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Acceptance is one of those feelings that is grossly misunderstood. Many think that adopting an attitude of acceptance means passivity or the condoning of violent or malicious acts. This need not be the case. Acceptance merely means to acknowledge a given situation ‘as is’. Typically we tend to cause ourselves stress by resisting what it. This may be a response that is habitual and not very well realized until we open our minds and become more observant and insightful about our own process.

If we can truly open to a sense of acceptance we can remain engaged in life without uselessly forcing our own agenda. Instead of using precious energy to resist or fight in vain, we remain open to many more possible and potent outcomes. It is truly amazing to watch what happens when you truly embrace acceptance… perhaps the most amazing thing is that so many problems simply fall away!

Since acceptance permits you to remain neutral, you can see more clearly where the best efforts are to be made in a given situation. The calmness that accompanies acceptance can open you to wider perception and it helps you to move from a position of blaming to one of resolving problems. And the best part of all…you dump a significant source of self created stress! As with anything, acceptance is not something you simply decide to have. It is more like a journey you embark on stopping at many roadside attractions before reaching your destination.

The process of learning to accept can begin by learning to be more comfortable with silence; it may grow faster within you if you learn to release tension and stress in general; developing you silent witness or observer self are great additions to your travel kit.

Our recording, Applying Alchemy: Turning Concepts into Reality (session #8 in our 12 Keys for Life and Self Mastery series) has more information, suggestions and guided techniques for you to use to help with the development of this very valuable skill. You can find out more here http://www.livingenergyworks.com

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Anahata chakra symbolizes the consciousness of love, empathy, selflessness and devotion. On the psychic level, this center of force inspires the human being to love, be compassionate, altruistic, devoted and to accept the things that happen in a divine way. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Imbalances or distortions in our chakras and energy field lead to problems with our thoughts, feelings and actions. How we experience ourselves, life and others is mediated through our energy field first then travels to the nervous system and the rest of our body and mind.

Unbalanced heart energies as experienced in relationships may be best known as codependency. Codependency is a term used to describe a relationship between people where there is an expectation that the other will “make them whole” or provide what was “lost” at an earlier stage of life.  It seems that this could describe our modern day understanding/approach to relationships, but the term co-dependency helps to describe it and begin to develop the awareness necessary to move to a place where our relationships can become life enhancing and nourishing for all.

Instead of looking within at a wounded part of oneself and healing it, codependents search externally for the answer to their pain and healing. This circumvents development of a whole, healthy sense of self and a real ability to function freely in the world. The reasons for codependency vary widely, are typically unconscious, and rooted in deep beliefs and family legacies.  Until recently codependency was a typical pattern of how relationships evolved and unfolded in our western world.

Below our heart chakra are three chakras associated with the lower self or mind. These three chakras are: the root located at the base of the spine; the sacral located above that and below the navel; the solar plexus located between the navel and the tip of the breastbone. Unbalanced energies in these energy centers manifest generally as preoccupations anchored in fear, misdirected passion, power struggles and identity problems. These areas obviously cause us their own concerns but they also can add to the difficulty of having healthy heart energy.

The Heart Chakra
It is in the heart that we have the ability to move beyond the judgment and analysis of the intellect into acceptance, compassion and wisdom.  As we ground our energy and center within our hearts, we transcend or move beyond the ego where our thoughts feed emotions such as fear, anxiety, guilt, shame … all emotions that don’t feel good and deplete our energy system.

When you are in your heart you develop a sense of inner peace, presence and a capacity for deep, unconditional love.  You effortlessly surrender to the vast and expansive inner silence. Judgment is absent.  You might find yourself expressing deep compassion, empathy, care, kindness and forgiveness for yourself and others, without judgment or critique.  Judgment is an attribute of the ego and your mind. It is not of the heart.

 Having a loving heart is a state of being that we develop through awareness, consciousness, focused learning, honest self- evaluation and commitment.

