“The Heart of Healing is a valuable guide to the process of healing. Regina wisely explains how a healing process differs from the quick fix of symptom treatment. She describes an ever-evolving path of healing from illness to diagnosis through the bumpy but enlightening road to recovery and growth.”
– Aminah Raheem, Ph.D
Founder & Spiritual Director
Soul Lightening® International
Author of Soul Return and Soul Lightening
“The Heart of Healing is a portal inviting all who face life’s inevitable healing challenges to join in a guided but personally owned journey toward wholeness. The abundant resources provided will orient even novices to the use of self-renewal practices. Readers are introduced to the wisdom of Regina’s favorite teachers, her challenges and hard-won progress, and compassionate observations of travelers on the path toward healing. Come in, explore, partake, and finally come home to yourself, perhaps for the first time!”
– The Reverand Dr. Patricia S. Medley
Pastor, Hope Lutheran Church
Freehold, New Jersey
“The Heart of Healing will provide you with healing strategies culled from extensive experience, traditional wisdom teachings, and personal stories, woven through with an exceptional, loving attitude. Regina takes readers through the process of healing, from the first shock of being hit by a malady to the slow recognition of the patience and courage needed to recover. I highly recommend this book.”
– Lydia Salant
M.A., L.AC., Therapist
“A timeless, heart-felt and life impacting book filled with powerful stories and lessons to illuminate a path to healing for every reader. Regina speaks to us from a place of grace, wisdom, and integrity. Her work is the North Star for all of us who wish to heal.”
– Lu Pierro
M.Ed, Ed.S, Grassroots Organizer
Worldwide Holistic Day
“As a breast cancer survivor, The Heart of Healing offered me priceless Self-care tools and practices that inspired and awakened the healer within me. It led me on a journey that enabled me to understand the connecting link between my mind, body and spirit – my heart – and helped me replace feelings of fear with feelings of peace and hope for my future.”
– Deanna Gallo
“This book is invaluable for anyone interested in living consciously from an awakened heart. The tools and reflections in it will help you meet the challenges of being present each moment, and will assist you with making wise, healthy choices. As an acupuncturist with a long-time meditation and journaling practice, The Heart of Healing supported the refinement and evolution of my conscious awareness. It provided me with stepping-stones home to my true nature, my authentic Self.”
– Betsy Baker
M.Ed., M.,Ac., Licensed Acupuncturist
“Regina’s beautiful creation is a gift that will assist you with opening to your unique healing journey. The insightful stories and Self-care practices will deepen your awareness, and help you discover pathways to the wisdom within your heart.”
– Kathleen Rose Schival
Licensed Massage Therapist
“Regina Rosenthal has walked through the fire of life and emerged victorious. In The Heart Of Healing she eagerly shares how our pains and celebrations expand our hearts’ understanding, compassion, and acceptance, and how this leads us to discover our true core of happiness and contentment.”
– Peggy Jaegly
www.NurtureForCaregivers.com
The Heart of Healing: Discovering the Secrets of Self-Care
Regina Rosenthal, PT, MA
Copyright © 2013 Regina Rosenthal
Published by: Dimensions of Wellness Press
Holmdel, New Jersey 07733
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photo-copying and recording, without written permission from the publisher.
This book is not intended as a substitute for medical or professional services. If expert assistance and/or counseling is needed, seek out the services of a competent professional.
Every effort has been made to acknowledge and contact copyright holders for permission to reproduce material contained in this book. Copyright holders who have been inadvertently omitted from acknowledgments and credits should contact the publisher; omissions will be rectified in subsequent editions.
The following trademarks, service marks, and certification marks are used by permission of the Feldenkrais Guild® of North America: Feldenkrais®, Feldenkrais Method®, Awareness Through Movement®, ATMSM, FISM, Functional Integration® and Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner. CM
“Trager,” “Mentastics,” and Dancing Cloud Logo are registered service marks of Trager International, which licenses their use in the USA to the United States Trager Association.
Quotation by Max Depree: Copyright©1989 by Max Depree. First appeared in LEADERSHIP IS AN ART published by Doubleday. Used with permission of the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency and the author.
First Edition, 2013
Book design by Donna Miller and GKS Creative
Cover Design by GKS Creative
Author photograph by Andrea Phox Photography
ISBN-13: 978-0-9885267-1-6
Library of Congress Catalog Number:2012915477
For all courageous souls who seek to awaken, heal, and remember.
