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Living A Heart-Centered Life

2/20/2021

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Did you know that scientist have discovered that our heart is a "little" brain? Our heart contains sensory neurites that cause it to function as a second brain. Our heart carries memory of our experiences and has its own intelligence. Growing evidence suggests that the heart and brain work together. 

As Gregg Braden states in his book, Resilience From The Heart, "
A growing body of scientific evidence now suggests that the pumping of the heart, as important as it is, may pale in comparison with the additional functions that have been recently discovered. In other words, while the heart indeed pumps blood powerfully and efficiently through the body, the pumping may not be its primary purpose."

Our heart constantly sends signals to our brain, however our brain sends much fewer signals back to our heart. By harmonizing our heart and our brain (heart-brain coherence) we can tap into deep intuition, heart-based intelligence and wisdom. 

Signals generated from our heart to our brain determines what chemicals our brain tells our body to produce in response. Our body can produce stress induced chemicals or chemicals that promote feeling good, health, well-being and social connection.

Signals generated by the heart have the capacity to affect not only ourselves, but others around us as well. Our heart creates an energetic field which travels out from our body impacting the outside world. 


For me, living a heart-centered life means tapping into this "little" second brain, this heart-based wisdom and intelligence. It means working to set aside my ego and approach life from my heart-center, which is a place of love and compassion. To be heart-centered is synonymous with tapping into our higher-self. Living from this state of being is optimal for health, healing, wisdom and intuition.

To stay heart-centered is an actual physical practice, and like all things by practicing we get better at it. We build strength and stamina. The practice includes pulling your awareness, from your head center (or your ego) to your heart center (or your higher-self). 

The heart center is the area behind the sternum/breastbone, up to the top of the sternum (just below the Adam's apple) and back to between the shoulder blades. This whole area is considered your heart center. 


​Where you touch your awareness goes. Simply by placing my hand over my heart center for a few moments brings my focus and attention to my heart, which automatically creates a natural shift in my thoughts, feelings and energy. Where  attention goes, energy flows. Go ahead and give it a try and see how it feels. 

Now that your hand is over your heart center, steady or slow  your breathing and bring into your heart space feelings of care, gratitude, compassion, or love for someone or something. Conjuring up these feelings, embracing them, savoring or sustaining them in your heart space while placing your hand over your heart center is key. 

​Next, if you would like, ask your heart a question. Maybe there is a decision you are trying to make but can't decide what you should do, ask your heart for the answer. Instead of making a list of pros and cons or using our brain's intellect, our heart-based intelligence knows what is in our highest and best good.

The wisdom of your heart already exists within you. It can be trusted and relied on to guide your life. It holds the key to your deepest truths. I invite you to practice using your heart-center more to guide you through life versus relying on your brain power. The wisdom carried in its guidance will best serve your highest and best good. 


Gregg Braden, author of Resilience From The Heart, offers the following steps for accessing your heart’s intelligence:

Step 1: Focus Your Heart
Action: Allow your awareness to move from your mind to the area of your heart.
Result: This sends a signal to your heart that a shift has taken place—you are no longer engaged in the world around you and are now becoming aware of the world within you.


Step 2: Slow Your Breathing
Action: Begin to breathe a little more slowly than usual, allowing five to six seconds for your inhale and exhale.
Result: This simple step sends a second signal to your body that you are safe and in a place that supports your process. Deep, slow breathing has long been known to stimulate a relaxation response of the nervous system (the parasympathetic response).

Step 3: Feel a Rejuvenating Feeling
Action: To the best of your ability, feel a genuine sense of caring, appreciation, gratitude, or compassion for anything or anyone.
Result: The key to success here is for your feeling to be as sincere and heartfelt as possible. As described previously, it’s the quality of this feeling that fine-tunes and optimizes the coherence between your heart and your brain. While everyone is capable of this experience, it’s one of those processes that you may need to experiment with to find what works best for you.


