part0016

Accessing your spiritual heart is amazingly simple. It begins even before that first step, with the action that is at the core of all transformation modalities – the step of self-awareness. It begins with recognizing “I’m stressed, I’m upset, I’m frustrated, or I’m angry.” It is recognizing that whatever is happening has taken us to a place that doesn’t feel good. That moment of self-awareness begins our transformation. Self-awareness is the doorway we step through so that we can take our first step.

Here are the steps to access your spiritual heart. I call these steps The Heart Wisdom Tool.

Begin by simply touching your heart with your hand.

This simple gesture becomes the habit that pulls you into a state where you are receptive to connection with your heart. Whenever you feel tense, the simple action of touching your hand to your heart creates a heart connection. It is this connection that invites you to activate your spiritual heart.

The next action is really part of the first step. As you place your hand on your heart, breathe for a moment though your heart. (You and I both know you can’t really breathe through your heart – that happens through our lungs and nose. However, you can pretend to breathe through your heart!) Pretending to breathe through the area around your heart focuses your attention on the presence of the transformative power in your heart.

Take a long, deep breath through your heart.

Step 1: Touch & Breathe is quite simple. As you practice it regularly, it becomes your natural response to any stimulation where you begin to feel uncomfortable or overwhelmed. Touch your hand to your heart and breathe through your heart – Touch & Breathe.

The second step is the one that activates the transformation within your heart. It is the power step. It is where you take hold of the activation code for the spiritual heart.

The activation code is a heart feeling – the experience of a feeling that is connected to the greater feeling of love. Instead of trying to use our heads to define and identify feelings that might be connected to the feeling of love, use the heart itself to guide you to those feelings .

You can enter into a heart feeling by remembering a moment when your heart was full. You might remember a moment when you felt deep appreciation for someone who is special to you. Remember how your heart seemed to swell with that feeling. It is a wonderful feeling. It is positive, uplifting, warm and powerful. That feeling, that powerful feeling of appreciation or deep care, is a heart feeling. It is the access code to your spiritual heart.

Perhaps you remember a delightful moment of watching the sunlight dancing off the water, as dolphins jumped and twisted in the air – your heart felt so wonderfully full. This is the step into your deep heart feelings – the feelings contained within that magnificent memory.

I often go to memories of heart-filled moments that repeat themselves frequently in my life. Our daughter Anna is now grown. Anna, her husband Chris, and their little girl Kirra live in our home with Kathryn and me. Sometimes my memory is just the joyful feeling that fills my heart as I hear little four-year-old Kirra singing, laughing or skipping through the house. Sometimes it is the memory of that delightful moment when Kirra crawls up into my lap as I sit in my big “papa chair,” so that we can read a story together.

One of the most powerful of those heart-filled moments for me is the memory of the love I see in Anna’s eyes as she looks at little Kirra – so much love. What a wonderful thing to behold – the strong, pure, unconditional, limitless love of this mother for her child. When I remember seeing that look of love upon her face, my heart feels full to overflowing.

Your memory might be the feeling ignited in your heart by the eyes of your life partner as he or she looked adoringly into yours. Your memories might be of moments at weddings that were filled with your happiness for yourself, or for those you love. There might be memories of delightful moments when you recall your carefree laughter with friends. They are all moments when your heart felt full.

Select one of your memories. Remember how you felt in that moment. Feel that wonderful feeling that filled that moment. Experience the feeling. The memory was long ago. The feeling you are experiencing is right now. It is here in you. It is powerful. Remember and feel .

Remember that moment of your hands holding the rope, and swinging out over the water, as you let go – splashing down into the sudden, wet chill and exhilaration of the lake. Remember a moment of joy while playing with friends as a child, maybe dashing away in a game of tag, perhaps clapping and chanting a rhyme together or releasing that freezing snowball as you ducked down to escape one coming your way. Remember the cold touch of the drops of water from the sprinkler as you ran through its wet splash – so inviting and exciting on a hot summer day. Remember the exquisite, tender fullness in your heart while holding a young child in your arms as it drifted off to sleep. Remember and feel. Enjoy those wonderful heart feelings.

“Remember & Feel” is our second step. When you do the second step, you are transformed. You are changed. Your physical heart has opened, and it has let the power of your spiritual heart in. There is no longer the feeling of overwhelm. There is no longer the frustration. Your physical heart has transformed your body, and your spiritual heart’s power frees you from the emotional reactions that a moment ago limited and debilitated your life. You are now free of your brain’s need to make you fight or run away. You now have access to the centeredness, the calm or the passion that this moment or situation is really about for you.

Two simple steps – Touch & Breathe, and then Remember & Feel – and you are free. That is always a “Wow” for me. You are free of the emotional angst or discomfort. You are free of the way your mind was processing your world. Your spiritual heart’s power flows through your system, and its wisdom is within reach.

We have talked about the next amazing piece of the potential that your spiritual heart holds for you. This is the step where your heart gives you the new perspective. This is where your heart gives you its wisdom. You receive the amazing wisdom to understand: to understand yourself, to understand another person, to understand the situation wisely .

This calling forth of your spiritual heart’s wisdom, how does that get activated? How do you call it into awareness?

Like our other steps, this one is simple. Our spiritual heart’s wisdom is activated simply by sincerely asking.

“Sincere Asking” is our third and final step. With steps 1 and 2 you can stop the stress. You can become resilient in your emotional and feeling worlds; however, there is a key to your world of wisdom. It is an important key. It is the experience of deep sincerity.