With love and gratitude to Jolie, Mayzie, Noah, and Alec, children of the Light, who heal through their loving presence.
Introduction: How to Use this Book
Chapter One: The Whole Heart
Chapter Two: The Journey
Chapter Three: Recovering Reverence for Life
Chapter Four: The Heartbeat of Healing
Theme One: Healing Involves Showing Up and Being Present
Chapter Five: The Heart’s Pathway
Theme Two: Healing Is a Journey Versus a Single Event
Chapter Six: Coming Home to Your Heart
Theme Three: Healing Involves Self-Healing and Coming Home to Your Heart and Your Authentic Self
Chapter Seven: The Heart’s Illuminating Wisdom
Theme Four: Healing Is a Lifelong Process of Growth and Development
Chapter Eight: The Heart’s Voyage Through Change
Theme Five: Healing Involves Change and Movement
Chapter Nine: The Joyful Heart
Theme Six: Healing Is Stimulated by Life-Affirming Qualities of the Joyful Heart
Chapter Ten: Coming Full Circle
Theme Seven: The Common Denominator in All Healing Is Love
Epilogue
Glossary
Endnotes
Bibliography
Appendix A: Ten Loves
Appendix B: Resources
Appendix C: Questionnaire
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Table 1: Calls to Action & Related Themes
Table 2: Archetypes
Table 3: Examples of Energy Deposits & Withdrawals
Table 4: Values
Diagram 1:
Feldenkrais® Hand Positions (Steps 1 & 2)
Diagram 2:
Feldenkrais® Hand Positions (Steps 3 & 4)
Diagram 3:
Feldenkrais® Hand Positions (Steps 5 & 6)
Diagram 4:
Dimensions of Wellness
If one advances confidently in the direction of his own dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
–Henry David Thoreau
As a child, I often gazed up at the night sky, studded with a vast array of captivating, brilliant stars. I was filled with awe. I felt small amidst the beauty and magic, yet knew on some level that I was also connected with it. I can remember praying at these times, with the innocence of a child, “Please let everyone be healthy and happy.” During these moments I became one with the Great Mystery* within the life force that animates the universe, the life force that also animates healing. Though I did not understand the depth and breadth of this until much later, it fascinated me from my earliest days.
Spiritual study, meditation, yoga, and work in the healing arts as a physical therapist deepened my awareness, and I realized that nothing exists in a vacuum. Everything in the universe occurs in relationship within a vast grand design. My personal and professional experiences with healing enhanced my conscious connections within this grand design and revealed:
The Heart of Healing describes the heart-and-soul journey and evolutionary process that occurred as I witnessed and experienced healing. It led me to write this book now, when learning to consciously and actively participate in our healing is so vital. I invite you to join me on a healing journey as you read through these pages, participate in the Self-care practices, and discover what is at the heart of your experiences and healing. Like the constellations above, we are all interconnected and interdependent; we are all conduits of healing for ourselves and one another. Please note that whenever Self is capitalized I refer to your Higher Divine Self, your eternal and unlimited true nature, which exists beyond your thoughts and beliefs. I use lowercase self to refer to the human self and its associated qualities. This is done merely to help you, the reader, differentiate between the two. Direct, personal experience of the Divine within occurs each time you connect with your authentic Self, heart, and soul. This connection was pivotal to awakenings and healing I have witnessed, and is a core concept within this book.
On your journey you will observe, listen to, and be present with a wondrous source of healing that awaits you within yourself. You will also plug into the limitless source of life and power within the Great Mystery, which interconnects and animates all living things. Healing will challenge you to remember and reestablish your internal and external connections within this grand design. As this life force flows through your whole being, it will endow you with the ability to engage the paradoxes of life and healing – the sorrow and the joy, the efforting and the effortless, the doing and the being. With each reconnection to it, your sense of purpose, aliveness, joy, and inner peace will be renewed and energized.
The Heart of Healing stems from a desire, a promise, and a prayer.
The desire to participate in healing journeys originated during the earliest years of my life, whenever I stood in wonder amidst the Great Mystery.
The promise emerged during my years as a physical therapist. Clients often urged me to write about our sessions in order to help others. This book is a response to their requests and the promises I made to each of them to bring this forth.
The prayer is for you. The Heart of Healing is your story as much as my own. I wrote this for anyone who has been on, or is beginning, a journey of healing. It is not only for those who seek personal healing; it is also for those who seek greater understanding of the healing process as they serve in the healing arts as physicians, surgeons, dentists, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, therapists, holistic practitioners, nurses, clergy, friends, or family members.
