I Heart You

Editor’s note:If you have a question you would like answered and explored in this forum, please email Jan at Drjanseward [at] gmail.com. Please note, depending on volume of emails, not all letters may be featured. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. We’re really excited to see what our readers come up with! — amanda

Hello Jan Seward,

My name is Elliott R. I’d be grateful for your perspective on a phrase I’ve started to come across recently in some circles, “thinking with the heart.” It is often brought up as a key to evolving.
Gratefully,
Elliott.

Dear Elliott, thank you so much for this question! This is a subject that is near and dear to all our hearts, and I’ll try to explain a bit about it. Wisdom traditions have always understood that the heart is the seat of emotion, wisdom, compassion, and love. Our awareness of the wisdom of our heart center did not depend upon a knowledge of anatomy or physiology, because even cultures who did not dissect the body knew where — and what — the heart was.

A wonderful example of this comes from ancient China where, in 2600 B.C. Huang Ti, the Father of Chinese Medicine, wrote “The heart is a king who rules over all organs of the body.” In Hindu tradition, the fourth chakra is the heart chakra, which regulates peace, compassion, wisdom, and the coming together of heaven and earth. In Western society, we are finally catching up to the wisdom traditions in our knowledge of the heart.

Within this past century research has confirmed that the heart can actually think, with a nervous system and a way of communicating directly with the brain, the endocrine system, and other organs in the body. In fact, the heart can be thought of as “the little brain” with a big effect: the heart generates an electromagnetic field that is approximately 5,000 times larger than the brain itself. This “heart brain” can sense, remember, self-regulate, and make decisions independent of the central nervous system, or “head brain”. More intriguingly, the heart can know what is about to happen emotionally before an event occurs, and can understand and interpret events much faster — and more accurately — than the brain can process.

What does our intelligent heart mean for our evolution? Well, modern research (much of it done by an organization called The Heartmath Institute, www.Heartmath.org) has shown that the wise heart, in a state of alignment, balance and harmony called coherence, enables us to make better decisions, function more effectively, and get along better with others in groups. Put another way, a heart in a state of coherence gifts us with higher levels of emotional and social intelligence, leading to better outcomes in virtually all areas of human performance.

Establishing heart coherence is easy to do — simply being with others who are in coherence will rub off on us — think of your favorite go-to person when you are agitated, or how you might feel in the presence of the Dalai Lama. Being in nature, or performing certain rituals like yoga postures or the Catholic or Buddhist rosary can also establish coherence. It turns out these rituals were intuitively designed to establish heart coherence — once again, the ancients knew what they were doing! Being with children, whose hearts are naturally open, will also do the trick.

So, for all of you out there who’ve been told to think with your head instead of your heart, to stop wearing your heart on your sleeve; or that you’re “all heart” — accept the compliments! By letting your heart lead the way you’re contributing to the coherence of the planet, helping us all to evolve in the process.

With much heart,
Jan.