one person's heart can be measured in the brain waves of another person." The electromagnetic field of two individuals (human or pet and human), touching or within a few feet of each other, can interact so that energy activity in the heart of one individual is measured in the brain waves of the other. The act of touch for healing therapies can be postulated to be due to this method of communication." The electrical activity of the heart and the brain can be guided into a synchronous electrical rhythm easily measured and displayed by simply focusing on positive and loving emotions emanating from the heart. This state of organ “coherence” is associated with improved higher level functioning, lower blood pressure and cortisol levels, and improved immune system function." (Dr. Joel Kahn). There is apparently a lot to be said for the "laying on of hands" for healing another person and there have been some incredible proofs offered in the past few years including one shared by Dr. Gregg Braden where the healers didn't even touch the sick person - they just "sent" healing energy to the sick person and in that way completely shrunk a malignant tumor. The entire process was captured on time lapse sonograms. 

All well and good but that still sounds as if it's all about science and the mind - there must be an emotional component to the idea of listening to the heart and it's that component that is the foundation for learning to be aware of what the heart is trying to tell us. Clearly, one of the first steps in this wholehearted living process is learning to respect but at the same time quiet the mind.

More on that on Friday - and some of the rest of the steps to following your heart...

Lessons from heartbreak

"Only love can break a heart, only love can mend it again." 

Gene Pitney - lyrics to the song Only Love Can Break A Heart

Avec Tout Mon Coeur

(With all my heart)

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We've all heard the phrase broken heart, I'm sure...and most of us, at one time or another believe we've experienced one. Broken or breaking hearts are the subject of countless novels, movies and most of all, popular songs. The young lead character, Sadie, in Abby McDonald's, "Getting Over Garrett Delaney" poignantly and dramatically proclaims, “You can die of a broken heart — it's scientific fact — and my heart has been breaking since that very first day we met. I can feel it now, aching deep behind my rib cage the way it does every time we're together, beating a desperate rhythm: Love me. Love me. Love me.”  Love affairs that don't turn out well, involvement in relationships that are toxic or constantly hurtful can certainly make us feel this way. I've felt it myself several times in my life. Therapists might suggest that such heartbreak comes from an excessive neediness or a feeling of inadequacy or thinking oneself not good enough to merit being loved. Even more likely though, is heartbreak after a loss. Grief is one of the chief causes of heartache. 

But Sadie is right...there is such a thing as a broken heart. Doctors have identified a very real medical condition called "broken heart syndrome" that in most cases is serious but short-lived and from which a person can fully recover in a very short period of time. But broken heart syndrome can actually be fatal. According to the American Heart Association, "Broken heart syndrome may be misdiagnosed as a heart attack because the symptoms and test results are similar. In fact, tests show dramatic changes in rhythm and blood substances that are typical of a heart attack. But unlike a heart attack, there’s no evidence of blocked heart arteries in broken heart syndrome. In broken heart syndrome, a part of your heart temporarily enlarges and doesn’t pump well, while the rest of your heart functions normally or with even more forceful contractions."

The syndrome is more common in post-menopausal women than anyone else but it can happen to anyone. Also called stress-induced cardiomyopathy, broken heart syndrome is experienced as "sudden, intense chest pain — the reaction to a surge of stress hormones — that can be caused by an emotionally stressful event. It could be the death of a loved one or even a divorce, breakup or physical separation, betrayal or romantic rejection." It could happen after a sudden surge of intense anger too, or other losses that are closely associated with self-image like the sudden loss of one's career, the loss of a child, sometimes even the loss of a beloved pet can trigger actual heart break. And as the American Heart Association reminds us, "It could even happen after a good shock (like winning the lottery.)" The syndrome is also associated with depression and severe anxiety which can be triggers and the New York Times (February 2010) reports many other emotional but also physical triggers of broken heart syndrome. Non-emotional triggers like a sudden drop in blood pressure, a surgical procedure, an adrenalin surge due to fear or adverse drug reactions are just as common triggers. 

And yet, if you can weather the immediate storm of the initial heartbreak, which may definitely require medical treatment, or as in the case of ongoing depression or what I call "slow heartbreak," therapy or counseling, there are countless lessons and precious treasures that can come out of that experience. Friendships are deepened by shared burdens or grief and you learn who will walk with you during the darkest of times. Most of all, you learn more about who you are, what you're made of, what matters to you and you learn to acknowledge your own feelings and needs as "okay." Getting to the bottom of depression - or a broken heart - takes work and commitment but it's worth every second. Ultimately, you'll learn that heartbreak is actually part of the human experience - not just a silly drama. 

In the midst of a heartbreak of my own, I wrote this poem to express my new understanding:

 Hearts Were Meant to Break

Hearts were meant to break.

Love…requited…bursts them wide open

expanding them ever outward with the

awesome power of the big bang,

photon upon photon of love light -

an endless grace, that energy moving toward

the sacred consummation of intimate union.