May your awareness, strength, compassion, insight, and wisdom be enhanced personally and professionally. May your understanding and presence deepen and help establish partnerships in health care with those you serve. We all need continuing education about healing to best support ourselves and one another. This will help us meet life and health challenges with a whole heart, described by cultural anthropologist Angeles Arrien as a four-chambered heart, one that is full, open, clear, and strong.1
Begin with me, then, with a desire to heal, a promise to share the journey, and a prayer that your way is illuminated. The journey will be challenging, but remember this: The Latin derivation of desire is “from the stars.” The world of healing is a vast and often mysterious universe, approached through science yet also needing heart-and-soul presence. Each of us who participates in the process, in any way, are like stars that inhabit the realm, shedding light amidst the darkness, in service to everyone and everything.
The Heart of Healing describes the lifelong journey home to our heart and authentic Self that occurs through healing. It reveals how this journey and Self-care practices guide us to empowering discoveries at the heart, or core, of our being. Healing is a continuous process, not a single life event, and it is stimulated each time we commit to showing up, being present, and connecting with our heart’s pathway. Healing begins with the heart, and all paths lead back to the heart. During my early years as a physical therapist, I came to a realization about healing that has stayed with me to this day – we will experience many healing journeys from the moment we are born. This book is based on a core belief that developed from this awareness – healing is a lifelong process of growth and development.
Healing begins with the journey back to our hearts, often initially encountered when we face a health crisis, pain, distress, or dis-ease – a lack of ease in our physical, mental, emotional, and/or spiritual being. Too often, our hearts are torn because we have fallen into dualistic thinking and living. Guided by either/or choices, we perceive individuals and situations as good or bad, right or wrong, this way or that way, rather than being open to both options. Returning to our heart transports us to a multidimensional world with beginnings and endings, joy and grief, pain and possibility, love and loss, beauty and the beast.
The healing journey is challenging. During moments of insight, light illuminates the darkness. Comedian Betty Davis stated, “Old age ain’t no place for sissies.” When I think about the courageous journey that healing is, I am reminded of a client who said, “My tears are like rain … they water my soul and enable it to grow.” She helped me envision the path that leads to the heart of healing.
The Heart of Healing is written for anyone who finds life turned upside down and difficult in the face of:
The Heart of Healing is written for anyone seeking to learn more about healing, and how to be more active in their healing process. The clients I worked with for more than twenty-five years were empowered through this educational process.
The Heart of Healing is designed to expand awareness about healing as a lifelong journey of Self-discovery and empowerment. Each of us encounters seven universal themes as we explore healing. The return to our heart is at the center of each theme:
Theme One: Healing Involves Showing Up and Being PresentThis theme describes how our heart influences showing up and being present during life and healing. As we awaken to our heart, the ongoing heartbeat and pace of our lives and healing shift.
Theme Two: Healing Is a Journey versus a Single EventThis theme describes healing as a process in which life experiences continuously unfold and evolve over time. The heart’s pathway is our compass, indicating true north every step of the way. As our heart energy circulates through our body, mind, emotions, and life force, or soul, we will encounter pathways that flow, as well as detours and obstacles.
Theme Three: Healing Involves Self-Healing and Coming Home to Your Heart and Your Authentic SelfThis theme describes three aspects of Self-healing: the return journey home to your heart; reconnection with your authentic Self, or true nature; and awakening to your unique heart-and-soul wisdom.
Theme Four: Healing Is a Lifelong Process of Growth and DevelopmentOur hearts reside at the central hearth of our home, our being. This theme describes the continuous process of education healing takes us through, and how heart intelligence illuminates the way. As this intelligence touches and awakens our body, mind, emotions, and soul, the flame that keeps our hearts whole is reignited.
Theme Five: Healing Involves Change and MovementOur life and whole being changes as we heal. Theme Five relates how healing involves change, movement, endings, beginnings, and many transitions. The journey may necessitate a change of heart and movement along different pathways in our life and relationships. Wise listening, courage, and compassionate presence help integrate heart-and-soul wisdom as we move through change.
Theme Six: Healing Is Stimulated by Life-Affirming Qualities of the Joyful HeartCreativity, play, laughter, beauty, and gratitude are vital to healing. Theme Six illustrates how these life-affirming qualities support easeful, abundant flow of heart energy and provide nourishment for growth, development, wholeness, and healing.