The rewards/benefits of being willing to commit to such growth are:
Emotional peace and freedom
Forgiveness of self and others (unconditionally, all transgressions, are of the mind or ego)
Dissolution of negativity dissolves
Creation of space for nurture of self and others
Openness to extending honest, true love to others 

When addressing any level of growth and development, it helps me to remember that we are always becoming and not arriving…progress not perfection! Persistent kindness with ourselves is always a good idea!

English: "Visualization of the Heart Chakra" (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I find it fascinating to see what science is learning and how it correlates with what we have been taught by other disciplines over the ages.

Poets, Mystics and Philosophers speak of our hearts as a place of mystery and understanding beyond what our rational logical mind understands. It is a place where we can enter into the wholeness of our selves. Ancient traditions that have energy as a foundational part of their medicine, developmental awareness and spirituality point to the heart chakra as the center where our consciousness shifts and we can develop the capacity for balance between inner and outer worlds.

The word “chakra” is from Sanskrit and translates to “wheel of light.”  There are seven major chakras in the midline of your body, running from the base of your spine to the top of your head.  They are centers of electromagnetic energy.  Each of the major chakras is associated with a particular function physically, psychologically and spiritually.  They are connected to each other and to your body’s organs through an extensive network of fluid-like energies, referred to as nadis or meridians. These channels run parallel to your central nervous system. Each chakra looks like a swirling vortex.  Energy moves through it like a cyclone or water moving down through a funnel.  By alternately spinning clockwise and counterclockwise, our chakras maintain a dynamic balance between receiving and building energy (clockwise motion) and releasing excess energy (counterclockwise motion).

The heart is identified as the place where we:

• Develop the ability to attune to self and other
• Access deeper awareness of and capacity for spirituality
• Contact the aspect of self beyond enslavement of thought and emotion
• Connect with our deepest nature
• Experience the present moment

Deepak Chopra speaks about the heart as “The Place of openness” where our sense of touch and emotional consciousness are located and where we contain the ability to give and receive unconditional love. He goes further in stating that it is where we can release feelings of isolation, pain, suffering and unworthiness

Spiritual traditions reflect that it is part of our life journey to use our heart’s energy to engage in self-reflection, connect with our Soul, move toward balance and develop healthy self-love and acceptance. When we do so, we bring a healthy flow of heart energy to our lives and are able to share that with others.

The heart chakra provides the possibility of opening into inner space where we can connect with wholeness, learn self-love and acceptance, and embrace the duality of life rather than be caught in the separatism of the ego with its judgments of good and bad, black and white. Positive, balanced qualities of the heart chakra bring us into resonance with love, acceptance, harmony, peace, compassion and devotion. Laughter can flow freely. We can cultivate balance, real intimacy and let go of resentment and jealousy if our heart energies are strong and coherent.

(For a technique that can help strengthen your heart energy see the guided meditation at the end of the previous post.)

Illustration of coherence: blue wave is coherent while red is not. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Science and the Heart

Neurocardiology, Psychoimmunology (Mind-Body) and Energy Psychology have all made significant contributions to what we now know about the heart and how we can “work” with it. TheInstituteofHeartMath, a research institute inBoulder Creek,CA, has been a major contributor to this research and has helped to provide a much clearer picture of the heart’s role in emotions, heart-brain communication, and stress physiology than ever before.

The Institute of HeartMath (IHM) is a non profit research and educational foundation that was founded in 1991 by stress researcher Doc Lew Childre and a multidisciplinary team of professionals.

IHM furthered research into heart physiology by looking at the HOW of heart logic and more specifically how it influenced behavior. They determined that through cultivating ‘heart intelligence’ …that is by using a method that creates coherent heart rhythms… the primitive emotional centers of the brain no longer dominated and a clearer perspective emerged that enabled greater intelligence to be brought to the management of emotion.

