Heart
An understanding of the Heart*
​
Why the focus on healing through the Heart?
At a time when the merging of head and heart is a much-mentioned topic and also one worked within many healing approaches, it seems to me we are still learning about the Heart, it its physical and metaphysical role in general and in specific, personal terms.
​
How well do you know your heart? How far have you explored it? What quality of connection do you have to your heart, and through your Heart to all aspects and dimensions of you?
_edited.jpg)
When looking for scientific evidence that might relate to the benefits I have experienced in working with healing through the Heart, I was surprised to find that pioneering research by J. And B. Lacey already in the 1960s and 70s found that the heart communicates with the brain in ways that affect how we perceive and react to the world around us. In 1991, neuroradiologist D J. Armour coined the term “heart brain”. His studies concluded that the heart possesses such a complex and intrinsic nervous system that it can be considered a brain of its own.
​
The heart and its special connection to the brain, the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems have been the focus of many studies (e.g. K. O. Burleson & G. E. Schwartz 2004; M. Miller M.D. 2019), several of which revealed that the electromagnetic field produced by the human heart is measurable, can be detected up to 3 feet around the human body, is stronger than that produced by other organs, and it is a form of communication that includes emotion-based signals. While some of the details of the information contained in this field still have to be researched further to be interpreted fully, it can be said that the heart’s electromagnetic field reflects our emotional state. According to the Heart Math Institute, the nervous system can detect this field around others and respond to it – meaning that our emotions, and thought/belief structures where we link them to feelings, affect others in invisible ways. These unseen connections have the effect that we can feel other people’s emotions, even when we are not conscious of it.
As psychocardiological and neuroradiological research continues, there are some things that we have come to know:
​
-
The heart starts beating before the brain is fully formed
-
The heart has its own nervous system, independent of the brain
-
The nervous system of the heart is in communicates with the brain continually
-
The heart sends impulses to other body systems and synchronises with them
-
The limbic system/emotional brain develops before the logical brain
Oxford University research led to the understanding that our physical heart rhythms affect our brain’s ability to process information. 40.000 sensory neurons are involved in relaying information from the heart to the brain. The heart’s electromagnetic field is 60 times larger in amplitude and 5000 times more intense than that of the brain. It also produces and releases oxytocin (Gutkowska, Janowski, Mukaddam-Daher, McCann 2000), meaning that a happy heart adds to our wellbeing in biochemical as much as emotional ways.
So what are the ways in which we can use what we know about the heart and influence the way our heart communicates with our brain and vice versa, as well as with other areas of the body? In my experience, getting to know your own heart and what you may be holding there in terms of emotions, belief or thought patterns, trauma or programming through experiences, allows you not just to more deeply know, love and appreciate yourself, and come into harmony where stress levels, emotions and biochemistry are concerned. It also leads to you becoming aware of what you are bringing to the energetic Heart* connection and that Heart field that links us to all around us. Are we feeding it with anxiety, frustration or upsets, or are we adding uplifting and enriching qualities? This conscious choice opens up when working with Heart~Light healing.
​
As you learn to allow yourself to be calm in your heart, maybe as a first step to being comfortable and safe in your physical body, you reach a space of being able to purely feel, without the need to compare, match, judge, or think of what should come next. And this is exactly where you can start knowing Your Self (with capital S, to mark going into a deeper understanding of Self, connecting with your I AM Presence, your Higher Self, your Soul, Oversoul and your Source Self).
There is a way of bringing heart and mind into alignment so that there is not a “mind over matter”, a solely thought process based decision making (which for some people leads to only knowing themselves through rationalisation and thinking a feeling rather than, say, feeling happiness, love, fulfilment as a whole-body experience). The merging of heart and brain means establishing communication between the two on equal terms, which also opens the connection heart-brain-physical body, including subtle energy bodies and in this way knowing Your Self as Whole.
​
Already many centuries ago, the Chinese Five Element theory showed an understanding of the heart that goes beyond its physicality: “The importance of the heart is partly explained by the ‘Shen’ which is the mental-spiritual aspect of the heart. [...], the Fire Element has the ‘Shen’ which is sometimes translated as ‘mind’ and sometimes as ‘spirit’.” One of its functions is “to make us fully conscious – in the sense of being physically and emotionally self-aware” (A. and J. Hicks, Healing Your Emotions, 1999; p 64)
​
In my healing work, the meditative healing journeys that are part of my consultations, I (literally) see the heart both as a physical connection hub and as a gateway of energetic connection to All That You Are. Making conscious use of this allows you to raise your frequency (and with it your awareness) step by step to that of your Original, Divine frequency code, your vibrational composition at the Source level. As you practice staying in that harmonious heart-head-body connection and in that higher vibration, a new sense of self emerges, a deeper calmness and trust and new freedom with new choices and new action toward a life that is wonderful and fulfilling for You. This will be the expression of who you truly are, through the balanced electromagnetic field of your heart and its fine-tuned communication system as much as through a resonant system of energetic pathways on the subtle energy levels.
​
*I am using Heart with capital H to express where I feel that beyond its significance for the physical body the heart also is a doorway of connection to subtle energy bodies and higher dimensions/spiritual aspects of the Self