There are many "core heart feelings," but the simplest and easiest to access is one of gratitude or appreciation. Showing appreciation elicits an immediate response in your body that lessens the stress response, causes entrainment with the brain, and affects the electromagnetic field around you with ordered coherence.
It is easy to come into coherence while in a state of gratitude, because your heart responds immediately to any appreciation you can elicit even if it is not about the situation at hand. This causes your nervous system to naturally come into balance, lessens the burden of stress, and frees up energy to be available for creative outlet. Gratitude is a highly magnetic state and when one is in the state of gratitude, it is returned to you easily.
Starting the Day with Feelings of Gratitude
Many religions suggest that prayers are to be ones of gratitude instead of asking for this or that, and that by merely being sincerely grateful, blessings will come to you tenfold. Each morning as I begin my day I step outside and give thanks to the sun for its warm breath, give thanks to the earth for its sustenance, give thanks to the trees for the oxygen they provide, and give thanks to the pure water at Heart Spring that is the life blood of this land and provides the moisture needed to maintain my body. In each of these I recognize the face of the Holy -- the spirit that vitalizes and gives me my very life -- and I am grateful.
To start the day in such a fashion sets the tone and allows appreciation to open the doors of the heart, letting the abundance of gratitude fill the vessel within you, easing challenges and freeing your energy to co-creatively engage fully with life.
Seeing from the Heart with a Child's Perception
Another positive impulse for the heart is that of innocent perception. This is the state of nonjudgment in which your view is like looking through the eyes of a child. With this perspective you see the world anew with freshness and are able to be present. Judgment is a part of our make-up, because in our evolutionary development humans have needed to make quick judgments, for example, to know how fast and far we needed to run to avoid the saber-toothed tiger. Judgment is a part of our fight or flight mechanism and helps keep us safe.
However, the dangers that we now face are different from those ten thousand years ago. Constant judgment that creates a stress response is more harmful than helpful. Now it is more appropriate to let our hearts be discerning, allowing ourselves to make decisions that are more holistic, with less personal attachment, and to embrace other's opinions. It is then that we experience gentleness with ourselves as well as others.
When I look at Dandelion and say that I know all there is to know about it, I'm not viewing it with innocent perception. Instead I am closing the door to any other possible experience or understanding about its character or healing qualities. My relationship does not continue to grow and the subtle nuances of Dandelion's gifts pass me by. When we sit in judgment we limit our experiences of life as well as our choices.
Opening Our Heart to Forgiveness
Forgiveness is a quality that is harder to achieve than the previous two impulses but one that when accomplished is most rewarding. The difficulty lies in our responses to greed, betrayal, loss, shame, and dishonesty -- actions that have hurt us to the point of locking down our hearts so as to never be hurt again. This vise on our heart causes it to atrophy, harden, and ooze power as if from a festering wound. It is also in this arena that we come up against some of our hardest challenges, ones that hold us in bondage and suck our life force.
Forgiveness must begin with oneself before it can move on to others. If we can't forgive ourselves, our parents, our spouses, our neighbors, and our government then it is unlikely we could ever forgive the desperate act of a terrorist. And yet, it is this very forgiving that puts healing into motion by removing the shackles from the heart, allowing it to invigorate with coherence leading to compassion.
If you continue hard-heartedness you are hurt not just once but repeatedly by the energy you expend holding on to your grudge. But forgiving, as Howard Martin so eloquently states, "releases you from the punishment of a self-made prison in which you are both the inmate and the jailer."
Giving Positive Impulses to the Heart
During a Plant Spirit Healing class one homework assignment was to give positive impulses to the heart. Anne shared,
"What I experienced when I practiced positive impulses to the heart those first days, was an incredible opening . . . [a] softening of my heart toward my stepdaughter. For several months I had been burdened with negative, judgmental, fearful thoughts and emotions around our relationship.
"With several days of practice, those thoughts and emotions ‘magically' disappeared. Somehow I had let go of the heaviness of it all. I wasn't afraid to visit her, and when I did the ‘wall' between us was no longer there, and I was much more comfortable being with her; my negative thoughts dissipated; I was more understanding and compassionate toward her; I had become unstuck and freed, after such a long time being captive to the negativity. I could move forward in such a positive, open-hearted way. And so it remains a relationship of ease to this day. I wouldn't say enjoyment yet, but no more struggle, certainly. Amazing!"
Allowing the Brain to Serve the Holy Heart
These positive impulses or core heart feelings are what lead to coherence in your heart rate variability, which leads to entrainment, allowing the brain to serve your heart to its fullest capacity and creating balance within and without. It is also what leads you to the Holy Heart, which is the infinity point in your heart that connects you to your soul, thus accessing spirit. This infinity point is mentioned in a verse of the Chandogya Upanishad,
"As vast as this space without is the tiny space within your heart: heaven and earth are found in it, fire and air, sun and moon, lightning and the constellations, whatever belongs to you here below and all that doesn't, all this is gathered in that tiny space within your heart."
In Christian doctrine the Holy Heart is the seat of your covenant with God as accessed through Jesus. A more secular view is that the Holy Heart is of the Earth and is the Mother of all or is the equal partner, the queen. Dr Phillip Bhark suggests that the apex of the heart could be the actual physical location of the infinity point, since it is here that evidence of stress first appears.
To me the Holy Heart is the place within that connects to without; it is greater than the sum of the parts, and yet, within each part, its wholeness is held. It is the sacred space from which I derive meaning from life and, through my service to the Holy Heart, I am connected to all life.
Opening the Door to the Spiritual Heart
Stephen Buhner refers to the spiritual heart as the space where,
"We feel the touch of the world upon us, and those millions of unique touches hold within them specific meanings, sent to us from the heart of the world and from the heart of the living beings with which we inhabit this world. This interchange changes the quality of our lives and reminds us that we are never alone."
As poet Marta Belen says, "Through the door of an open heart the universe is known".
Reprinted with permission of the publisher, Bear & Company,
an imprint of Inner Traditions International. ©2008.
www.innertraditions.com
This article was excerpted from:
Plant Spirit Healing: A Guide to Working with Plant Consciousness
by Pam Montgomery.
In this book, herbalist Pam Montgomery offers an understanding of the origins of disease and the therapeutic use of plant spirits to bring balance and healing. Indigenous healers and shamans have known since antiquity that plants possess a spirit essence that can communicate through light, sound, and vibration. Now scientific studies are verifying this understanding. Plant Spirit Healing reveals the power of plant spirits to join with human intelligence to bring about profound healing.
For More Info or to Order This Book.
About the Author
Pam Montgomery has been investigating plants and their intelligent spiritual nature since 1986. She is a founding member of the Northeast Herbal Association and is on the Advisory Board of United Plant Savers. The author of Partner Earth: A Spiritual Ecology and contributing author in Planting the Future, she is a practicing herbalist and plant spirit healer who offers trainings and treatments from her home in Danby, Vermont. Visit her website at www.partnereartheducationcenter.com.
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