Following Your Heart: How to Navigate the Tug-of-War Between Heart and Mind
In SoulPod, we often refer to the gut-brain, the heart-brain and the head-brain. These three main ‘brains’ of the body are master energy centers where large amounts of information can be exchanged and balanced, both biologically and spiritually. Here, we will spend some time on the intersection between the heart and the mind and how this can contribute to your spiritual development. But first, let’s wrap our minds (nod to the head-brain) around the mechanics of the heart center.
What Sets the Heart Apart
There are extensive neural pathways between the heart and the brain, with more information moving from the heart to the brain than vice versa. This may be counterintuitive as we like to think of our head-brain as the main delegator of the body. These heart signals can influence brain function, including perception, emotional processing, and higher cognitive functions. There is also evidence that the heart neurons operate independently of the brain around emotional processing, hence the name, the heart-brain.
We now know that the heart generates the strongest bioelectric field of the body, not the brain. The heart's electromagnetic field is ~60 times more powerful than the brain’s and is measurable up to 3-10 feet away from the body. In spiritual terms, we like to think of this as being interactive with the aura, which is an amalgam of all of your spiritual energy that surrounds your physical body. It’s what people feel when they come in contact with you. It’s your vibe and attractive force ‘field’ in a way.
The Heart-Math Institute also puts forward that the heart’s electromagnetic field may act as a synchronizing signal for the body in a manner analogous to information carried by radio waves. Whatever is going on in your heart, such as what you are feeling deeply, is cascaded throughout your body, cell to cell. We also see something similar when it comes to HRV (heart rate variability) and distinct frequencies depending on the emotions being experienced.
All this to say, there’s growing evidence that the heart is much more powerful than we may have given it credit for. It’s not just a chamber pumping blood. It’s your most powerful creative center that is a bridge between your biology and your spirituality.
Maybe there’s a reason why in many ancient cultures, such as in Egypt, the heart was regarded as the essential organ recording memory, emotions, personality and an important measure of a life well-lived.
“...there’s growing evidence that the heart is much more powerful than we may have given it credit for. It’s not just a chamber pumping blood. It’s your most powerful creative center that is a bridge between your biology and your spirituality. ”
The Heart as a Creative Center
Let’s get more into the spiritual realm. If you’ve ever experienced a ‘heart-opening’ you’ve likely experienced a combination of:
1) an elevated emotion such as bliss or tears of realization.
2) clarity of thought as though what you were experiencing was more real than ‘real’.
3) arousal of the nervous system.
4) a feeling of energy moving through the front and/or back of your heart space.
5) a temporary dissolution of separation, or ego.
How does this happen and why is it so important in spiritual development?
The heart is the balancer between your earthly experience and your spiritual reality. It’s truly the seat of your being. So, when you activate this center, you are creating both with your physical body and with your spiritual body. It’s one of the most direct ways into the mystical, or the remembering of wholeness.
Due to the biological and spiritual power of the heart center, it helps to bring into coherence all the other centers including the brain.
Remember we talked about how there is more information going from the heart to the brain?
What if when we tap into an elevated emotion in our hearts, that helps bring our brain into an even more organized state? We call this heart-brain coherence. When the brain moves into the mystical, we see vast coherence over all areas of the brain oftentimes in the highly energized state of gamma.
This is when the magic happens. The heart has opened the door to the field through it’s powerful electromagnetism and the brain can receive more information from the field. It’s a powerful, creative circuit that is formed. A vortex of transformation.
The Brain Thinks, The Heart Knows
It’s no secret that in our current culture, we value intellect over feeling. We generate algorithms, hack psychology and praise the ability of linear and sequential thought. We often hear directly or indirectly to push through our feelings, or to push them down.
One understandable reason for this is that it is emotionally vulnerable to share our feelings. If we haven’t built the inner alignment within the muscle of confidence, we can easily get wrapped up in the story that emotions are something to be avoided. They are something to be distracted from.
This is a trap though, because emotions are your most powerful creative ally. Yes, you can create solely through the mind, but your spirit will not be along for the ride.
Learning how to live from the heart requires the courage to feel the challenging so as to make way for the blissful. As we learn how to live from our hearts, we will learn how to ‘read’ this information from others more efficiently. We will feel what others feel without taking it on. It’s an extremely powerful mode of receiving and sharing information.
The brain thinks while the heart knows. We can analyze our way through life using the past as a blueprint and the future as a reliable prediction. Or we can open our hearts to new possibilities we couldn’t even have dreamed of. Once the heart connects through an elevated state to the field and entangles you with different possibilities you can process through the brain, you’re in for a wild and beautiful ride.
As you start to be vigilant about your inner state, while focused on your intention, the ‘doing’ of your life becomes much more aligned creating soul-level fulfillment that we all seek.
Practical Tips for Heart-Opening
As you dive deeper into your spiritual development, the opening of the heart is inevitable. It will happen in its own time. However, here’s some tips from a decades-long meditator:
Start your practice with some form of gratitude and see how far you can dial it up. This is why we often start in prayer. This mudra is widely known, but do not take it for granted. It’s a powerful activator of heart-energy. Feel into this mudra more deeply as you dial up your feelings of satisfaction and appreciation.
You’ll have moments where spontaneous emotion starts to bubble up. Sometimes these are difficult emotions like frustration, anger or the feeling of needing to run. Allow these emotions as well, and know that on the other side of the challenge is likely a heart-opening.
Keep going.
When the heart-opens, you may feel an activation of the nervous system. This can feel like increased heart-rate and breathing. Stay with it. Allow allow allow. As it builds, keep allowing. The more you can open during the process, the more deeply your coherence will be building in your heart and brain.
Know you’re worthy of receiving.
What’s there for you on the other side of a heart-opening is unique for all of us, but it can include feelings of bliss, joy, love, oneness, clarity and profound insights.
Once you open your heart, you won’t forget it. And the beautiful thing is that although that experience may have felt somewhat foreign, it’s more of who you are than anything else. It’s the new consciousness that you are moving into. You are capable of sustaining that experience, it just takes intention and dedication. Living in this way is more powerful than any intellectual pursuit. It’s your dance with destiny and creation in the field of pure possibility.
