How the Heart Survives

Hi all -

I’ve have a few sessions lately that have taught me something about the heart that I’d like to share.

What I’ve been seeing is that, when the heart is compromised, it shows up strongly in the personality. For a very good reason. If the heart is in danger, either from being too brittle, or too inflamed, then the whole person will subconsciously protect the heart. The shoulders might curl forward, creating a protective cage around the heart. But, the mind, too, constructs stories that keep the heart safe.

One such story might be, “I should be a hermit or a monk.” Another might be, “People take advantage of me, so I have to enforce strong boundaries.” Another might be, “I don’t have the energy for that.” The subconscious mind seems to be communicating a very important need to keep the heart quiet in this way, presumably to avoid a cardiac event. It strikes me as being a beautiful adaptation about which we could choose to be in more mastery. What we might see as entrenched ‘personality’ pieces can shift when we reverse the physical issues with resonant attention or other forms of bodywork.

I’ve also been very clearly seeing the links between the heart, the small intestine, and the tongue. These connections are much referred to in Traditional Chinese Medicine, but coming into contact with them as they play out in reverse while being metabolized out of the body reinforces the energetic realities pointed to in that tradition. It’s kinda exciting for a Daoist geek, like me.

Actually these links also exist in our Western understanding, but to a lesser degree. Maybe we didn’t realize there are energetic pathways from the heart to the tongue, but we know that it’s possible to “speak from the heart.” Maybe we don’t know about the yin/yang pairing between the heart and small intestine, but know that our decision making process activates the heart’s mechanisms for discernment. As the small intestine chooses which parts of our food to keep to throw out, so is the heart navigating the world with its yeses and nos.

And lately, haven’t our hearts been falling more and more in love? As the world grows more and more complicated and tragedies remove or threaten to remove our beloveds, our hearts say yes more and more deeply to what remains. Yes to you, yes to whatever time we have left, yes to what was.

I love you all.

Stella

Mis padres con la Inka