E069 – Practice Heart-Centered Communication

How much time do you spend in your heart? What does that even look like—does it mean anything? Or is it just a concept written about in Hallmark cards? I'm going to discuss a very practical, pragmatic heart-centeredness here, because otherwise it can sound very fluffy. 

Augustine, the Christian mystic, spoke of Oculus Cordes, or seeing the world through the eyes of the heart. In Buddhism there's heart-mind, and contemporary non-dual teacher and psychotherapist Loch Kelly speaks of doing the 18-inch drop from head down to heart. 

Qualities of warm-heartedness are available to us, but as a species we don't generally default to them. If we've got a head default, we'll have mostly transactional relating—talking about this and that, or maybe joking with a bit of buying transactions as we're doing this, and what's for dinner, and should we do that, and what did you do yesterday, and how's work… 

So we're literally just trading facts—which is how we build connection, so that's all great, but it doesn't necessarily mean that there's much (or any) heart involved. 

There's a huge movement around the world for heart-centered leadership, for heart-centered meditation practice, for heart-centered work, and heart-centered business, which is led by an out-of-the-head, more ethical, more heart-driven approach. 

I led a workshop recently that included practical steps for being heart-centered, for moving out of head and into heart. We did a transformational meditation to get into our hearts, which you can follow in the video.

One participant in the workshop described accessing her heart as “half a breath away from being triggered,” leaving her feeling quite anxious and "precarious." And that's the thing about heart work: when we go there, unprocessed feelings often await—closures, disappointments, hurts... so it's not all love and light. We don’t just go down to our heart and bathe in white light, but you can surrender and hang out there, and then it warms up. You just have to keep going back and doing the work. 

If you can relate to the person described above, you might need to create more safety in your system before moving to your heart. In fact, one reason we work in the very lower body, especially the knees and legs, in this work, is that most people don't have traumatic material there. Many people have traumas and emotions stuck between their head and their hips, and it'll be like, “Wow, that actually does not feel safe.” 

You can work with that by not going there for a while, and creating safety elsewhere. The terms "titration" or "pendulation" are used in trauma work to mean that you explore an issue like a pendulum: go down, feel (microfeel!), then get the hell out, and resource yourself and do something fun. So you regularly visit, meet, and release—but you never stay to the point that it's overwhelming 

Another participant described her resistance to going into her heart as being like a dark void that feels very vulnerable to abuse. But it became a transformative experience for her when she realized that the openness is for her own benefit, not for someone else’s.

I've also worked with people who were what I’d call very “embellied”—their energy is based very much in their belly, below the heart. They come across as very “big,” and they have big boundaries…but they aren't heart-centered. So part of their work is to come up. 

Some people go straight down to the body and then work their way up, others kind of drift down from their head, and this just naturally does a little bit of opening. Some people don't like a meditation from head down, they prefer to go up. So every person’s system is a little different, and you just have to find out what works best for you.

Remember, though, that finding a sense of shutdown or emptiness or numbness are all feelings too. They're part of the experience. Some people have to acknowledge their hurt to successfully, genuinely open their heart—they can't open their heart unless they actually open up to the things that hurt. Many people can't open their heart without this “hydration” of getting real, of feeling again.

And a curious thing about joy, real joy, is that it is actually intermingled with sadness. It's not just good vibes and jazz hands. It’s more like a sense of happy-sad. Like looking at a baby, say, or something else small and indescribably precious. There's an overwhelming mix of emotions there that’s not just pure love, it's all the things, and a genuinely open heart incorporates this deeper experience in us.

Just keep in mind that this is a practice, and there are various things you can do to reinforce it. If you already do a mindfulness meditation practice, instead of bringing your awareness to your nose or to your breathing, you can bring it to your heart, and just try breathing like that.

On a very practical level, you can set yourself reminders on an intermittent timer or a phone to remind you, a few times a day, to be heart-centered. Also check out The Deep Heart by John Prendergast, a profound and insightful book by a wonderful psychologist and teacher.

So my point is that you can totally nurture and develop your heart-centeredness and turn it into a superpower. When you're sitting with your family at the dinner table, move your awareness from head to heart; when someone's talking, move your awareness. 

Ultimately, our objective is to do this intentionally, consciously and regularly doing the 18-inch drop from head to heart to sit a little bit more connected in ourselves, with our awareness tuned into being in the heart. 

But we so seldom do that! Most of our communication is transactional, but being heart-centered is not about being weird around other people—heart-centeredness is glorious for all interactions, offering compassion and connection in the world. So wherever and whenever you meet people, there's an opportunity to be heart-centered, which doesn't always involve being loving, necessarily, because sometimes loving is actually too much emotion.

You don’t have to be gushing like a fountain of love; it’s normally subtle.

Imagine it like a little pilot light, just a little thing that you can tweak. You can just feel it’s there when you move your awareness down, bringing in heart-centeredness at the most subtle level. It can change a conversation, change how you look at strangers, change how you speak to a family member… you will just habitually begin to speak this way. 

It's an extraordinary leadership practice for leading a meeting—to be knowledgeable and confident about the subject matter, but also to drop into this heart-centered communication. 

And as you do this work, just remember that some people finding numbness or a void or a hole at first, so don’t be scared if you find a thing. It's waiting for you to work on it, and it's offering transformation.