 I have seen this approach work very effectively in my personal life as well as with my clients. As we learn how to focus on our energetic heart in an open spacious way we can bring calmness to emotional turmoil, and often spontaneously have realizations that lead to greater understanding, meaning, resolution or healing of the particular dilemma underlying our distress. These realizations come easily, effortlessly and often lead the in a whole new direction that is much more beneficial than if we solely relied on the lower mind to problem solve and try to plan or mentally bully  our way out of problems.

 The Intuitive Heart

Another area that has been studied extensively at IHM is intuition. It has been found that not only is emotional intelligence enhanced by engaging the heart but it is also possible to develop greater wisdom and intuition as the heart is “used” in positive and health enhancing ways.

IHM has developed a simple straightforward approach to developing the strength, intelligence and influence of the heart on overall level of well being. It involves focusing on the heart, breath and feelings of gratitude or appreciation for a period of time as in meditation or using it on the spot in stressful situations. This helps to lead people out of knee jerk reactivity based on negatives emotions and helps to restore inner harmony. In addition to the psychological benefits, this method also has been found to have a highly beneficial effect on physical health.

 Some of the benefits are:
Balanced heart rhythms and hormone levels
Enhanced immunity
Increased DHEA (Helps slow changes associated with aging)

DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone) is a natural hormone produced by your adrenal glands that helps to regulate the overall balance of hormones in your body.  DHEA fuels your body.  Your body produces the highest levels during your twenties and then naturally declines with age.  Insufficient DHEA contributes to problems with your immune system, fatigue, depression, bone and muscle mass and much more.  Getting adequate rest, regular exercise and some exposure to sunlight contribute to healthy DHEA levels.

Studies have also shown beneficial effects on blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar, ADD and a myriad of psychological conditions. The magic of heart based approaches seems to be a result of the creation of coherent heart rhythms which result in more healthy and effective signals to the brain that encourage it to send healthier signals back down through the whole body.

Over the past few decades it has been learned that the heart actually has a brain of its own and that IT sends more messages to the brain than the other way around. This means that the heart with proper management can be a source of emotional intelligence that can help to calm the more primitive impulsive reactivity of the brain in addition to helping to develop intuition and insight.

 Key Information You Can Capitalize on for Health, Wealth and Happiness!

1. Even though the brain does send signals to the heart, the heart has a system to selectively decide whether to obey them or not.  In other words it has an intelligence of its own.

2. On the other hand when the heart sends signals to the brain, they are obeyed!

3. Messages from, or conditions in, the heart influence behavior. We are all aware of people who seem to have an angry heart and their behavior matches their internal state!  With training in how to produce coherent heart rhythms, emotions will shift and then behavioral change follows.

4. The pulsations of our hearts are an intelligent language that influences how we perceive and react to the world. When we focus in the heart and produce coherent rhythms we see more clearly, are less influenced by the primitive brain and are more open to receiving input from our higher centers. This input has wisdom and creativity that our lower brain centers are not capable of.

5. The electromagnetic power of the heart is five thousand times stronger than that of the brain. This amazing fact points to the centrality of the heart in all areas of our lives.

6. The electronic signature of a person’s heartbeat can be found in the ECG of a person they are physically in proximity to.  Once again we have new science showing why we feel some of the things that we do—such as feeling in or out of phase with another. This also holds clues as to why we feel certain ways with certain people.

7. The energy field of the heart can project out 10-12 feet from the body. With this kind of projection it follows that we are sensing and feeling a great deal of our environment but perhaps not registering or understanding the ramifications of that sensing.

8. Coherent heart rhythms have been shown to positively combine with intention and attention to create biological change.

9. Coherence internally has been demonstrated to affect external  structures such as DNA in test tubes. Coherence is quite likely an important factor in the creation of our life experience.

If you are interested in more specifics regarding the research at IHM:

www.heartmath.org

 Your heart holds a key to maintaining balance, releasing stress and living a more engaged, happy, healthy life. 

In the past week and a half I have had an unbelievable number of people close to me going through some of the toughest of human experiences. Trauma, serious health crises, deep loss, incredible stress…all things that are always present in life but there seems to have been a turning up of the heat, an increase in the number of people facing great challenges, at least in my world.

