Taking Care of Your Heart

Taking Care of Your Heart

Posted by Sabina Pettitt on

And Falling In Love With Your Life

 


This quote from The Little Prince by St. Exupéry has resonated with humans for the better part of a century. This story has been translated into over 600 languages and dialects, and is the world’s most translated work of fiction.

I personally think this huge success is somehow connected to its message that we all need to give and to receive love. So when you love something, like a rose, or someone, like a human or an animal, pay attention and don’t let go. When you are seeing through the window of your heart, reality becomes a totally different place – a garden of loving and caring and kindness. And guess what? This exchange of love is a fundamental way that we can take care of our hearts.

Essentially, this exchange provides the energy which allows all the other energies to exist. By the same token, the role of all these other energies is to maintain their own well-being so that they can help the heart to keep them optimally functioning. This interconnectedness is one of the features of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) that I find most compelling and useful when it comes to understanding the source of dis-ease - whether it is manifesting at the physical, emotional or mental levels.

While allopathic medicine describes the heart as a pump, TCM sees the heart as having emotional intelligence. When this emotional intelligence is lacking, or perhaps disrupted as in shock and trauma, the physical organ of the heart is injured and less able to fulfill its role as the wise monarch.

I remember reading Travels by Michael Crichton, famous author of Jurassic Park, The Andromeda Strain and creator of the TV series ER. Travels is an autobiography of his early life. It tells of how his father wanted him to be a doctor, and indeed he did graduate Harvard medical school. However, Crichton himself had always wanted to be a writer.

His first question to all his patients in cardiac care was, "How did you get sick?" or "How did you get a heart attack?" Without fail, each patient described some emotional shock or trauma or something they wanted to do but did not do out of fear of losing a partner or the love of a child. 

For example, one patient had been offered a huge promotion and he really wanted to take it, but his wife was completely unwilling to move to another city. Another patient had just learned that his only son was homosexual and he was devastated because he always imagined the perfect daughter-in-law and the perfect grandchildren. Remember that this was the 60s, and I am sure the stressors today would appear somewhat differently. But the fact remains that something these patients loved or looked forward to loving was taken away, and their physical hearts paid the price of those losses.

In TCM there is the basic belief that 'the heart takes the hit.' When there is a great shock or surprise to a person that he or she cannot process, that overwhelming energy goes first to the heart. The heart starts racing to prepare the person for fight or flight. The heart goes out of balance, and the excessive energy is then distributed to the meridians,or energy pathways, some of which also go out of balance. Acupuncturist Lin Cao said, "If the basic energy is not stabilized, the spirit is insecure."

While in the cosmology of the Five Elements the emotion related to the heart has been defined as joy, the fact is that it is lack of joy which injures the heart. Or at the other extreme it is excessive joy which becomes kind of manic and unpredictable. Also, excessive joy can cause insomnia, and in order for our physical hearts to thrive we need physical rest.

So here is my prescription for taking care of your heart and falling in love with your life again:



Eat the best possible diet for you. This means you pay attention to what makes you feel good - vital and energetic. Keep a food journal and notice when you feel sluggish after eating something, or have digestive disturbances.
Engage in some physical exercise which you enjoy, and which will increase your heart rate. Even 30 minutes of brisk walking daily will benefit your heart.
Cultivate a daily practice of meditation or moving meditation like Tai Chi, Yoga, or Qi Gong. 
Spend time in Nature and hear the primordial sounds of wind in the trees or waves on the ocean. Notice smells and colours and shapes.
Discover your heart song and live it. In this moment you may still have to go to work to pay the bills, but begin to imagine what you would really really like to do. Keep a daily journal and spend 15 minutes daily imagining what it would be like to be doing what you love.
Rekindle the curiosity and innocence of childlike wonder. Like the Little Prince, begin to see your life and all life around you through the window of your heart.

 

← Older Post

Pacific Essences Blog

RSS
How Do You Want To Feel Today?

How Do You Want To Feel Today?

Sabina Pettitt
By Sabina Pettitt

There's An Essence For That! As we launch ourselves into a brand-new year, I want to introduce you to our updated search database on our...

Read more
Cultivating Equanimity and Joy in this Season of Giving

Cultivating Equanimity and Joy in this Season of Giving

Sabina Pettitt
By Sabina Pettitt

Perhaps you've heard the expression, 'Random acts of kindness, and senseless acts of beauty.' I'm not certain when I heard this phrase for the first...

Read more