The more the world seem chaotic and pressured the more important it is to be able to acess a calm or centered place inside ourselves. Connecting with our hearts can be one doorway to finding more calm. The heart is more than just a pump, and we are only beginning to recognise the full potential of this organ. It offers valuable information that is different to the knowledge of the brain.
Every emotion or feeling we experience has a sine wave that emits from the heart and can be measured up to ten feet outside the body. It is communicating if there is danger or not. Thus finding ourselves either in a state of survival mode often referred to as fight or flight or growth mode. When we in survival mode we are not as productive, creative or open as when we are in growth mode.
“When you change the way you look at things, the things we look at change.” – Max Plank (originator of quantum theory)
When we are in growth mode, an indicator we feel safe, then we are more open, curious and engaged which allows us to approach people, problems and projects differently. When we are in survival it often looks like ‘I be right’ or ‘I’m right at all costs’ or ‘my perspective is the only right one’. Notice when you are in conversation if you are open – Based on what I hear am I willing to change my point of view?
How do we know when we are in a place of alignment or growth?
If we can tune our of our minds and into our bodies or our senses. When we tune into our bodies we can notice if what we are feeling is making us feel heavy, contracted, smaller or lighter, expansive or open.
When we pay attention to our bodies then we shift into the present. Often we live in our minds and our thoughts are in the past or in the future. We are living from subconscious thoughts many times patterns laid down in the first seven to ten years of our life.
Not everything that is faced can be changed but nothing can be changed unless it is faced.
Our heart, sensory system, intution and parts of our brain are constantly tuning into what other people are emitting. Our heart is reading their hearts.
There is so much going on below the obvious that we are all tuning into. Body language, tone of voice, energy and intentions are being read . The heart is the receiver and the transmitter of these things. Heart Rate Variablity (HRV) that we are picking up on.
95 % of our thoughts are subconscious and 70% of those are about the past (guilt, resentment, unforgiveness) or the future (anxious, worried, fearful). The past and the future we can do nothing about. The only place our power sits is in the present. If we are feeling calm, present, care, gratitude, compassion we are conscious and present. From this space we can reflect and understand what it is that triggered those contracted feelings and the patterns of thought that accompany them.
Our Feelings are a mirror of the subconscious thoughts we are thinking
Our emotions help us notice where our thoughts are – in the present or in the past or the future. We have a choice to create the future from a place of desire or fear. Fear means we are locked into the habits that have got us so far. And we are hoping to create a future but our habits are running the show. If we want a future that resonates with our authentic self rather than our learnt patterns then we have to keep coming back to the present – to the heart.
An exercise to practice:
If you notice the sensations in our body are heavy and contracted.
- First, recognise it. Acknoledge it. This is how I am feeling.
- Then notice what thought am I thinking? This always happens. Ungrateful brat. I am not appreciated. The intention is to gain an awareness of what thought that is linked to the feeling.
- Pause and notice when I have this thought and this feeling. How do I act? This gives insight into a pattern of thoughts, feelings and actions.
- Now you have choice. You can begin changing the pattern at any of the these: thoughts, actions, feelings.
- If you begin with thinking: notice what is your judgement, assumption, or story or perspective. Then be curious ‘I wonder what kind of day the person has had?’ You cannot be in judgement if you are in the question.
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