Sincerity is the tool that calls this inner wisdom from your soul – from your spiritual self – into clear, conscious awareness. Sincere asking has the power to fill you with the insight that lets you express the highest that you are.

Sincerity powers your heart’s response. Sincerity calls your wisdom forward to be translated into thought by your brain, a brain that is now in service to the heart. Your heart’s sincerity is the power that calls forth the wisdom of your soul .

What do you ask? This is a legitimate question. Anyone who has explored life’s challenges knows that our questions themselves make a difference. What do you ask?

The question that keeps calling forth the best response for me is the question I was first given when I was learning how to access my heart’s wisdom by the people at HeartMath® . The question they suggested was very simple, and it has proven for me to be the best one I have found. It is the question, “What is a more effective response to this situation?” I found that if I asked this question, my heart responded and let me know what I needed to know. It made clear to me how I needed to respond to what was taking place. When I did not know what to do about the man who was creating a conflict that would disrupt my organization, I asked, “What is a more effective response to this situation?” That worked for me in that moment. I was able to receive my heart’s simple, profound wisdom.

When I was at the bus stop without a workable alternative, I asked my heart, “What is a more effective response to this situation?” In response to my asking, I suddenly saw the situation differently. My spiritual heart told me how to take care of my children, and it brought to my awareness how I could address my own need as well.

This is my question. What is your question? I am discovering that we each have the ability to discover the question that brings resolution to the conflicts before us. Our heart has the question – and the answers – already available for us. I find that the simple question, “What do you want me to know?” helps some people connect with their spiritual hearts.

Sometimes, the need for action is so great that the question for our hearts is “What do you want me to do?” Sometimes, when the situation seems too big or complex, I find it helpful to ask “What is an effective next step?”

My suggestion is that you start with my question, “What is a more effective response to this situation?” While you practice and learn the steps, this is an excellent question to work with. It is easier, after you have worked with this for a time, to then find if there is another question that works well for you .

Although the question is important, what makes the greatest difference is something else entirely. What makes the greatest difference in the power, and the receptiveness we have to our answers, is our sincerity.

Sincerity is the powerful heart feeling that draws wisdom from the soul into our awareness. Sincerity is the power that draws the spiritual self into active engagement in our lives.

Think back on the questions you have asked in your life. Do you remember any questions like “Why did this happen to me?” and others that may have been passionately spoken, but were really said from frustration, anger, impatience, judgment or that magnificent of motivators, the feeling of “poor me”?

Sincerity is different. Sincerity is that heart desire to understand. Sincerity doesn’t care if I am right or wrong, or if I have to leave or stay. Sincerity comes from the deep desire within our hearts to show up as who we really are. It comes from our deep desire to help – and to make a difference, a wise difference. It is there to take us forward, to draw us into an engagement in life that holds meaning and purpose for us .

Sincerely ask your heart, “What is a more effective response?”

I’m sure that there have been times in your life when it was no longer important to get the answer you wanted. You sincerely desired to really know how to respond effectively to whatever was before you. I know you have reached that place at times; we all have. There was no more win, or lose, or self-justification. It was powerful then, and you will find that each time you enter that place of sincerity, you will feel its power now.

These steps are amazingly simple for being so powerful. Imagine yourself in a situation where you are feeling stress, pressure or worry. You naturally find yourself taking that first step, Touch & Breathe. You place your hand on your heart, and pretend to take several long deep breaths through your heart. It is so natural, and so easy.

As your attention shifts to the area of your heart, your breathing invites you to focus on the second step of “Remember & Feel.” This is when you remember that moment when your heart felt full.

My memory often goes to a time when Kathryn and I were in Hawaii, out whale watching in a little raft. It was a beautiful day, with the deep blue of the water capped by huge, puffy, white cumulus clouds that majestically filled the sky. I was enjoying the feeling of the light caress of the boat’s spray, when suddenly humpback whales we had glimpsed in the distance turned and began to swim toward our raft. The raft stopped still in the water, and our gazes were riveted on the dark bodies as they broke the surface of the water, blowing their breath as a dynamic white mist into the air – catching and sparkling in the sunlight – signaling that they were drawing closer to our small craft. Even though each one was many times bigger than our raft I felt no fear. My heart was filled with an excited sense of wonder. The whales dove a short distance away from us, their tails breaking the surface and then disappearing. We watched, enthralled, as their massive bodies passed directly under our small raft. The sun illuminated their bodies through the water. They were huge, blue, white and dark gray, mystical and magnificent. Then they surfaced on the other side of our little raft – and my heart was filled with overflowing joy at seeing the beauty, the majesty and the magnificence of these creatures. I can still feel the radiant fullness of my heart, overflowing with joy, delight and wonder. I can still feel it.

Take hold of your memory. As its images surface in your awareness, open to the feeling that was in your heart. Experience again the powerful feeling from your heart-filled memory. Your heart can still feel the fullness, remembering and feeling. When you have enjoyed that feeling, luxuriating as it impacts every cell of your body, then go to that place of deep sincerity.

Imagine yourself taking that third step, Sincere Asking. Ask from the sincerity of your heart, “What is a more effective response?” With your sincerity, your mind is receptive as your heart sends its clear wisdom into your awareness through your thoughts. There is a beautiful peace in your heart as you understand the next steps before you.

Now you are transformed and guided by your spiritual heart.

* The Heart Wisdom Tool is based upon and is a modification of the technique called Freeze-Frame®, used and modified with the permission of The HeartMath® Institute. They have allowed me to present this modified version because of my understanding of the heart and our many years of close association.