And when stars cavort and gaily pour

the glittering dust of diamonds

into the space that love has opened

to receive it, a heart so fills with light

that it must split asunder to make room

for the more of love, the overflowing

river of it, the numinous, luminous constellations

of love light dancing through the cosmos.

Love…unrequited…breaks it open wider still…

transforming brokenness into beatitudes,

slivers of past sorrows that now sparkle

like shards of glass catching moonlight.

But the shattered heart remembers,

with deepening gratitude, its shattering,

having tried with such determination

to share its rounded fullness with another

and found it breaking on the hard, square edges

of someone’s heart not open yet.

There is no way to put it back together.

Now broken, it moves ever outward

like the universe,  which is itself

Love’s energy radiant with grace.

Avec Tout Mon Coeur at my website

Letting the heart rest...wholeheartedness continued

"Most of the things we need to be most fully alive, never come in busyness. They grow in rest."

Mark Buchanan, author of The Holy Wild...

View From the Hill

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With all the talk of living from the heart, we sometimes forget that occasionally we need to "rest" our hearts in order to live more wholeheartedly over the long run. Just as the body needs physical rest, so, too, the heart needs emotional and spiritual rest and renewal. Certain meditation practices can help us to do this - breathing "into" the heart, visualizing the heart as resting in a special room in our "interior mansion," using bio-feed back to slow the heart rate, listening to a guided meditation on heart awakening or opening the heart chakra. For those inclined to prayer, repetitive prayers and mantras can bring the heart ease and still the mind that keeps the heart from its rest. St. Augustine apparently knew this practice as he once said, speaking of God, "Our hearts are restless until they rest in you." 

Being a country gal, often my analogies are taken from the cycles of planting and harvesting that I witness repeating year after year and it occurred to me that our hearts are much like the fields we rely on to provide our sustenance. Hearts, too, should lie fallow occasionally. 

Fallow Heart

The heart, like an overworked farmer’s field,

sometimes must lie fallow for a while,

needing some seasons of replenishment

lest we deplete its rich topsoil of love.

Plow under the compost of last year’s crop,

let the toxin of losses leach away so that

it can do no more harm to body or soul.

The heart is not a thing to be forced

to keep producing what it does not have;

no phony artificial additives result

in a harvest rich with nutrients of giving.

No pretenses can cover the destructive truth

of the constant erosion of our spirits

caused by the greedy agribusiness of takers

who reap the heart’s profits without due care.

In the season when our heart-fields lay fallow

we learn what nourishing renewal requires -

let the birds of hope return like welcome guests

to drop the clover seeds of restful waiting,

let the boundaries of respect and self-care

contain the precious topsoil of our loving self.

Let our wildflowers of self-creative growth

attract the butterflies to play upon our petals

with nothing further asked of us than just to be.

And let the majestic oaks that line our borders

shade us from the fiery heat of thoughtless passion,

be receptors for the rainfall of personal reflection

that will renew, restore and replenish our hearts

so they might bounteously give from love again. 

© Lianne Schneider March 2010

Next post on Friday - what to learn from heartbreak...

View from the Hill

Prints from $22

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Wholeheartedness - a journey into living from the heart

A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge.

Thomas Carlyle

Farm Country Autumn

There is a lot of talk these days about living from the heart, speaking from the heart and following one's heart. Self-help gurus have written volumes on the subject and the internet is chock full of blogs on similar subjects. Oprah has had whole series on opening the heart so as to live a happier life. I just couldn't resist jumping into the topic with both feet for a lot of reasons. (So I'm going to be spending the next few posts on the subject in one way or another). For me, the idea of living from the heart is like coming home to these rolling hills and autumn colors.

In the first place, something I learned in grad school that is closely related to this idea has stayed with me a long time...in fact, I can still quotes sections of my thesis having to do with just how the heart plays into the concept of living well and living right and I'll share that first today. But beyond that, I'm a big fan of social researcher Brené Brown and have heard her speak a number of times about the importance of wholeheartedness in having a happy life regardless of circumstances. And then I belong to a group of women who get together at least once a month to talk about alternative spirituality - living our lives not so much in accordance with traditional religious practices but guided by what seems to us to be something bigger, broader and more inclusive than that. Such conversations have led inevitably to talk about the role our heart plays versus the role of the mind. 

I don't think my group is unique - I think that millions of people around the world are seeking what in Eastern thought is called "enlightenment" - awakening to the idea that we are all so much more than just brains and minds sitting on top of a physical body designed to just carry it around. People are studying about energy centers, chakras, learning to "breathe into the heart," to get their minds out of the way or to silence it in order to hear what the heart has to say and feel the difference between heart energy and mind energy. 

