I rarely hear about the role of the Heart or the power of Love as relevant determinants of human health or spirituality. This was particularly highlighted at a recent energy psychology conference in which a keynote presentation on the topic of Enlightenment seemed to focus almost entirely on achieving altered states of consciousness. I could feel my heart crying out inside me how incomplete this felt.
Also at a breakout session where an energy therapy was being presented as an effective way of releasing ego based negativity (i.e. negative emotions, perceptions, beliefs and memories) one question shockingly drove home to me the level of disconnection we have with our hearts. The question: "As nature abhors a vacuum, once we release this ego based negativity, what do we replace it with?" My answer: "With the essence of who we are and have always been, our hearts!"
So on hearing all this, as a duty to my Heart and Myself, I feel it imperative to help bring the Human Heart back into the forefront of our work and personal development. As a result I will share here some of my clinical experiences of the crucial role that I feel both the Heart and the energy of Love play in the field of energy psychology and in the destiny of humanity.
I start by addressing the following issues:
1. How the current concept of consciousness as a mental phenomenon has deflected our attention from the Heart.
2. The awareness that the Heart is the equivalent of the Core Human Self
3. Core Human Emotions
4. Conditioned Emotions
5. The role of the Heart as an organ of perception
6. The role of the Heart as a source of immense wisdom and knowledge
7. The energy field that we call the feelings of Love
8. The healing power of Love.
9. The concept of a Divine Holographic Energy Field
10. Factors which impinge negatively on this Divine Holographic Energy Field
11. A new definition of "consciousness"
12. A new definition of illness
13. A new definition of health
14. The Body-Spirit Dichotomy
15. The Road to Enlightenment
Both Western and Eastern spiritual traditions have largely gravitated towards an understanding of consciousness and its altered states as possible doors to spiritual enlightenment. Unfortunately "consciousness" usually refers to a mental state or phenomenon. Rarely does one think of the Heart in this picture let alone emotions or feelings of Love. As science is largely a mind/brain dominated and driven discipline it is not difficult to understand how Heart and emotion become relegated to the back rooms never to be heard from again.
To say that we as feeling human beings consider ourselves primarily "thinking" beings is to essentially forget who we really are. It is difficult to understand then how we will ever achieve Enlightenment if we in fact are leaving ourselves behind. Hence it is my view that by focusing primarily on consciousness, as a mental phenomenon, we are missing an opportunity to know ourselves and our true nature as Divine Beings.
The concept of the Self has received endless dissertations by psychologists, psychiatrists and others over the last century. Opening an erudite text on the subject can mesmerize one to such an extent that one can walk away feeling totally confused about what appears to be an elusive and complex concept. In my view this situation exists largely because the Self has been defined theoretically as a mind/brain construct. That is we often consider the Self to be related in some complex way to what we term personality.
I would like to suggest a more pragmatic and personal way of defining the Self that everyone can identify with and feel almost instantly. This new approach entails a personal awareness of one's Self. This awareness can be facilitated by one of the following simple exercises:
1. Say the word "Myself" to yourself and notice where inside your body the word resonates for you,
Or
2. Think of something about yourself that you appreciate, appreciate yourself for it, and notice what you feel and where you feel it. The location of the feeling in your body is the location of your Self.
In most cases both 1 and 2 yield the same location, i.e. in the mid-chest or over the Heart region. For individuals who have been heavily mind/brain oriented (i.e. overly analytical people like most well educated professionals) the tendency may be to say that they feel the Self in their mind. A close examination of this will often reveal an inability of such individuals to feel their feelings or even worse a fear of feeling them. When one is in a state of self-appreciation one usually feels joyful, happy, content etc. With some self-awareness I know that you will recognize that these can only originate in the Heart.
This personal awareness of the Self is also clearly felt as being the "core" of that person i.e. where they feel themselves to be. Hence we can also refer to the experience of the Self as the Core Self or more generally the Core Human Self. Again, I must emphasize that these statements are drawn from one's personal awareness of themselves and not from theoretical considerations. This caveat is necessary to avoid endless debates on the merits of one theory of Self over another. Your personal awareness of your Self is what it is for you.
