Heart Brain
It seems like pretty much everyone I speak to these days are pretty down. Particularly here in Israel. The grief and fear around the war compounded with the modern challenges impeding on our ability to live a mindful and emotionally connected lives is just making it really difficult to maintain a sense of equilibrium for more than a few moments at a time.
It’s been an intense week for me on a personal level because my youngest kid moved out of the house. I’m officially an empty nester. That might sound really liberating and exciting to some of you who have younger kids, but it’s not feeling that way for me. I’m a single mom.
For the first time in my life I am living alone. It’s kind of terrifying, to the point that I have more than once thought to myself, “maybe I should just have another baby.” Although it is doable, it’s actually coming from a place of insanity in my case. It’s not that I WANT to have a baby. It’s that I DON’T want to be alone and have to figure out what the hell is the point of me – my existence – if not to take care of my kids?
That’s why I’ve been doubling down on meditation. Even if I’m not doing a “formal” meditation, I’m trying to spend as much time as I can free of any stimulation that isn’t natural. I’m trying to keep my focus right here, right now. As much as I want to fix all the shit in the world, the most impactful thing I can do towards that right now is work on my own energy – what I’m putting out into the world.
When I observe myself, I can see that, although my logical mind has processed internal, transgenerational wounds, my subconscious mind still isn’t there and is still for the most part the one behind the wheel – triggering action/behavior. I see that and I offer myself grace and love. Because, like you, dear reader, I am in progress.
I really liked this week’s episode of the Rich Roll Podcast (my all time favorite podcast). He interviewed a non-fiction author named Kimberly Snyder who wrote a book called “The Hidden Power of the Five Hearts.” She talked about the power of synchronizing the heart with the central nervous system. Focusing attention on your heart creates more synchronicity between the brain and the heart which leads to overall feelings of peace.
Snyder says, “Just by putting some of our attention on your heart – that starts to rewire your nervous system.” Your heart sends more messages to your brain, which changes your perceptions. The idea is that you meditate with your focus on your heart, and as you’re breathing, you imagine that you’re breathing into your heart like it’s another lung.
I’m not really sure I understood her explanation of it. I suppose I’d have to read her book and maybe do a bit more research. For now, from my understanding – the heart is like another brain. You know how people talk about the gut (or the enteric nervous system) being like a second brain? They do. Because it alerts the brain when something is wrong. Well, the heart is another “brain” in that sense. The gut and the heart both have a lot of the same circuitry, neurons, neurotransmitters, and whatnots as the brain, which means they can learn, remember, feel, and sense.
It makes sense to me that the more synchronous these systems are, the better they will operate, so I’m giving this type of meditation a shot. We’ll see what happens. Snyder talks about it like it can save the world. I figure it can’t hurt.
I’ve been taking a few minutes here and there to meditate on breathing into my heart (although I’m simultaneously breathing deep into my belly (my gut-brain) and diaphragm while recalling feelings of love, peace, and calm. Honestly, it feels pretty good.