When this kind of pressure and profound pain visits me or those around me, many thoughts and feelings arise. The first very human ones are those of resistance in all its tricky disguises. As time has gone by thankfully I recognize those for what they are and get to the business of engaging reality and navigating the choppy waters in more informed and wise ways. The ways I am speaking of are not those that allow for total immunity from pain, but those that lead to more inner ease, grace and balance of soul, heart and mind.

We do have a lot more control over our lives than we might think and can change a lot of our experience for the better.  We can eliminate the unnecessary, release self -created troubles and turn away from that which wastes our time and engages us in useless frittering away of time, energy and inner resources. But we do live in a world where no matter how adept we become at “creating our own reality”, we will at some point have to fully embrace all that it means to be human and that means dealing with loss, unexpected challenges and times of great pressure and stress.

For me learning how to use the energy of mind, body and spirit has been the gift that keeps on giving as it helps us to embrace all of life from a deeper and more balanced perspective…especially when we do not feel large enough, strong enough or wise enough to contain or respond to it all.

 Attending to all our energies is important but our hearts may hold the real secret strength to engage the world and all its complexity.

 Minding the Heart

Even though in our culture we tend to live very much in our heads, our hearts are never really far from our awareness. What other bodily organ has as many poems and songs written about it? Think about it. When was the last time you heard a song about your liver or an ode to your spleen?   There is no part of us more often spoken about, celebrated, or worried about than the human heart! Listen to our language: My heart isn’t into it; I gave him all my heart; My heart feels heavy; My heart felt such compassion for them; She has a courageous heart; My heart sang, soared, sank. How about our descriptors of people: She is cold hearted; He is openhearted; She has an angry heart; My heart is sad?  In spite of our fixation with our gray matter, there is obviously a lot of life that goes on a mere foot below our busy brains!

Our hearts whether we are aware of it or not are actually in the front lines of our lives. It is through our hearts that we connect to the world, experience others, and have relationships for good or ill with people, places and things.

Our hearts do not exist in a vacuum away from the rest of us. We cannot separate our emotional life and its effects on our well being. If a person is habitually angry, sad, stressed, frustrated or depressed have no doubt that there are unhappy neuropeptides, disturbed nerve transmissions and other effects taking place in their heart. The good news is that the opposite is also true. Our positive mental and emotional states have a profound and healing effect on our heart.

Here is a brief meditation to begin to connect to your heart and develop the ability to calm turmoil, feel love from the inside out and develop inner peace and strength.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Compassion personified: a statue at the Epcot center in Florida (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We all pretty much believe that empathy and compassion are good things. In fact these days it seems that they are being heavily promoted as stepping stones on the road to happiness and health. In fact there are many wonderful things about both these qualities. The problem comes with our perception and interpretation of these virtues and their practice in everyday life. The issue is really one of balance between the needs of self and the needs of others.

A continuous outflow of energy through giving without refueling or replenishing yourself cannot possibly end up anywhere but in fatigue and burnout. It is then that resentment can set in not to mention damage to your own health. You must stop and refuel in order to keep going.

Each of us can only give away what we have. Humans are adaptable and it may seem that we can give from nothing, or run along on empty for quite a time, but the truth is that the bill for such behavior will eventually come due. It may seem ironic that in caring for others you need to put yourself first. However, it is truly the only way to assure a reserve of energy so you can care for others without creating problems for you! Regular self care and self nurture is essential to create the inner resources that allow for a constant and even flow of energy for both you and the ones you care about.

It is very easy to feel we do not have time to care for ourselves. The reality is we don’t have time not to since a lack of self care will always lead to a depletion of inner resources. As both a personal and professional caregiver, this is a lesson I have had to learn over and over again! I believe that there are a strong cultural myths about self sacrifice and caring for others that keep us trapped in negative spirals that do neither the giver or the receiver any good. Mother Teresa was amazing, BUT she had all her basic needs cared for and her work was a deep spiritual calling that was obviously part of her purpose of being on earth. It never works to take on or mimic another’s role if it does not suit us or our place in the universe. The saying, Be You everyone else is taken comes to mind!