Step 4: Ask Your Heart Intelligence a Question
Action: The previous three steps create the harmony between your brain and your heart that enables you to tap into your heart’s wisdom. As you continue to breathe and hold the focus in your heart, this is the time to ask your question.
Result: 
Heart intelligence generally works best when the questions are brief and to the point. Remember, your heart doesn’t need a preface or the history of a situation before the question. Ask your question silently as a single concise sentence and then allow your heart’s wisdom to respond in a way that works for you.

Step 5: Listen
Action: Become aware of how your body feels immediately as you are asking your question. Make a note of any sensations such as warmth, tingling, ringing of the ears, and emotions that may arise. Everyone learns and experiences uniquely. There is no correct or incorrect way of receiving your heart’s wisdom. The key here is to know what works best for you.
Result: For people who are already attuned to their bodies’ and their hearts’ intelligence, this step is the easiest part of the process. For those who may have less experience in listening to their bodies, this is an exercise in awareness.
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Spirit Love

2/16/2021

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Continuing on this month with the theme of LOVE, this week's post focuses on Spirit love. What do I mean by Spirit love? Spirit love means the care and nurturing of our love of our own Spirit. 

I firmly believe that our overall health, well-being and happiness is dependent on intentional practices that build a strong body, mind and spirit.  If one of these areas is out of balance, it could limit your ability to thrive and to create an overall state of health and happiness.

Are you feeding your Spirit? What are you currently doing to nourish your Spirit? What does your Spirit long for? Does it long for ease, or connectivity, to expand and grow, to be creative, to be adventuresome, to be inspired, to love deeper, to explore more fully your hopes and dreams? Have you paused to notice?  Is your Spirit starving for attention? 

Here are a few ways to feed your Spirit:
  1. Connect with something bigger than yourself. Ramp up your practice of meditation, prayer and spiritual reading. Practice being present and mindful. Building your spiritual practice will go a long way toward nourishing your Spirit. 
  2. Connect with nature. There is so much beauty in nature at all times of the year. Feel it's energy, bask in it's beauty, breathe in the healing oxygen and delicious smell, soak in the sounds. Allow yourself the time to connect with nature and feel its healing power. While connecting with nature, try practicing gratitude, some deep breathing, or a loving kindness meditation filling your mind, body and spirit with it's wonder and beauty. 
  3. Connect with supportive, positive, caring, growth-minded people. We are only as strong as the company that we keep. Your health and happiness are directly impacted by the 5 people that you most closely associate. Connecting with supportive, positive, caring, growth-minded people will nourish your Spirit and propel it to greater heights. 
  4. Do more of what you love and are passionate about. Knowing what fuels your Spirit, what you are passionate about and love to spend your time doing is not only important, but a deep spiritual practice. Regularly checking in with how you are doing balancing the things that matter most to you is a powerful way to feed your Spirit.
  5. Connect to your breath. Just the act of being still and paying attention to our breath can go a long ways to feeding our Spirit. Jumping off the hamster wheel of life and pausing to breathe and to listen. Listen and tap into what your Spirit is trying to tell you. So simple and yet so powerful. 
  6. Practice gratitude. My favorite, and one of the most powerful spiritual practices, is the practice of gratitude. Within it contains the ability to energize and fill your Spirit with hope, abundance and fullness.
  7. Be of service to others. Practicing generosity and being of service to others is a great way to nourish and fill up our Spirit. 
Pausing to notice how we can nourish and love our own Spirit is a wonderful expression of love. A strong and vibrant spiritual practice is a powerful way to maintain wellness. 
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Loving Practices

2/9/2021

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The essence of who we truly are is love. Loving practices that guide us to remembering this truth not only fill us up, but help to spread this loving energy out into the world. 

A loving practice that I use and share with others is a heart connection meditation. This type of meditation connects us to the energy of Source love and blossoms this loving energy out to the others...connecting us together.

The heart is a portal to our soul, our higher self, to our intuition, and ultimately to God. So often we defer to seeing the world with the eyes of our mind, our intellect, our social conditioning, our ego. It can be a challenge to pause and have the courage to take the 18 inch leap from our head down into our heart. What might the world look like if we saw it with the eyes of our heart versus our head? How would the world shift, change and soften?