As core feelings clearly emerge from the Core Self (or the heart, used interchangeably here) one might ask oneself what the nature or purpose of these "core emotions" is? We will address this shortly. The nature of the core emotions can be classified into two categories:
Category 1: Emotions of joy, happiness, peace, love, contentedness, expansiveness, hope, buoyancy or lightness,
And,
Category 2: Emotions of sadness, darkness, constriction, heaviness or sinking
We contrast these emotions with what we describe below as "conditioned emotions".
It has been observed that animals that grow up in an environment where they are not hunted have yet to "learn" (or have imprinted in them) the experience of fear. Another way of saying this is that these animals have yet to develop a post-traumatic syndrome. Is it not strange then that we consider animals that fear for their survival as normal?
We define these survival-based (or more broadly trauma-based) emotions here as "conditioned emotions". Some examples include worry, fear, anxiety, panic, defensiveness, avoidance, mistrust, etc. If we now consider the history of the human species, one could say that our survival-based emotions also represent a post-traumatic syndrome of sorts. That suggests that there may have been a time, before the cumulative history of human trauma, where we humans were in our natural state. Where our survival did not feel threatened.
Occasionally one will feel "conditioned emotions" such as anger, worry, guilt, unworthiness, fear, desperation, self doubt, low self esteem, etc in the region of the Core Self. In such cases these individuals have experienced emotional trauma during their lifetimes that have occluded the pure expression of their Core (Emotional) Self. Such "conditioned emotions" cannot originate from a Heart that is inherently Loving but from the personal and collective (as alluded to above) history of trauma that has imprinted itself deeply enough to allow one to mistrust their Heart and the innate wisdom of their Core Self.
Interestingly, if we look at the impact of these conditioned emotions, on our species and on the planet, we notice that they are responsible for the perpetuation of trauma at every level i.e. trauma begets trauma. The net result is the deepening of these conditioned emotions in the human bio-field. This sets up a vicious negative spiral leading to a more negative state both individually and collectively
Clearly then, conditioned emotions cause humans to become further distanced from their core human emotions. The net result is a relative and sometimes complete disconnection from the Core Human Self. Often this results in behaviors that we as bystanders feel and define as "inhuman" i.e. reflex behaviors such as violence and killing for example, not originating from the human being rather from their conditioned response based on traumatic imprinting.
Another example is someone who has been hurt so many times that they are reluctant to engage a genuine desire for Love coming from within their Core Human Self. For instance, have you ever heard someone say, "I can't entrust myself to feelings of Love again after my last disappointing experience with relationships"?
From a mind/brain standpoint, where feelings are often left out, we might find ourselves trying to rationalize, or even steer clear of these core emotions emerging from within us. However with some reflection one readily notes their real importance. Category 1 Emotions are a sign that your situation is where you want it to be and Category 2 Emotions are a sign that it is not where you want it to be. Hence your Core Self regularly and automatically monitors the desirability of your situation for you. In other words, your Core Self is a perceiving entity (i.e. your heart is a perceiving organ).
One can go further and say that the Core Self is knowledgeable about what is and is not good for you. This is clear by the fact that when you feel sad about something it can be taken to mean that the offending event is not desirable to you nor is it in your best interests. So in other words the Core Self has immense wisdom about you, your life, and your direction in life etc.
An interesting example is the individual who recognizes their sadness about being too afraid to love again i.e our Core Self telling us that it is not good for us to be cutting ourselves off from the experience of Love. If you follow this so far then you might start to wonder why we spend so much time trying to "figure out" (i.e. a mental activity) what direction to steer our lives in when we have this information already inside us beckoning us to listen to it.
Conditioned emotions of hurt on the other hand do not emerge from us but appear to be imprinted and stored in our bio-fields as a result of individual and inter-generation based trauma. They have the net effect of obfuscating and derailing our connection to our Core Emotions often leaving us feeling lost, confused and insecure about our path. This is very much like putting on a pair of prescription glasses that don't belong to you; they just make everything blurry.
We now turn to the phenomenon we call Love. This is a tricky subject because conditioned emotions (and corresponding beliefs) have largely distorted one's experience of the pure emotion of Love. For instance many people "believe" that Love has something to do with needing that someone they "love". I would like to suggest that the "need" for someone is really a conditioned emotion and not a core emotion at all.