Our typical pattern may be to become depleted, crash and then have to recharge in order to begin again.  We may even be aware of this pattern but feel that it’s okay.  One issue may be that when we’re down and out, care comes flowing in from a variety of sources.  Finally, people may realize that we need attention too. They may also leave us alone thus creating the time needed to rebuild reserves and to re-balance.  The problem with this approach is (1) it is a state that is already playing havoc with health; (2) there is a tendency with this pattern to recharge only to once again begin the roller-coaster ride– so it is honestly not a solution

If you have a long standing pattern of “giving it all away”, believing in self sacrifice as good and holy, or have a lack of awareness regarding healthy boundaries and healthy entitlement then it can be difficult to turn this bus around! You can start with some simple steps.

Create a Map For Self Care

1) Awareness–what are your feelings telling you? If you are feeling exhausted, resentful or even just moderately snarky about some of the interactions in your life, take time to get honest about your feelings and needs.

2) Notice how you feel about taking time and space for yourself. Instead of glossing over the feelings that arise, do some introspection and see if maybe guilt, misplaced loyalty, old family beliefs, or secondary gains/pay offs may need to be dealt with.

3) Make a list of things that you would like to do for yourself. What would recharge your battery? What could you do everyday, once a week, once a month that would help you maintain energy and balance?

4) Pencil in your self care into your daily “to do list’ or calendar.

5) Be willing to address the resistance to changing this pattern that will inevitably arise! Be gentle but firm with yourself.

Over the last two weeks we have been posting about the aura, its qualities and responsiveness to external stimuli. This video shows the effect of multiple internal and external actors on the energy system.

Personal power is a vast inner resource that can guide, strengthen and support you. It can help you expand into your true Self. Your personal power, if attended to, can become a deep inner knowing within your innermost being on which you can rely to help you choose options that serve you and those around you in the best possible way.

Traditionally, our culture has had little awareness of or assigned little value to our inner landscape, let alone taught methods that would help us navigate and make sense of it. Consequently, we arrive in adulthood with layers of denial, confusion or distortion covering the inner promptings that would help us discover our deeper life purpose, our reason for being, or perhaps more aptly, our experience of being. Instead we feel disconnected, isolated, alienated, empty, or aimless, drifting through life.

Our essential nature is a wellspring that nourishes us with its life force. When we connect with this life-giving flow, it becomes a source of guidance and direction as well as a foundation of peace and joy. Without a relationship with our authentic self, life lacks passion and true vitality.

One of the ways we can identify our path is to note what inner urges we have and what kind of energy comes with them. If a choice has weak energy, it is probably not really yours. A new path may have some fear and trepidation with it, but it also contains excitement and the power necessary to move forward.

Listening to Your Soul

Here are some questions to help you enter the stream of consciousness necessary to hear your soul’s voice:

1. What do you feel passion for?  What draws your attention?  What do you deeply desire? ?
2. What dreams have you packed away?  What longings have you silenced? ?
3. What do you notice that you are you drawn to?
4. What do you love spending time doing – so much so that time disappears, you lose all thoughts about externals and self consciousness and are just present in the moment?
5. What activities feel easy – just a nice effortless flow of energy for you? What feels natural to you? (You may have trained or become educated in this area, but there is a naturalness to it.)
6. What excites you? What opens and fills you with ease, joy, peace … a quickening that enlivens you?
7. Where are your challenges?  What hooks you in the negative questioning, doubting, collapsing of your energies? ?
8. What blocks your free expression of the best qualities in you? What gets in the way of listening to that soft voice within?

Our intuition is a powerful ally in our search for our purpose. Our wisdom is within. You’ll find it underneath the chatter and baggage you have picked up along life’s journey in the form of other people’s beliefs and opinions.