Theme Seven: The Common Denominator in All Healing Is LoveThe heart’s essence is love. Theme Seven shows how love supports and births us into new dimensions within the Great Mystery, from birth through death on our human journey. Healing involves coming full circle and returning, through love, to our authentic Self, heart, and soul.
Each theme within The Heart of Healing will guide you on an individual journey that is about heart and meaning, and a path to your authentic Self. As you learn, grow, and gain insights on this journey, you will find answers to several questions:
Your awareness will also deepen as you read, reflect, journal, and consistently participate in Self-care practices at the end of each chapter. These practices will help you discover ways to ground, integrate, and practically apply new insights. Your ability to use internal and external guidance, resources, and support will also be enhanced and will empower you and your healing process.
You will prepare for your journey to the heart of healing in chapters one through three, where you will be introduced to healing stories and three aspects that flow through all seven themes:
In chapters four through seven, you will explore the seven themes through client stories and my personal journey. I have highlighted these narratives throughout the book with headings that signal a call to action relating to each theme, as noted in Table 1. Self-care practices at the end of each chapter will help you apply these actions to your healing journey.
Table 1: Calls to Action & Related Themes
| ACTION | THEME |
| Awakening | One: Healing involves showing up and being present. |
| Processing | Two: Healing is a journey versus a single event. |
| Returning | Three: Healing involves Self-healing and coming home to your heart and your authentic Self. |
| Illuminating | Four: Healing is a lifelong process of growth and development. |
| Changing | Five: Healing involves change and movement. |
| Life-affirming | Six: Healing is stimulated by life-affirming qualities of the joyful heart. |
| Loving | Seven: The common denominator in all healing is love. |
At the end of this book you will find further support for your healing journey and Self-care practices. There is a glossary to clarify concepts; glossary words appear in bold italics when first used. Reference details appear in the endnotes section, followed by a bibliography with additional resources you can consult. Appendix A contains a worksheet for Tool 20 found in the Tools and Reflections section of Chapter Nine. Appendix B contains helpful Internet resources. Appendix C is a questionnaire I used when interviewing individuals in preparation for writing this book. Your responses to this questionnaire may help you begin to map out your journey and guide you to inner wisdom and resources.
The themes, process of Self-inquiry, awareness-tracking tools, and Self-care practices in each chapter are simple, easy to follow, and build upon one another. They can be used independently, in groups, and in self-directed or counseling formats. These supportive and educational strategies expand body-mind awareness and enhance Self-love, confidence, trust, and inner peace. A more purposeful and meaningful life will be manifested as you practically apply and integrate experiences and lessons learned during any healing process.
Practical application and use of Self-care tools will help you remember who you are, why you are here, and what has heart and meaning in your life. My life is renewed each time I use Self-care practices, create time for stillness, and consciously embrace and open to whatever arises within my life and healing process. In these moments, when I reconnect with my heart, soul, and the Great Mystery, I feel nourished and whole. I return to life afterward more centered and grounded. Everyone and everything in my life benefits when I use these practices.
More important than the messages in this book are the powerful questions and answers that will emerge in your heart and soul as you read. You will ask yourself:
It is my hope that this book helps to create a bridge for all of us, from where we are now to where we seek to be in our healing process, growth and development, and human evolution. The bridge will be formed from what we discover during archaeological digs and scavenger hunts on our healing journeys, where understanding, answers, and meaning are sought.
As you explore healing, clues will be presented to you through three questions:
These clues are like Zen koans, teaching riddles for which no solutions can be attained through logical reasoning and cognition. As with koans, clues temporarily jam cognitive processing to allow deeper awareness to emerge.
As you begin, commit to a clear, compassionate, sturdy, and loving presence with your conscious, aware, wise Self. Know that this presence is supported each time you catch a glimpse of and recollect the Divine presence within you, seen through your heart, soul, authentic Self, and the special, unique gifts you bring into the world. The answers you seek will be found within, as you deepen these connections.
In As a Man Thinketh, James Allen states, “A man sooner or later discovers that he is the master gardener of his soul, the director of his life.”2 We are each gardeners in our lives. As we till the soil of our inner being, we reinforce our connection with the natural world and our true nature, our authentic Self. This will help us to harvest and thrive on what nourishes us. Applying the Self-care practices and reflection tools in The Heart of Healing will help you tend your life’s garden. May you uncover compassionate support and peace within during healing challenges, when chaos and turmoil arise. May your garden be bountiful with life force, your own and that which you discover. May the resources, gifts, and talents you bring forth be blessed, and a blessing for others, during abundant seasons of life and healing. May love touch and heal you as you make and manifest your own healing miracles!
