Heart before Head
We often think that our big bad brains run the show. But our hearts were formed before our brains and are the real superstars of the body. The heart is the very first organ to form during development and every cell gets nutrients from its own neighborhood. In other words, the heart didn’t need the brain to beat. The heart contains its own substation to pump blood and create the necessary electrical impulses to survive. The neurons in the heart are similar to the ones running the show in the brain. But the heart actually sends more messages to the brain than vice-versa.
Gut Wrenching
As a coach, I encourage mind management. That is shorthand for choosing thoughts. Since thoughts are usually associated with our minds, we give them a lot of power. But feelings come through the heart, and they automatically have that little edge in the equation because feelings occur so viscerally in our bodies. We literally feel them vs. just thinking them. We credit the gut with feelings even though there is no actual organ of that name. We like to trust our own intuition but have no idea where that trust comes from. The invisible magic of the heart is involved with everything.
Hearts have Love
Our hearts command our capacity to love. We literally use powerful words to describe the overwhelming majesty of what happens to us when we love. Intimacy, passion, closeness and commitment are not terms we use when discussing our thoughts. But they come easily to mind if we want to describe the depth of our hearts. Thousands of love songs have been written to describe the joy of being attracted to another human. The brain does not have a big catalog of songs to describe its pleasantness. There is an actual day devoted to expressing love on the calendar. The well-known shape of a big red heart is prettier than the familiar drawing of the actual organ. Good branding makes drawing that type of heart child’s play. We all know how to do it. We learned it by heart early in life.
Attention Lovers
The differences in the heart and mind are all good reminders of the importance of love in our lives. Our brains have a variety of capacities and abilities, but we are all equipped to love. The science of our own creation should be an excellent reminder that we are built first to love, starting with accepting ourselves. This is the type of acceptance that is defined as “just as this is.” Once we have accomplished that, we can easily share our acceptance with the “this is” of others because we understand the absolute beauty of that feeling. We can’t wait to let others in on what we feel. Loving extends naturally to using our thoughts to communicate what our hearts have taught. The heart uses the mind to spread the love. When love is shared, it increases and multiplies and makes a difference in the world. The science of our creation has the power to make us all aware of our connectedness.
Can you measure your love? Is love hard to feel or do we make it hard to feel? What is it like to be loved?
