There is a part of these transformative experiences that we don’t have the equipment to measure. It is the spiritual. This part of our nature that we refer to as spiritual seems to be beyond our scientific instruments. Some scientific experiments suggest that there is an element present in our lives that is beyond our capacity to measure or record, an element with great impact on our lives. They suggest an impact beyond what we are able to identify as our physical world. However, in fairness to our use of scientific information, inference is not proof.
Just because I really enjoyed learning about this, I want to share one of those experiments that deeply intrigues me. Researchers were looking into what they describe as our intuitive capacity
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A button was pressed, which was followed by a six-second time delay. After the six seconds, a computer would randomly select an image that was projected onto a TV screen. Most of the images were completely neutral, like an image of a rock. Some of the images were emotional, like a bloody knife. Each person watching the images was wired so that researchers could tell what happened in their brain, heart and other parts of the body.
Looking at the data from the whole group, the researchers could see that 4.8 seconds before the computer selected an emotional image, there was a response in the heart that sent a signal to the brain so that there was an anticipation of the emotional image. When I look at that data (and I am not a scientist nor a researcher), the experiment suggests to me that some aspect of ourselves that is outside of time and space connects through our hearts to tell our brains to prepare to handle emotional impact.
The only thing in my awareness that would fit that description is our spiritual nature. It is not limited by time and space. Its major point of connection to our consciousness is through our hearts. It directs our
brains to help us respond to the challenging experiences of our lives.
Validation of your experiences with your heart as a transformative instrument will come from your own trial and application of this tool that activates your spiritual heart. Your life is the lab in which the presence and power of your spiritual heart is proven. What we do know from science is that we can measure its impact as transformative at our physical, mental, and emotional levels of experience.
Our examination here is not just a physical or mental one. When I heard my heart direct me to respond to my children differently at the bus stop, when I heard my heart direct me on the bridge to back up, I experienced much more than physical change or guidance. I felt something change me.
It was not a thought to change. It was the experience of a change taking place within me.
I did not think about changing, and then make a decision. When I engaged the feeling from my heart-filled moment, it allowed the power of my spiritual nature to shift my physical systems, my mental capacity and my emotional experience
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Just as I had in the hallway with the doctor, I went from feeling fear to experiencing centered caring. In addition, I then “knew” the best response that I could make in that moment.
I know that this was not the body, although my body was affected. It was not emotional, although my emotions were affected. It was not intellectual, even though my mind was affected. I knew that I was in touch with a part of my being that was greater than my body, that was greater than my emotions, and that was greater than mere intellectual intelligence. I was in touch with a part of my being that I have come to recognize as my spiritual self. In those moments, this self demonstrated its power to me. It is not the power of being able to control things in the outer world. Rather, it is the power to transform our inner worlds. That power changed me, and transformed my experience, in those moments.
This power showed me what is greater than knowledge. This power showed me true wisdom. This power showed me hope in darkness, and it showed me the way through loss. It provided a way to interact with people, and it brought wisdom that guided me in
relationships. These interactions connected me to the highest level within myself, and benefited the people in my life. In my first experience of this power at Kathy’s death, this power changed me. It took me out of anguished emotional turmoil into forgiveness and peace.
What the research shows us is that specific changes happen. When you feel love, or a feeling associated with love, your heart, brain and emotions transform. These transformations cause other systems within you to up-level as well. The information I have studied demonstrated the transformation of at least six biophysical systems from incoherence to entrained coherence. This is an astounding level of transformation into a higher functioning within our biological systems.
Is it just a feeling – the feeling of love – that causes this change? Or is it that the feeling operates like a key that activates the spiritual power of our beings? I have worked with this for many years, because it is important to me to understand what is really taking place in our transformation. Again and again I have experienced personally – and heard from
the experience of others – this transformative change that affects body, mind and emotions. At the same time, many people recognize this experience as the result of something more powerful than just positive feelings or good thoughts. It is the experience of the power of our spiritual hearts.
I have come to treasure my spiritual heart. It lifts my mind to its best functioning, but it is not my mind. It lifts my body to new levels of efficiency, but it is not my body. It lifts me to be a person living at a higher level, one who contains fulfillment and expresses my true values. It expresses who I really am.
