Choose Peace
Tranquility Begins With An Ease Of Heart
Seek a wide embrace of compassion by being Intimate with all things in the timeless present.
Being intimate in the timeless present allows your mind to give up (for even a brief moment) worrying about the past or planning for the future you will tend to awaken from the delusion that you are separate from the environment. Once the “capacity for presence” is expanded you will find an intensely comforting ease of heart. Nothing that is timeless loses its beauty, nor does it die.
Regardless of the opinions of others, live the truth as you see it. Choose that which brings you and others a sense peace.
This sense comes from the heart, which, besides pumping blood, also “sends us emotional and intuitive signals that help govern our lives (Childre and Martin, 1999, p. 23). The heart has its own independent nervous system, known as “the brain in the heart” which stimulates the release of the hormones of action and releases the body’s inner systems, “thereby increasing its effectiveness” (Childre and Martin, 1999, p. 23).
When we feel happiness, appreciation, compassion, care, and love, we improve our hormonal balance and the responsiveness of our immune system.
These benefits are especially true when we “learn to listen more deeply to our own hearts” (Childre and Martin, 1999, p. 23). Our “heart rhythms affect the brain’s ability to process information, make decisions, solve problems, and experience and express creativity . . . Because the heart is the strongest biological oscillator in the human system, the rest of the body’s systems are pulled into entrainment with the heart’s rhythms. When subjects in research studies achieve entrainment of the brain with the heart, they report heightened intuitive clarity and a greater sense of well-being. By intentionally altering one’s emotional state through certain heart-focused techniques, one modifies one’s signals from the heart to the brain. “The changed information flow from the heart to the brain can facilitate higher brain function” (Childre and Martin, 1999, p. 23). One’s emotional state is reflected in one’s heart rhythms, which are shown in heart rate variability measurements. To begin to learn more about how to benefit from focusing on the heart, the first of several activities, inspired by the work of the Institute of Heartmath, will be presented below.
Along this portion of the Heartwood Path you are frequently asked to stop your daily commotion and thoughtfully pause with a natural being to do a HumaNatureConnect Activity. In the Freeze Frame activity that follows, you are asked to stop watching the movie of your life and to instead focus on one frame in that movie –– your connection experience with a natural being, for example. In the next activity you will learn how to “call a time-out to gain a clear perspective on whats happening in a single frame. By helping you align your head and your heart, it gives you a quick and efficient access to heart intelligence . . . It helps us reduce stressful self poisoning and gives us poise instead” (Childre and Martin, 1999, p. 66).
To Heart Intelligence…