* Please consult the glossary at the end of this book for definitions of words in bold italics.
To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must cultivate our personal life; and to cultivate our personal life, we must first set our hearts right.
–Confucius
A Yiddish proverb states, “The heart is the organ which sees better than eyes.” After I graduated from physical therapy school, I sent notes to family and friends who supported me, with a quote from Helen Keller: “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.”1 My heart and mind, working in collaboration, have proved to be a great partnership for life and my personal healing journeys.
Like many of you, I was not always aware of this collaborative process. I needed to recover heart-centered awareness, Self- compassion, and wholeness as part of my healing journey. My return to wholeheartedness involved rediscovering what and who kept my heart open, full, clear, and strong. This became lost to me, as it does to many others who seek healing, when I followed a busy, head-centered lifestyle. As a result, I became disheartened and lost sight of other life options. I closed my heart to survive the chaos, confusion, and uncertainties I faced in daily life. I lost the love of life and sense of play I knew as a child, and participated half-heartedly in my life. I lost connection with my heart and my authentic Self, my true nature, and I doubted my ability to change things. Like many others, I lost touch with what had heart and meaning in my life. I became weak-hearted, and the light from my soul dimmed. Each time I returned home to my heart during rigorous and challenging healing journeys, I realized my heart contained the foundational key from which all healing would begin and evolve.
By the time I completed traditional physical therapy training in my late thirties, a kaleidoscope of life experiences had imprinted on my heart. I had faced challenges such as miscarriages, illness, and the premature deaths of friends and family members. In the years that followed my professional training, my heart was again challenged as I faced two marital separations and trauma after a life-altering automobile accident. Daily stresses accumulated – raising a family, returning to school, and running a private physical therapy practice. My challenge was to learn how to live consciously and joyfully in a complex world. To remain awake, aware, and present, I needed to apply Self-care and healing practices on a consistent basis, while I engaged in “full catastrophe living,” as described by mindfulness meditation teacher Jon Kabat-Zinn. I needed to use and embody the heart-centered lessons I was learning, in order to ground my healing process.
In this chapter you will read about the heart’s innate wisdom. This wisdom awaits your discovery on your healing journeys and flows through each of the seven themes.
In today’s world we often neglect our heart’s wisdom, so vital to life and healing. Unlocking that wisdom and uniting our heart and mind has been at the core of virtually all healing I have witnessed or experienced. In The Heart’s Code, psychologist Paul Pearsall describes results of experiments that measured electromagnetic fields around the human body. These showed that the heart generates the largest electromagnetic field of any body organ, several thousand times more powerful than that of the brain.2 Like binary stars, the mind and heart orbit together, the mind around the heart, the heart around the mind. What is most important for healing is understanding how they serve each other in this binary relationship. Our natural inclination is to see the mind and heart as a hierarchy, in which the mind rules the heart or the heart dominates the logical-thinking, rational-acting mind. This is not the map of healing. One does not rule the other. Rather, our hearts and higher minds need to be in partnership.
My everyday mind, working mechanically in linear time, has the capacity and intelligence to think and reason. Mind is a dutiful, highly effective source that I can count on to bring plans and goals to fruition in everyday reality. It can also draw me out of focus when my “monkey mind” takes over through attachment to external distractions, emotional upheavals, and/ or everyday life and drama. When this occurs, I can use Self-care practices and Self-compassion learned during healing to engage my heart and higher mind, referred to as HeartMind in Oriental medicine.3 My challenge has been to ensure that wisdom from my HeartMind informs my everyday mind, versus having everyday mind, conditioning, and defensive ego take charge of and run my life. Heart and mind are both needed, in service to living a full and on-purpose life.
In Oriental medicine, integration of the thinking and feeling self, or xin, resides in the heart as HeartMind. It is here that the intelligence and consciousness of both the heart and mind are respected and valued. The heart, in Oriental medicine, is considered the emperor or empress of the kingdom, holding the shen, or spirit, of the individual. It creates harmony between body, mind, and spirit. When the heart and mind dissociate, and mind becomes head of state, reasoning powers take charge. We disregard feelings and intuitive knowing, see bodily dysfunction and distress as pathology, and treat what arises as the enemy. This split is defined and treated as deficient Heart Spirit in Oriental medicine. In Western medicine, by contrast, the anxiety and depression that results from this are too often treated with drugs that alter physiology and brain chemistry. We seldom recognize the loss of Heart Spirit, and what we don’t recognize cannot be addressed.
