What does it mean to live from the heart?
In my first blog I wanted to share more about what it means to live from the heart. This can seem to many people like an intangible concept or something that is slightly out there or woowoo, but it really isn’t. It actually makes a lot of sense when you begin to understand it.
In our culture we are so conditioned to live in our head, experiencing life through the lens of the mind, our past conditioning, with little connection to our body or our hearts. This can give rise to a sense of disconnection, seriousness, a lack of passion for life, a lack of meaning and fear.
Compare this to how young children live – full of passion, wonder, playfulness, joy and innocence. They live from the heart! This is our true nature, our natural state, before we lost connection to our hearts, before we stopped listening to it’s guidance.
Follow your heart…
This guidance is contained in all great wisdom traditions but what does it really mean?
Following your heart is considered by some to be just a cliché, a romantic fairytale notion or new age rather than common sense, practical or helpful advice for life.
Like much ancient wisdom however, the wisdom of the heart is widely misunderstood, undervalued or ignored in mainstream thinking and the importance of listening to and following our hearts has been largely forgotten.
But what if our ability to follow our hearts held the key to us leading a fulfilling, wholehearted lives?
Why is the heart so important?
The heart is considered by many to be the most powerful energy centre in our mind-body system; the source of deep wisdom, profound truth, and intuition, and a powerful gateway for healing and inner transformation.
The wisdom of the heart is understood implicitly in mainstream culture, as when we are making important life decisions, we are often given the advice to “follow our heart.”
When we learn to rely on our heart for guidance, when we listen to and follow our heart, we naturally begin to live with a greater sense of passion and purpose, to live life in a way that is aligned with our deepest desires and so brings us greatest joy.
The Science of the Heart – Heart Intelligence:
We generally understand the brain as the centre of our intelligence; responsible for perception, understanding, learning and decision-making, and we view the mind as the source of our identity; responsible for how we experience and interact with the world (through thoughts, concepts and conditioning).
However, through many years of research, the Heart Math Institute, have discovered that the heart has it’s own complex nervous system (it’s own brain!), which is constantly communicating with the (head) brain to influence our mental and emotional processes, as well as govern and regulate many of the organ systems within the body.
The heart has been found to have an intelligence of it’s own, which is providing us with continuous guidance through our emotions and intuitive insights, as well as serving a fundamental role in restoring and maintaining harmony and coherence within the mind-body system.
The heart and the brain are constantly communicating with each other and in fact, the heart sends more signals to the brain than vice versa, suggesting that the heart informs and guides the head. The heart is able to access information and insights which are beyond the conscious awareness of the mind. Amazingly some studies even show that the heart is able to access information outside of linear time, so somehow intuitively knowing or predicting events that are yet to take place.
The fact that the heart is an important source of wisdom and higher intelligence has been understood intuitively by all of the great wisdom traditions of the world, which have spoken of the importance of “listening to and following the heart”. And as is so often the case, modern scientific discovery is now supporting ancient spiritual wisdom – showing how the heart is an important part of our inner guidance system, perhaps the source of our intuition. In other words - the head is following the heart.
The Power of the Heart – Our Inner Guidance System (Intuition):
According to the Heart Math Institute, the heart is the most powerful source of electromagnetic energy within the body and creates an energy field that flows through every cell and expands way beyond the physical body. The energy field of the heart is far greater than the energy field created by the brain or any of the other organs and can actually be measured using sensitive technology.
From a spiritual or energy perspective, the heart is also considered the most powerful energy centre, responsible for maintaining balance, flow and harmony throughout the entire body-mind system. The heart lies at the centre of our being, at the midpoint within the seven-chakra system (anahata chakra), and so is associated with the processes of balance, integration, healing and transformation.
The nature of the heart is love, and it holds the qualities of compassion, forgiveness, unity, joy and connection. It is the nature of the heart to connect, and it is through the heart that we connect more deeply to ourselves, to others and to what is truly meaningful in life.
The energy of the heart is one of giving and receiving, and it is through the heart that we receive and integrate the experiences in our lives into a greater sense of wholeness. It is said that when our heart is open and balanced, we are able to connect with, feel and process our emotions, experience our true nature, and listen to and follow our inner guidance.
Intuition has been studied extensively in the fields of psychology and neuroscience and is considered an important aspect of spiritual practice. Intuition has been defined as the ability to understand something instinctively, acquire knowledge or directly perceive truth without the need for conscious reasoning.
Both science and spirituality seem to point to the heart as the source of our intuition, instinctive knowing and deeper wisdom. Perhaps the energy field of heart is able to tune into a field of information that is beyond our conscious perception or awareness?
Once again, scientific insights reflect and reinforce spiritual understanding of the heart.
Uniting the Heart and Mind - Bringing the Mind Home to the Heart:
When there is harmony between the brain and heart, our thoughts and our feelings, this gives rise to a state of coherence and integration throughout the entire mind-body system.
Coherence and effective brain-heart communication and integration seems fundamental to optimum physiological, mental and emotional functioning, health and wellbeing. This in turn is essential for us to reach, experience and express our full potential, and to live wholeheartedly.
The research supports the notion that heart centred practices bring coherence to the mind-body system. When we deeply connected to our heart and follow its guidance, we are able to make wise decisions that are aligned with our highest self, and so naturally experience a deep sense of meaning and connectedness in our lives.
Heart Coherence Leads to Unity Consciousness – The Significance of the Heart:
The mind is a wonderful tool – but without connection to and guidance from the heart, it can become fearful and destructive. It is likely that many of the challenges we experience both individually and collectively (as a society) arise from the head not listening to the heart, and therefore cannot be solved with the head alone.
Becoming centred in our heart can be deeply healing and transformative as it is through the heart that we are able to move from polarity to unity, from conflict to harmony, from discrimination to equality, from dissociation to connection, from fragmentation to integration, and from isolation to belonging.
It is through our heart that we experience unity throughout our being and with all of life.
This is the essence of unity consciousness.
Learning to Listen to the Heart:
The language of the heart is very different from the language of the head. The language of the heart is the language of our emotions, gut feelings, sudden insights, intuitive nudges, synchronicity, deep callings and inexplicable knowing.
The heart communicates with us in a quiet voice and the more we more we learn to listen to the heart, to pay attention to the subtle ways in which it communicates with us, the more our intuition grows. Intuition or heart-based intelligence can be cultivated through practice and the more we are able to bring our heart and brain into a state of coherence, the more we are able to access this higher intelligence and deeper wisdom.
Something truly incredible happens when we allow our heart to lead our lives.
In my next blog I’ll be sharing some top tips for connecting to your heart and listening to your own inner guidance system.
Sending so much love and light,
Hannah x x
Commentaires