For instance, if you ask yourself the question, "Well why do I need this person?" you'll most likely find that it is because you might feel anxious, empty, lost, alone, even desperate if they weren't there with you. It's the fear of being alone or abandoned, imprinted by the trauma of earlier loss or separation, that is creating the need which then becomes "defined" as an experience of Love. Relationships, which are based on this definition of "Love" often, become, what we call, unhealthy co-dependent relationships rather than genuine healthy loving ones.
Love, pure Love, is the feeling one has when they are appreciating the deep beauty of something in their life i.e. a landscape, a pet, a lover, a friend, themselves etc. It is a feeling that emerges from the Core Self and is associated with other Category 1 Emotions listed above. Allow yourself to tap into this feeling for a moment.
Now that you have rekindled the core emotion of Love, notice how it feels in your body. You might note that it makes you feel warm, lighter, more relaxed, more contented, more at peace, more buoyant, and more expansive, to name a few. You may notice that as you retain this connection to the core emotion of Love it may begin to spread throughout your body, even beyond. In other words you may feel it, or yourself, since the feeling also feels like you, expanding beyond your physical body. This is a personal awareness of yourself and the feeling of Love as an expanding field of energy. Some people call this spirit or soul. I refer to it here as Divine Self or the Divine Holographic Energy Field.
You will recognize that, when fully engaged, your Divine Holographic Energy Field (DHEF) makes, you feel energized, clear, focused, relaxed, alert, at peace, joyful, wise, contented, rejuvenated, healthy, etc. In other words it reduces any apparent stress you may be feeling in the moment and has the potential to enhance your overall well being. This may be one of the reasons, among others, why people with pets or a loving relationship live longer than those without.
The term "holographic" here refers to the fact that this field has embedded in it information at every level that co-ordinates mind/body functions in an optimal manner. So it is starting to appear that a) Love is a healing force that we experience as an energy field and b) we can tune into the "Love Field" or DHEF if we wish to enhance its effect on our lives.
Now what do we mean by "tune into"? Well to create the highest level of loving feelings (to sustain the optimal DHEF as our desired bio-field state) towards others our environment and ourselves.
What sorts of things block us from experiencing the optimal DHEF as our bio-field? Well, all conditioned emotions, along with their associated beliefs, perceptions, behaviors and memories adversely affect the optimal DHEF state. For example the memory of a failed relationship undermines the core emotion of Love by making one mistrust or fear it. This conditioning is embedded in the bio-field as energy irregularities or blocks which then manifest at the physical level as illness.
Unlike other modalities a new and promising process addresses conditioning due to trauma at the level of the Thought Field. This process allows one to bring into awareness contradictory pieces of information about a conditioned negative emotion, belief, perception, behavior or memory which have been compartmentalized and kept separate. This information takes two forms a) beliefs about the purpose of the negativity's presence in the bio-field and b) the actual mental/emotional/physical experience associated with having the negativity in the bio-field.
The client is made aware of the internal contradiction between these two and taken through a process of determining for them, which most resonates truthfully with their "inner wisdom". By aligning themselves with their own "inner wisdom", which is felt to emerge from the location of their Core Self, they are able to make powerful intentional statements requesting that anything not aligned with this inner wisdom be purged from their bio-field.
Early case studies with this process have suggested that negative conditioning plays a very significant role in disrupting and de-tuning the bio-field from the optimal DHEF Additionally, They also suggest that one person's disrupted bio-field affects and can even entrain another's bio-field into a disrupted state.
The opposite is also true, this process appears to concurrently re-tune a disrupted bio-field state shared by a group of individuals while working with only one individual in the group. A clear sign of how we are connected. By so doing, a large amount of depleted vital life energy seems to return to the group field i.e everyone starts to feel rejuvenated. It is hypothesized that such events can assist such groups in achieving a co-operative state of resonance, which can further promote the re-tuning of larger collective energy fields. Such studies are currently being planned.
Individuals experiencing the process initially release the energy blocks at the Thought Field level. This appears to be followed by a re-infusion of vital life energy that appears to cascade to other levels of the bio-field spontaneously. This results in rapid and spontaneous healing. This supports the concept of a DHEF that is ever present and attempting to support the entire being in a natural way. Conceptually then we have reached a point here where we can hypothesize that "restoring" the optimal DHEF is what is required to facilitate the natural healing process.
