"What lies behind us and what lies before us are small things compared to what lies within us" - Oliver Wendell Holmes
I have been meditating for a long time with a focus on the third eye and on sound (Sound and light meditation). My experience of meditation is that it is vital for one's own well-being and for spiritual development. We get an opportunity to reflect on ourselves and our role as humans here on earth.
Since I entered the path of herbs, my meditation has instead moved down to the area of the heart. It was a big change, going from the third eye and the sound down to the heart. I have thought about it a lot and believe that the path of nature and herbs is more naturally connected to the heart. Maybe it is the path of women, the path of witches. I will not dwell on whether it is better or worse than other types of meditation, the only thing I can say for sure is that being in the heart is what I want to be.
When I listened to the podcast 4Health where David Appelgren talked about the energy of the heart, I felt the urge to write this post. Appelgren relies on research that measures the heart's energy field. The more "you are in the heart", the stronger this energy field is.
To be more in the heart, you can do the following simple exercises:
Appelgren gives the following suggestions for simple exercises to be more in the heart.
1. Do a simple breathing exercise. Breathe in for 5 seconds, breathe out for 5 seconds. This rhythm is interpreted by the heart as being in harmony and you are strengthening the heart's energy.
2. Visualize your heart expanding outward, becoming large and magnificent.
3. Practice gratitude. This is perhaps the easiest way to strengthen your heart energy. We have written a separate post about gratitude and practicing gratitude .
The really exciting thing is that strong heart fields are contagious and affect other people's energy fields, even those that are negative. Appelgren also points out that these energy fields can be measured and they are not to be confused with chakras, which are something different.
Pam Montgomery writes about the heart and how it is our primary organ of perception. The rhythm of the heart affects all other rhythms in the body - and draws them into its own rhythm. This can be compared to clocks in the same room that after a while begin to swing in time. It is the clock with the strongest pendulum that sets the pace. This is a definition of harmony (Plant spirit healing, 2008).
When we strengthen the energy of the heart, for example by practicing gratitude, we get a direct effect on our body and our experience of stress decreases. In this way, meditation is good for stress. And as you can see from the steps above, it is easy to practice and strengthen your heart. As my friend Linda said, she checks in on her heart every morning when she wakes up.
Here is a free guided meditation for those of you who want to do a slightly longer heart exercise:
Here is Appelgren's guided heart meditation , which he did for the podcast 4Health.