Dropping down into our heart opens up the portal to a higher state of consciousness. Inviting our higher self to guide us instead of our ego. Seeing the world through the eyes of our heart we can make decisions based on love, empathy, compassion, forgiveness, gratitude, peace and joy. These are the igniting force of the heart.

Here's how you can practice a heart space meditation and ignite the loving force of your own heart and shine it out:
  • Sit comfortably, close your eyes and bring your awareness to your breathing. Don't attempt to change your breathing just notice it for a series of inhales and exhales. 
  • Allow your awareness to shift to your heart space. Envision your breath moving in and out from the center of your heart space. Sit with this for a few minutes.
  • Bring to mind someone or something that you feel love, care, compassion, gratitude, or appreciation for and allow this feeling to fill up your heart space. 
  • Repeat the following words 2-3 times each allowing them to blossom the feeling in your heart space...Peace, harmony, laughter, love. 
  • Take this loving energy that you've blossomed in your heart space and envision pushing or expanding it out to fill the entire room, then the neighborhood, city, country and ultimately the whole universe. 
  • Sit for a few more minutes basking in and soaking up the beautiful feeling of this energy surrounding you.

I invite you to take time this week to engage in loving practices that serve to remind and connect you to the essence of who you truly are and spread this love out to the rest of the world.
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What Does Self-Love Mean?

2/1/2021

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In the month of February my blog posts typically focus on the theme of love. This week I want to share with you some thoughts on self-love. Self-love and changing our belief system about ourselves are topics that I spend a lot of time discussing with clients. 

What the heck does self-love and loving myself even mean?  Does this mean bubble baths, pedicures, and massages? Self-love is more than just pampering ourselves. It's the active practice of accepting, caring for, and encouraging oneself. Honoring your own well-being and happiness. Being committed, devoted, and honoring of yourself and your needs.

Most of us, instead of nurturing our relationship with ourself, spend a lot of our time up in our head doing the opposite... creating and spinning negative self-talk. 
Can we truly love others if we don't love ourselves first? 

​A lot of us don't truly love or even know how to love ourselves. We may occasionally "treat" ourselves to massages, baths, special food, etc. under the guise of "self-love", when in reality we are trying to fill a void inside our hearts. Not that these acts of self-love don't have their place, but they typically don't fill the void or help learn to love ourselves. They don't change our thought patterns and inner dialogue. 

The most important relationship that you'll ever have is with yourself. We need love from ourselves as much, if not more than we need it from others. Self-love begins with being able to appreciate you for you...all of your imperfectly, perfect, unique, glorious self. Seeing yourself completely, recognizing your value, your strengths and your weaknesses. It's knowing your worth, what you want and need and holding true to yourself with both your inner choices and outer choices. Self-love is not a destination, but rather an important intentional practice to cultivate.

Self-love requires the courage to reflect on where you are and consider where you want to be and the devotion to be a work in progress, striving to be the best version of your true self. Recognizing your self-worth and fostering your on-going, continuous lifetime of self-growth.

There are a lot of ways to cultivate self-love. Two of my favorite go to practices include:

1. Interrupting negative thought patterns - When my inner critic rears it's ugly head, I intentionally choose to acknowledge that the thought comes from my inner critic, that it doesn't serve me, and then either affirm something more positive, or reverse it with a phrase like "up until now" or "that doesn't apply to me". 

2. Self-appreciation practice - Every night before going to bed reflect on three to five new things that you appreciate about yourself. This can be something that correlates to the past 24 hours or something that is a trait or characteristic of yours. It can be something small or grandiose, it doesn't matter. The practice retrains our brain to identify positive things about ourself.

​Cultivating self-love and ultimately changing our belief system about ourself is an on-going work in progress. It requires intention and devotion to heal ourself and open up to the fullness of love for ourself and others. 


“Self-love requires you to be honest about your current choices and thought patterns and undertake new practices that reflect self-worth.” ~Caroline Kirk
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