To illustrate the impact on the DHEF of conditioned negative experiences I often use the visual analogy of a pebble thrown into a still pond to represent it 2 Dimensions. Without negative effects present the pebble sets up a regular and ever present circular wave that travels outwards in beautiful geometric form. This is conceptually analogous to the subjectively experienced energy field of Love emerging and expanding from the Core Self. The field, in our model, remains undisturbed only if we assume an infinitely large pond and no loss of energy due to gravity or friction at the molecular level. This is equivalent to a bio-field optimally tuned to the DHEF and in which no energy is drained or depleted from the system.
Now let us add back gravity, intermolecular forces and assume a dramatic shift in the weather with high winds and rain. The pristine beauty of the original wave gets so distorted and its energy depleted that we can no longer recognize it. Given enough time we lose an ability to make it out entirely. This is equivalent to the bio-field becoming de-tuned from the DHEF, losing its energy, its pristine form and being overtaken by a chaotic, disorganizing field of energy and information. How does this feel? Well it feels like stress.
At this point I would like to offer a new definition of consciousness that departs from the mind/brain-centered definition we have been so used to. I would like to propose that we refer to consciousness as representing the state of tuning of the human bio-field. According to this definition, a "conscious" individual is one whose bio-field is optimally tuned or in resonance with the DHEF and in which she experiences an unfettered Love field embracing her entire being.
Alternately, being "unconscious" here implies having dissonant field effects intruding in on the bio-field thereby leading to a sub-optimal tuning or resonance with the DHEF. This is felt as an intrusion of conditioned emotions into the mind/body and as a disconnection from the Love Field thus contributing to energy distortion, depletion and stress.
Employing this new definition of "consciousness" we can then say that health is a state of being "conscious" and illness is a state of being "unconscious". The question becomes then; can any of us ever become truly "conscious" that is embraced by the Love Field entirely? Additionally what potential resides with respect to healing our bodies if we could achieve such a state?
In my work I have noticed that as individuals effect major re-tuning of their bio-fields with this process, they not only start to feel healthier, they also start to feel and look younger. Additionally they become aware that this "new state" not only feels good, it feels strangely familiar. Almost all individuals experience this as their Core Self. Many also recognize that the conditioned emotions of trauma have cheated them of this experience of themselves their entire lives. Once in this highly tuned state, all individuals recognize that the conditioned emotions are an unwelcome overlay to the human experience and not what it means to be human at all. In other words they achieve a higher awareness and experience of what it truly means to be a human being.
Others have also noted that this is what they consider an experience of their Spiritual Self. In other words, they achieve an experience of their Spiritual Self while alive and in their bodies. This seems to counter the notion that one needs to leave the body (i.e. through astral travel, out of body experiences, near death experiences and death itself) in order to have an experience of the Spiritual Self.
In closing I wish to address one issue that I feel is crucial in optimally tuning our bio-field to the DHEF. This has to do with the Esteem with which we hold ourselves. Some people call this self-esteem. For pragmatic reasons, which will become clear, I prefer the phrase "Esteem for the Self". Putting it this way makes one feel that one is more able to do something about it. It is, I feel, only by nurturing total and complete "Esteem for the Self" that one can optimally tune the bio-field to the DHEF.
One factor that, in my estimation, has impaired our ability to completely esteem ourselves is the belief that our bodies are just vessels waiting to be discarded. When we choose to believe this we automatically devalue part of who we are. The ultimate results are energy blockages, illness and death.
Descartes introduced the mind-body dichotomy several hundred years ago and it's only now that we're beginning to work our way out of that trap. I would like to suggest that we also question the body-spirit dichotomy that some of us now embrace. Something that is physical also derives from energy. Perhaps the physical nature of the body is solely a manifestation of the chaos that exists in the bio-field at this time in human history.
After all doesn't the feeling of Love make one literally feel "lighter" (as in enlightened) and more buoyant (as in less physical and more spiritual)? What would happen to the physical nature of the body were we as a species to truly love our bodies? I would like to suggest that it would not only make us healthier but also begin the process of transforming physical matter (frozen light) into energy (pure light). In effect I am suggesting that tuning the human bio-field to the DHEF or the "Love Field" is the road to Spiritual Enlightenment. I would like to suggest that the prophets had it right, Love is the answer to all things.