For a long time, I developed and lived from a conditioned belief that my everyday thinking mind directed my life, with my head versus my heart taking over and running the show. This created a split and dissociation between my body, mind, and heart. The body-mind split did not begin with me, but centuries ago when French philosopher Descartes stated, “I think, therefore I am.”4 In conversation with a Native American chief, Swiss psychologist Carl Jung became aware of the Western world’s denial of the heart. The chief demonstrated how his people thought with their hearts versus their heads – the reverse of the norm in Western society. Jung recognized how unconscious he and Westerners had become about the heart-mind split.5
I realized this heart-mind split was present one night at work years ago after concluding my final client session for the day. Alone in my office I was dutifully writing up daily patient notes when I suddenly became aware of being amidst a profoundly alive silence. I glanced around the room – bookcases filled with books, walls holding professional certificates, plaques with philosophical sayings, a stack of client charts on my desk. I suddenly and unexpectedly heard an inner voice saying, None of this will keep you warm at night. My husband and I were separated at the time, and I had moved out of our home. As I sat in stillness, I became aware of how living from my head, following unconscious habits, and strategizing had disconnected me from my heart. My heart was out in the cold. I became aware that my ego had taken charge while my heart barricaded itself behind physical and emotional armor, in order to survive betrayal (including Self-betrayal) and the loss of a dream. In order to survive, my ego put a lid on unexpressed fear and rage after the breakup of my marriage.
At the time, my ego tenaciously clung to survival behaviors, though in retrospect I see these no longer served. Through therapy and bodywork, it became apparent that my mind alone could not handle the stress and overload I experienced. Another language and presence was needed – that of my heart. I had ignored body symptoms such as weight gain and insomnia, pushed through mental exhaustion, ignored feeling depressed, buried rage, and kept busy to avoid any encounter with parts of me that felt overwhelmed or deadened. At the time, I believed life was a huge cosmic joke with no ultimate meaning or purpose. I cast aside my heart, unable to touch upon its painful messages. I was unaware of the wealth of intelligence it also contained, which could serve me.
I closed the door to my heart, which had become inundated with unresolved fear, anger, and grief. It was this rage and grief that would later serve me during therapy and bodywork sessions, and bring me to edges where I began to explore and process dark and ominous shadow places within. An essential prerequisite, however, involved developing patience and letting go of self-judgment, before HeartMind wisdom could begin to soften and reopen my heart. As I called upon this intelligence during daily living and healing, a more vibrant life force gradually returned.
Today I consider the heart a kaleidoscope that collects, contains, and holographically reveals the many dimensions where change affects our lives. In a purely physical and physiological dimension, the heart is an organ that receives and sends blood to every part of the body. Central to our physical body, the heart pumps blood, oxygen, and life force to every cell, as it guides the flow and integration of this essential energy through our whole being. Our physical hearts are the central, core part of our being, vital for life to continue. When our hearts die, life as we know it ends. By contrast, people may remain alive after being declared brain dead, as their hearts continue to preserve life.
In an emotional dimension, our hearts are the central source of feelings and often nonrational, nonlinear intelligence. This is in contrast to our heads, or minds, being a source of intellect. Emotion, or e-motion, can be described as the energy of our hearts in motion. When we engage in something “with all our heart,” or when something is “near to our heart,” or “touches our heart,” we are moved and influenced through this connection with our heart’s energy and intelligence.
Psychologists Daniel Goleman and Howard Gardner expanded my awareness of the emotional dimension. They emphasize the need to recognize and include emotional and other intelligences (artistic, musical, emotional, intrapersonal, linguistic, kinesthetic, spatial, and logical) in learning and social interactions. The Institute of HeartMath® has studied links between emotions, heart-brain communication and physiology, and cognitive functioning. Their scientists identified a physiological state that optimizes learning and performance. In this state, emotions are calm and harmony exists between our brain, body, and nervous system. This state facilitates enhanced focus, attention, reasoning, and creativity, which are all vital for learning, achievement, and social interaction. Their work is helping to reduce stress, enhance health and well-being, and strengthen connection with our hearts.6
In a mental dimension, what we “take to heart” we consider seriously. Our feeling, sensing, and intuitive natures all bring information to our minds, for our minds to filter and process. This often involves transcending ego mind, which causes us to defend ourselves to avoid pain and suffering. When we are able to use life experiences as vehicles for growth and development, our consciousness expands and embraces HeartMind intelligence.
