In honor of good St. Valentine, let's explore heart energy and its value in creating health. From the perspective of energy medicine, heart energy is the center of your universe. Your heart connects the physical "doing" parts of you with the mental "thinking" parts of you.
The heart, as you perhaps already know, is related to the expression of love. You can love other people, your pets, the environment, or even a cause you're deeply committed to. You can receive love from as many sources. One excellent way of validating a decision or choice has to do with a palpable feeling around your heart center -- when your inner wisdom leads you to a self-affirming choice, you may actually feel your heart soften.
Dr. Dean Ornish, who some years ago made medical headlines by developing a program to reverse heart disease, was very well aware of this phenomenon. While he first publicized the now-obvious physical changes he encouraged in his patients (things like eating more vegetables, getting some exercise, and not smoking), he later came "clean" with another amazing revelation.
In his book, Love and Survival (1998), Dr. Ornish says that one day he was reflecting on the well-accepted fact that heart patients tend to be more hard-driving than the rest of the population -- to the point of hostility. And he had the insight to ask himself, "I wonder what makes them so hostile?"
This is exactly the type of questioning I encourage each and every one of us to engage in, by the way, in resolving life's most perplexing dilemmas. In Dr. Ornish's case, he came to learn that his heart patients experienced themselves as lonely and isolated. They distanced themselves from their families, friends, and co-workers. Because of this, they existed in the world as hostile beings who believed they had to fulfill their needs through the use of force.
Dr. Ornish credits his ultimate success in creating a program to reverse heart disease to the program element that his team developed to address his patients' perceptions of loneliness and isolation. This, by the way, is an example of the "Cause Behind The Cause" thinking that characterizes an intuitive approach to resolving stress.
Healthy heart energy is considered by energy medicine experts to be central in the creation of any state of health. Drs. Caroline Myss and Norman Shealy say, "Even if the words we use to describe our goal are financial security, social acceptance or political power, for example, love is still the primary motivator behind our choices. Ultimately, without love, remaining healthy, much less healing oneself, is almost impossible." (The Creation of Health, pg. 104)
Chinese medicine practitioners Harriet Beinfield and Efrem Korngold say, "The Heart is considered the ruler because like a benevolent and enlightened monarch, it is all-knowing and ever-present, sharing its wisdom unconditionally for the good of the whole...
"Just as the sun provides warmth and light for all of creation, so the Heart suffuses and permeates the body with consciousness, sensation, and feeling. The Heart maintains awareness by integrating and communicating experience, establishing an interconnecteness between our inner life and external universe. The Heart holds and envelops the Spirit." (Between Heaven and Earth: A Guide to Chinese Medicine, pg. 109)
What are some simple things a regular person can do to create healthy heart energy?
4 Tips to Create Healthy Heart Energy:
- Reach out to someone you haven't connected with in a while. Send an email. Phone. Connect. Let them know you care.
- Forgive someone. Not because you're "better" than they are. Because you understand that holding a grudge harms both of you, and in the bigger picture there's really nothing to forgive anyway. It's all about the journey.
- Share something of yourself with another being. This can take shape an any number of ways ... make a financial contribution to the charity of your choice, adopt a pet who needs a home, "adopt" a family who needs a helping hand, choose to do business with people or companies whose values you share, mentor a newcomer to your profession, etc.
- Give a fellow human the benefit of the doubt. We all have bad days. We all say things we later wish we could take back. We all make poor choices. Sometimes we even change lanes without looking. Be generous!
Happy Valentine's Day to you!
Resources:
Love And Survival
The Creation of Health
Between Heaven and Earth
Elizabeth Eckert can help you explore how simple everyday choices create health — or undermine even the best of intentions. With a background that ranges from energy medicine to structural bodywork to developmental psychology, this "Stick-To-It Coach" has the experience to support you in creating the healthiest possible expression of — you!
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