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

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/entrer-dans-mon-coeur-lianne-schneider.html

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...

The Observer Effect - a principle and a poem

It is often stated that of all the theories proposed in this century, the silliest is quantum theory. 

In fact, some say the only thing quantum theory has going for it

is that it is unquestionably correct.

Michio Kaku

Observer Effect 

http://www.lianneschneiderart.com/Art/Digital-PaintingPhotoArt/i-JNwHRGb/A

The other day, I mentioned that study and research are often part of the way I write a poem. That probably seems odd to most people who, these days at least, consider most poetry to be spontaneous "stream of consciousness" writing. But for me, that is almost never the case. I study, explore an idea, maybe even a very complex idea such as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle or the Observer Effect. Often the two are conflated - thought to be virtually the same thing. They aren't really at all and I must confess that the mathematical calculations involved in explaining or demonstrating the Uncertainty Principle are WAY over my head. I did, however, manage to distinguish between the two ideas enough to write a poem that involves both principles to some degree.

In the simplest of terms, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle involved measuring sub-atomic particles - shooting a photon of light through a hole in order to strike (and therefore locate) an electron at some distance. "The uncertainty principle in its standard form actually describes how precisely we may measure the position and momentum of a particle at the same time — if we increase the precision in measuring one quantity, we are forced to lose precision in measuring the other" (Heisenberg,1930). Wikipedia (thank heavens for Wiki) gives this example - "If pitchers threw electrons instead of baseballs, and an overhead camera and side-facing camera were placed somewhere between the pitcher's mound and home plate so that the exact position of the electron could be determined in mid flight, then without the cameras being turned on, the pitcher would throw straight balls, and with the cameras turned on his pitches would start out straight but gyrate wildly after their pictures were taken. The more clearly we know where the ball was halfway toward home place, the more trouble the batter will have in getting ready to hit it with his bat" (Wikipedia, Uncertainty Principle). Don't ask me to explain that more clearly than that - lol - I can't do it.

The Observer Effect, on the other hand, is an attempt to explain that uncertainty by saying the very act of measurement alters the course of the photon and changes the outcome. For an electron to become detectable, a photon must first interact with it, and this interaction will change the path of that electron. Think of the way a billiard ball hits another ball to change the angle of movement in order to get it into the pocket. It is also possible for other, less direct means of measurement to affect the electron. This principle is much easier to understand in psychology than it is in physics! In a psychology study, for example, the very act of observing a subject is most likely to change the subject's behavior in a number of ways. If the subject knows he/she is being observed, he/she will alter behavior in accordance with expectations or to meet the expectations of the observer. Countless psychological studies have demonstrated this Observer Effect and often with very negative outcomes. There are two studies you have probably heard of...the first is the Stanford Prison Study where students were assigned roles as guards or prisoners in a section of the campus set up to look and feel like a prison. The second is the Milgrim study on obedience to authority where people were directed to give electrical shocks to a stranger behind a wall if they answered a question incorrectly. (I'll let you look those up if you are interested in knowing more about them but you can start here).

From all of that study and pages of notes, eventually I arrived at my own example of the Observer Effect and hopefully, you won't see any direct connection to either quantum physics or psychology but will be able to sense the underlying research that triggered the idea!

OBSERVER EFFECT

Before I was the me you see
I was nothing and I was everything,
pure potentiality in a field of grace,
the sum of all my probabilities.
And who is it who observed me into being,
compressed me from energy into matter?
Why you did…and you…and me and God
who wished to see his face in mine
to know herself as love through me.

But every moment unobserved
remains my potentiality unrealized.
I know who I am – but I cannot experience
the fullness of that knowing without you.
Alone I have only the isolation of “knowing”
but through you, in your observation of me,
in my reflective observation of myself,
that knowing becomes substance, reality.
If I know myself as love but have no one
to whom to give or to share that self
I never have the awakened experience
or what love really is or of who I truly am.

Yet if I were alone in the Universe
with none to speak to of these things
I would still not ever really be alone
for I could look into the face of God
and see myself – divine - as all I am
and all that I can be…if I but love.

  

© Lianne Schneider August 2011

 Heisenberg, W. (1930). Physikalische Prinzipien der Quantentheorie, Leipzig: Hirzel English translation The Physical Principles of Quantum Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1930.