Our focus on tools for clearing, balancing and strengthening the energy system comes from our conviction that it is essential to address this level of being in order to listen to our intuition and effectively engage universal energy in the creation of our lives.

Excerpt from 12 Keys for Life and Self Mastery session 12, Step Forward, You are in Charge

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An often overlooked cause of energy disruptions is in the way that we learn methods to gain approval, love, support, attention, or recognition. If we remember that these dynamics are all a means of getting or giving energy this makes more sense. A classic example is that of a child triggering negative attention. We all need the energy of love to survive. A young child does not have many options to choose from when considering his or her sources of energy. It usually must be the parents who may not be able to give it at all or may not be able to give it in the amounts or ways the child requires. So the child instinctually finds the means to get the attention (energy) to flow his/her way. This creates negative patterns within the relationship as well as within the individuals involved. It is not hard to see how this would then get transferred to a generalized energetic pattern that would emerge in other relationships. As an adult this person may even have a great deal of cognitive ability to understand their past sources of problems in this regard. If they had not healed the original ’wound’ and been able to rectify their needs for energy in an appropriate way for them, then this pattern would reemerge, especially under stress.

How we have been treated, what we observed on our journey through life all contributed to the formation of beliefs regarding how to manage, control, obtain or give away energy of all types.

Energy flows where attention goes

Energy and Memory

Generally we all know that our memories travel with us on our journey through life. We have not known exactly how or where those memories are stored, but we do know that they are ‘present’ with us. Our memories may be momentarily forgotten, or they may haunt us. They may at times come crashing into our awareness like an uninvited guest! Or they may at other times come drifting sweetly in to remind us of times spent in peace, beauty, joy and love. And of course they can emerge from our depths to instruct and inform us of unfinished business or teach us a valuable truth we need to grasp.

Many healthcare practitioners from a variety of disciplines have observed memory being triggered as a result of stimulation of the body. They have also reported the opposite occurrence where the memory creates a change in the body. But again, the knowledge of how this was taking place has not been ours to know until recently.

In research from a variety of sources there has been a progression in the understanding of how memory becomes imprinted from mind to body from a simple biochemical one to one that involves a variety of mechanisms but essentially begins with our energy system.

The field of Pyschoneuroimmunology has provided an understanding of the process from a neurological and biochemical perspective. Candace Pert (referenced earlier regarding her work with neuropeptides) has stated that your body is you subconscious mind. She has also pointed out that once you look at human function at the level of the messenger molecules, there is nowhere else to go but to an understanding of energy. In an audiotape presentation of her work it is stated that, “Dr. Pert’s work is beginning to reveal the scientific underpinnings of the chakra system.”

Dr. Hunt and her associates also found evidence to corroborate the theory that memory is stored in the body’s tissues. Through her observations she came to believe that the energy centers play a key role in the encoding of memory.

Dr. Susan Lark in “The Lark Letter: A Woman’s Guide To Optimal Health & Balance” states, “In fact, every chakra is individually linked to neurological synapses (ganglia), small bundles that operate like little brain centers. Each of the seven chakras then processes and remembers different emotional events and traumas that affect you throughout your lifetime. In fact, you can even store specific types of emotional memories in these centers.”

For centuries there has been information primarily from Eastern Philosophies and Medicine that the energy system is the vehicle through which our memories are stored and carried through our lives.

So, as we view the process of transferring our life experience to the cell tissue of our body from this perspective, it makes sense to use energetic methods to intervene and influence the process in a positive way. Through these interventions we can shift and change belief patterns, erase negative conditioning and install new, more useful and powerful beliefs into our systems.

The success and strength of these kinds of interventions have been observed by both practitioners and clients in our culture for some time. However, the underlying scientific mechanism through which change occurred was not well understood. For this reason they seemed magical, mysterious and perhaps not to be trusted. Now that we have a better awareness of the underpinnings of such methods we can use them with more skill and benefit from their power and effectiveness.

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