On the cover of this book, I invited you to experience this amazing wisdom that can manifest your true heart’s desires. It doesn’t matter if that desire in your heart is for wealth, for loving relationships, for a great job, for a great career or for any other blessing, including enlightenment. This wisdom of your spiritual heart can guide you unfailingly, step by step, to the complete fulfillment of that desire. It will do that because that desire was placed on your heart by this spiritual self. Your spiritual nature is calling you to open to receive that
good, that blessing, that potential experience of life – because that experience will be a very meaningful experience to you.
Knowing that your heart’s desire is of true meaning to you, it calls you to fulfill those dreams. If you look at what your heart really desires, that desire is for an experience that blesses your life and fills it with some goodness or care for you or those you love. This is true of all our heart desires.
It is not true of our head desires. Many of our “wants” are simply our head’s desires. Through the amygdala’s emotional pattern, our brains try to compensate for fear, insecurity or sense of lack by projecting that having something or doing something will make us okay. Those desires can seem compelling for moments, but they are not rooted in who we are, and they soon fade.
Your spiritual heart’s wisdom not only creates your dreams – it also guides you to the meaningful fulfillment of those dreams. It draws the opportunities for those experiences to you and opens you to receive their blessings. It is here to help you fulfill the purposes that are important to you, as a spiritual being
having a human experience. I have heard many people share how following their heart’s wisdom has brought jobs, relationships or creative opportunities into their worlds. I have seen so many lives fulfilled, just as mine was, by following this powerful wisdom of the heart.
Over and over in my life, I have listened to my heart, and found that its wisdom has guided me away from those endeavors that could not fulfill my dreams. It has unerringly guided me to step forward into the opportunities that would fulfill my heart’s desires.
As a young man, I remember thinking that I enjoyed being a lawyer. I had a good income, and the legal work I was doing was interesting. Much of my efforts were focused on environmental issues that were new to the law at that time. They were exciting and challenging questions. I was surprised when my heart suggested that I should go to a ministerial school. I did not want to be a minister. I didn’t like many of the things I associated with ministers. I liked the money, challenge and prestige of being a lawyer. However, I had a deep desire for spiritual understanding. In my free time, it was spiritual books (
in addition to mysteries and thrillers) that I read, not legal ones.
This experience of my spiritual heart’s guidance was new to me. It made very little sense logically, and my mind wanted to ridicule the suggestion. However, my family and my spiritual studies had spoken of guidance as a real thing, a valuable thing. I decided to pay attention to it.
In that experience, I began to discover the difference between the world of my thoughts and the world of my guidance. The major difference for me at that point was that what I recognized as guidance “felt” right. When I focused on it I had a “knowing” that it was what would be the best for me, and for my life.
I will admit that moments later my head would be back, wanting to argue with the guidance. However, the feeling of “rightness” was so compelling that I took the guidance seriously and began to explore that possibility.
I ended up following my heart’s directive. It was very specific, and I found myself in a seminary
enjoying spiritual study. When I graduated, I wanted to continue my spiritual learning, which I wouldn’t have time to do if I returned to being a lawyer. As a result of my love of spiritual understanding, I followed my heart directive and went into active ministry, knowing that I could always switch back to the law.
What I found in ministry was uniquely fulfilling to me. This really surprised me. I found that I did not need to be like other ministers. I was working to help people live their lives with wisdom and love. That meant so much more to me than the law ever had. My heart guided me to a career that my head thought I didn’t want. My heart guided me to deep fulfillment through this new career. My heart also guided me so that in the less remunerative profession of ministry, my family and I did not experience any lack – but rather we experienced abundance in every form.
Your true heart’s desires include the short-term needs of releasing the emotional turmoil triggered by difficulties in your life. Finding peace in those moments, and connecting with your amazing wisdom,
is a true desire of your heart. Your spiritual heart will make it happen when you use the access code.
As you meet life’s experiences, your spiritual heart will also guide you to the intermediate steps to good jobs, to wise financial decisions, and to the relationships that fill your world with meaningful, joyous love. Follow your spiritual heart’s wisdom, and you will end up with a life that is deeply fulfilling and a heart that is filled to overflowing.