In a spiritual dimension, we connect with heart intelligence each time we consider what has heart and meaning in our lives. When we bring consciousness to both doing and being aspects of our lives, we are better able to sense when our intentions are clear, when our “heart is in the right place,” and when we are in sync with our life path and purpose. One of the longest journeys I have taken in healing has been from my head to my heart. This process involved continuous lab work – the practical application and integration of new experiences and insights with current body, mind, heart, and soul wisdom.
Over the past fifteen years, I have been most fortunate to meet and study with cultural anthropologist Angeles Arrien, an award-winning author, educator, and consultant in medical, academic, and corporate settings. Because of the extensive time and respectful relationship we have shared, I refer to Angeles Arrien in this book as Angeles, versus the traditional way of citing sources by last name. Her workshops expanded my awareness relative to my life and heart. Learning to witness and consciously interact with the current state of my life and heart, a process referred to by Angeles as tracking, proved invaluable. Tracking helped me develop a more aware, nonjudgemental ego and enhanced connection with my observer, or witness self. Tracking the state of my four-chambered heart helped me realize where I was (or was not) being full-hearted, open-hearted, clear-hearted, and strong-hearted in my life.
You, too, will discover that what you can name and track you can interact with and integrate more consciously into your whole being and life. Tracking is an essential Self-care tool. It develops objectivity, discernment, a sense of safety, and deeper intimacy with your authentic Self and your relationships. It brings curiosity versus judgment to what arises and what you focus on, and supports the creation of beneficial change within you and in your life. Using tracking and an Awareness Journal will help you draw wisdom and wholeheartedness from your wise-hearted spiritual warrior. This part of you embodies and expresses heart-and-soul wisdom through your visions, commitments, discipline, courage, integrity, and service. It will empower you to become the hero or heroine of your life.
The Awareness Journal, presented as a tool at the end of this chapter, was created by Betsy Baker, acupuncturist and senior instructor of Process Acupressure. She developed it to help others explore Self from a place of nonjudgmental, compassionate presence; and to facilitate the healing of pain and suffering that may have occurred from habits, beliefs, and conditioning we accepted as truth. Observing our conditioned minds in the moment, being present, allows us to see what is real. This brings choice to our actions. Betsy’s holistic approach to journaling uses all available senses and body-mind signals to deepen awareness. This approach enhances connection with our authentic Self, our heart, and our soul. It helps us become aware of how our thoughts and language often become our biology. The Awareness Journal will empower you to connect with and use your internal GPS in everyday life and on healing journeys. It will also help you set clear intentions and goals.
In Molecules of Emotion, Dr. Candace Pert points out how the body is often treated medically with no regard for the mind or emotions. She notes that psychologists have also treated the mind as separate and disconnected from the body.7 Through researchers such as Dr. Pert we are reminded of the need to consider healing the body through the mind and the mind through the body. Our heart is always present as the bridge between the two. Healing begins to occur as we come home to our hearts, when we grow from either/or duality thinking (mind or heart) into holographic thinking that combines HeartMind intelligence and wisdom. The whole is more powerful than the sum of the parts in this model.
Coming home to your heart and making the trip from everyday mind to your heart is key to enhancing your response ability, your ability to respond. Although you may not be able to change what happens to you, you can choose how you react or respond. Response ability is enhanced as you learn and grow through health challenges. This expands your ability to thrive versus merely survive and helps you deeply appreciate moments of renewed meaning and inner peace.
Austro-German poet Rainer Maria Rilke suggests we “be patient toward all that is unresolved in our heart, and try to love the questions themselves.”8 May your heart and mind open to the wisdom within your HeartMind as you read The Heart of Healing and experience discoveries in yourself and your life. May this bring renewed Self-love, trust, and compassion to your as yet unanswered questions.
Tools and ReflectionsThe road of life twists and turns and no two directions are ever the same. Yet our lessons come from the journey, not the destination.
–Don Williams, Jr. American novelist/poet
Max De Pree, author of Leadership Is an Art, reminds us: “We need to give each other the space to grow, to be ourselves, to exercise our diversity. We need to give each other space so that we may both give and receive such beautiful things as ideas, openness, dignity, joy, healing, and inclusion.”9 May you discover and walk this path through the tools and practices in each chapter that follows.