As I said, this whole subject has been of great interest to me for most of my adult life and remains an active focus of my own spiritual practice. I find that the more I learn of this, the more I truly understand what my traditional religious upbringing should have taught me, what authentic religious practice ought to look like and feel like. It started with a simple statement in a theology book that I was using as a reference for a section of my thesis in grad school. The section was called "knowledge of God" and referred to a passage in Hosea 4:6 that reads, "My people perish (or are destroyed) for lack of knowledge..." Reading further, I discovered that in the Hebrew faith, one can only know something, but especially can only know God, from the heart. The heart is the center of knowing. That's it...one "knows" only from the heart - not from the mind. If you only comprehend something with your mind, you actually don't know it at all. 

Remembering this lesson many years later, when I took up the pen to write poetry again, and embarking on a relationship that many people cautioned me against, I wrote this poem, entitled "Heart Knowing."

Heart Knowing

          The heart has a language of its own.

Though I must silence my mind to hear it,

it thinks better than my head and remembers too;

this perfect center of my self-knowing,

is an ever faithful guardian of my truth.

The heart listens, hears a voice in the silence,

attending its ear to a word no other hears.

Attending its sight to a vision no other sees,

at the farthest edge of my hermetic solitude,

the darkest shadows of the moonless nights,

my trusting heart is lighted from within

with the incandescent flame of love.

My heart knows what my logical mind

cannot begin to even contemplate,

recognizes the sublime where my eyes

see too often a world both stark and cold

or the desolate dry expanse of the desert.

Only the graceful heart can truly know

another shining soul with loving intimacy.

It was my heart that knew you first,

a love my head could not have known,

and my heart that felt your inner beauty

pass through my very being like sunrise

through stained glass windows facing dawn.

My heart it was that named you Beloved,

Anam Cara, soul companion of my life,

my heart that takes its comfort, its very purpose

from the hopeful dreams of exquisite longing

for your heart, your body opening to mine.

This heart I offer you, my love, this mystical portal

through which we might together enter heaven’s gate;

is my simple gift of joyful, true “heart knowing”

after a graced and lifelong apprenticeship of love.

According to Jennifer Hoffman, author of the blog "Enlightening Life," The potential of your life exists within the knowing of your heart and soul. Yet you use your mind to determine what is possible and its limitations prevent the highest potential from being available to you." 

I cannot help but agree that the mind can be an obstacle to the kind of knowing we need if we are to live "wholeheartedly." I won't say that listening to my heart, knowing something in my heart, led immediately to happily ever after or that such knowing can't and won't ultimately "break" your heart (but that is a subject for another post). But I will say, quoting diplomat and poet Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton, "A good heart is better than all the heads in the world."

Farm Country Autumn

Gifts from the Sea

The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its nets of wonder forever.

Jacques Cousteau

Between Sea and Shore 

(I know I've posted this image before but it fits the post best!)

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Some days, my longing for the sea is palpable. Today is one of them...a gray, rainy day, the first of several this week...and I can think of nothing I'd rather be doing than walking along the beach at Cape Cod or Cape May, or Rehobeth, La Jolla, even Galveston before the summer crowds descend. The ocean in all its many moods and guises has always been a metaphor for my life's journey and there are times only those hours alone on a quiet beach can help me to decipher the lessons along the way. Some years ago I picked up a stone on the shore at Race Point, one of those diamond days - so perfect you could never forget it, shared as it was with my dearest friend. I've kept the stone for all these years and carry it with me to remind me of all the sea has to tell me.

  

THE WORRY STONE

I carry it in my pocket,

roll it around there letting

it shift from palm to fingers,

trace its contours with my thumb

and remember the day I

picked it up at the beach,

that brilliantly sunny

afternoon at Race Point…

how it caught my eye

amidst all the other pebbles

because it was not yet

perfectly smooth, though

quite well-polished, different

in hue and composition

from an ordinary stone,

a worn conglomerate

of sparkling quartz and

dull gray limestone,

one  black clast of obsidian

distorting the smoothness.

My thumb catches the fragment,

worries it, like one worries

a broken tooth with the tongue,

feeling the irregularity there,

probing it with questions -

what long journey has this stone

made to find itself on this shore?

How was it shaped by that voyage,

battered, abraded and pounded,

its rough edges worn down,

by long ages of pressure,

the travel across distant seas

cementing together all

the disparate metals and minerals,

compressed now into one

remarkable and unique stone.

I carry it with me in my pocket

and worry it with my thumb

to remind me of my own

uniqueness, melded from all

the separate pieces of self,

light and dark, rough edges

scoured by the unrelenting rhythm

of life’s ocean into a new whole

that is finally becoming me. 

Perhaps I'll get back to the sea this summer - but even if I don't, it's always in my heart, always reminding me that some things are eternal, that there is an ebb and flow to life that one must learn to accept. But like the tide...what seems gone will return...and find me waiting. 

The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/sea.html#284FQUeFS7VdxVWD.99

The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/sea.html#284FQUeFS7VdxVWD.99