As you creatively and playfully follow your heart during Self-care practices, you will uncover powerful secrets for health and well-being. These will help you shift perceptions, integrate insights, and bring your inner and outer worlds into harmonious alignment. As you focus on your journey, your heart and soul will reveal guidance and resources during Self-care practices.
Plan for a one-month commitment to using the Awareness Journal that follows. This will stimulate healing and connection with your authentic Self. Devote a minimum of thirty minutes daily to journaling and Self-care practices. Be sure to add a tincture of Self-compassion, love, and joy to bring a lightness of being to your journey. You are the gift you have been waiting for.
When one is a stranger to oneself, then one is estranged from others.
–Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Keeping an Awareness Journal will help you slow down, listen to, and compassionately witness yourself and your journey.10 The process will help you develop a way to plug into your built-in directional system, your GPS. It will enable you to access guidance and wisdom within your authentic Self and will deepen awareness on your Self-healing journey. You will then be able to update your “owner’s manual” and wisely bring your unique gifts and talents into the world.
Step 1: For the first two weeks make entries in your Awareness Journal a minimum of four to five days per week. Gently go within as you bring your awareness from outer space to inner space. “Check in” and scan your body, mind, emotions, and soul three times daily: morning before getting out of bed or shortly after you arise, midday, and in the evening before you retire. Use various channels (visual, emotional, auditory, physical sensations, movement, intuition) to gather information. Briefly describe what you experience as follows:
Step 2: For the next two weeks check in daily and scan your body, mind, emotions, and soul. Notice what you witness. Make entries in your Awareness Journal four to five days per week. At the end of each week describe what you are now aware of in your journal. How has this inner guidance affected your daily living and choices?
Step 3: Reflect on your process and discoveries at the end of each day, week, and at the end of two weeks. What perceptions, conclusions, patterns, new awareness, or insights did you uncover? How do these serve your Self-healing process, or not? Notice anything that requires change for your highest healing.
Step 4: Continue this process of developing your witness self by scanning your body, mind, emotions, and soul throughout each day. Make entries in your journal as needed, describing what you witness and want to practically apply and embody. Use your journal to connect with and honor your authentic Self and your heart’s wisdom, as revealed through your body, mind, emotions, and soul.
Buddhist monk, teacher, and author, Thich Nhat Hanh, describes mindfulness as being in the here and now. The Dalai Lama describes mindfulness as “the practice of bringing our accumulated knowledge, wisdom and insight to bear upon the present moment.”11 According to Rick Hanson, Ph.D., “Mindfulness involves the skillful use of attention to both your inner and outer worlds.”12 Mindfulness is taught at many schools and centers. Appendix B will guide you to resources.
Mindfulness is an essential Self-care practice and a skill. As you develop this skill, your body-mind will become more congruent with your heart, soul, and your authentic Self. Begin with the following mindfulness practice. Take time afterward to reflect on your experience in your Awareness Journal.
Start in a comfortable seated position, where you will be undisturbed for fifteen to twenty minutes. Select a time of day that works best and turn off phones and other distractions. Sit in a chair or on the floor. If you are on the floor, make sure your hips are higher than your knees; use a bench or cushion and cross your legs if comfortable.
Breathe through your nose, and bring your awareness to your breath as it enters and leaves your nostrils. Notice the pace, depth, and temperature of your breath. Sense how your abdomen rises and falls with each breath, and how your breath flows automatically, outside of your direct control. If your mind wanders, or a noise distracts you, refocus on your breath. Let your breath be like a wave that washes in and out over whatever arises. Name and acknowledge any distractions, thoughts, images, and sensations, without reacting or attaching to them. Thich Nhat Hanh suggests we experience the miracle of our aliveness through each breath during mindfulness meditation stating:
Breathing in I know that I am breathing in.
Breathing out I know that I am breathing out.13
Slowly and gently bring yourself out of meditation when you are ready. Take a few moments to write about your experience in your Awareness Journal. Allow whatever occurred to be, and notice anything you label “good or bad” or “right or wrong.” Be patient with yourself and your process as you cultivate a more conscious presence with your authentic Self, your life, and others, through the Self-care practice of mindfulness.
* Courtesy of Betsy Baker, M.Ed., M.Ac., Licensed Acupuncturist
The journey of a thousand leagues begins from beneath your feet.
–Lao Tzu
TKatha Upanishad1