Posts Tagged ‘heart’

Opening the Deep Heart

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During my meditation sits, my goal is to open my heart, to not think, to find the unworded knowing.

I can get to the no thought space, observing my breath and body sensations intimately.

To be honest, I have no clue what an open heart feels like, how to trust the universe, or feel safe in this world.

The path is not well lit or traveled.

We must have faith, I guess.

It must be very subtle in the beginning.

Is this the path to knowing, healing, or well-being?

Have you opened your heart up after childhood abuse?

Please share?
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Beyond the Ordinary mind…….Opening the Deep Heart


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From The Deep Heart:

“If we inquire into who we really are, we will quickly come to a “don’t know.”

This is not a mistake.

It signals that we have gone as far as the ordinary mind can go.

We have made a critically important discovery — the limit of the mind’s ability to know that which is not an object.”
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My two cents: I have gone as far as the ordinary mind can take me on my healing path.

So where do I (we) go from here?

Beyond where the ordinary mind can grasp, our felt sense, our deep heart.

I breathe into my felt sense (my soul, my spiritual center) located in my solar plexus.

I focus and observe, nothing else, meditation surrenders gently, waiting for the heart to open.

It is great to have purpose and hope.

Maybe we will find out who we are in the process.
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Part 1: The conditioned mind cannot accept unconditionally.

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From the Deep Heart:


One of the powers of the human mind is the ability to envision possibilities.

We commonly compare the actual with an ideal, judging what is by what we imagine should be.

We dream up an idealized image and then measure ourselves and others against it.

But have you noticed that no one and nothing ever measures up?

This way of thinking fosters alienation and estrangement within our self and between our self and others, hindering connection and intimacy, and oppressing spontaneity, creativity, and freedom.

The conditioned mind cannot accept unconditionally.

It always has an agenda, even if it is well-hidden.

The inner judge, posing as a mature adult, is just a child who is a little older than the parts that she or he is judging.

We gain our freedom by seeing through the illusion of this critical child’s highly limited view.

Rational thought is helpful but rarely sufficient.
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Part 2. Soul Level

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“In my experience, when people are in touch with this soulful level of experience, a subtle jewel-like point at the back of the heart area opens and lights up.

A signature vibration emerges — a particular blend of tones and colors (poetically speaking) that is unique to each individual.

This illumination corresponds with the specific archetypes we express — healer, teacher, leader, artist, nurturer, explorer, and warrior (or some blend of these).

These roles express essential qualities of being such as love, wisdom, courage, and beauty.

When we experience someone who clearly expresses these qualities, we are moved and say that our “soul” — this deep level of the heart — is touched.”

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Soul Level part 1. —- from The Deep Heart

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The soul level is an intermediary dimension between ego and Self.

This level is often denied or dismissed by rationally oriented psychologists who have never contacted it experientially.

It’s also overlooked by those spiritual teachers who accent the transcendent and impersonal.

It is a subtle, archetypical level explored by Jungians, students of shamanism, purpose guides, and people interested in unusual states of consciousness.

Transpersonal psychology has become largely fixated on the soul for decades.

New Agers also tend to gravitate here, fascinated by the possibility of cultivating subtle powers of the mind to gain wealth, health, or status via the law of attraction.

When we are open and attuned to this level, we feel ourselves moving more intuitively in harmony with a greater flow.
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My two cents: through my meditative practice I search for this level.

Deep Heart map by John Pendergast


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“What do I mean by the Deep Heart? What is it, exactly, and what does it entail?

I want to share a multidimensional map with you, one that I have distilled after years of exploration.

This map of the heart is simple, subtle, and incomplete. It is also not completely original—others have described similar strata of the psyche.

We can access three broad levels of experience and identity in and through the heart area: ego, soul, and Self (no-self).

Ego refers to our self-story and image, along with its related feelings and sensations. It is who most of us ordinarily think and feel we are.

The Soul level is an intermediary dimension between ego and self. This level is often denied or dismissed by rationally oriented psychologists who have never contacted it experientially.

The deepest dimension—the self or no-self is unbounded and infinite, unlike any worldly ocean that has a limit, no matter how vast.”
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My two cents: I have never thought that the heart has different depths, different levels.

My meditation practice is intently focused on exploring these levels.

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Our Deep Heart


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From The Deep Heart:


“The heart area is where we feel most intimately touched by kindness, gratitude, and appreciation. It is where we feel most loving and loved.

It is where we point when we refer to ourselves and where we feel the full poignancy of our human existence, richly flavored by both joy and grief.

It is where and how we know ourselves and others most intimately.

It is where we simply are, free of any definition.

And it is where we move from when we are most at ease and in touch with ourselves.

When the heart has awakened, we are intimate with all things.

Conversely, the heart is also where we feel most emotionally wounded by the words and acts of others, especially when we struggle with our own sense of worth.

It is where we feel the impact of our harshest self-judgments and where we feel most hurt by the judgments of others.

When we find it difficult to accept and love ourselves, our heart feels numb or disturbed.

It is where we loathe and reject ourselves, it is where we are least kind to ourselves and others, and it is one of the primary centers of shame.

It is where we feel brokenhearted when we have lost someone dear to us.

It is the seat of despair, and it is where we feel most alone, empty, alienated, and disconnected.”

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The Hearts role in healing

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My Ptsd life makes no sense cognitively, emotionally, or biologically with a mind wired differently and a nervous system all hyped up.

The more I think the worse I get!

The other piece is the spiritual, opening the heart.

I strive to open my heart, to unburden the weight of trauma that holds down many positive emotions, compassion, desire, gratitude, worthiness, trust, etc.

Trauma closed my heart down in childhood, I have no experience of what an open heart feels like.

I have been actively trying to open my heart.

An open heart must be connected to being able to trust, take risks, be vulnerable voluntarily.

Have you thought about the role your heart plays in the PTSD journey?

I know thinking damages my life, fuels my PTSD.

If I think my PTSD and depression get worse.

How do you open your heart, please share?
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My Spiritual Teacher poses questions for me

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My spiritual teacher says, my “Ego” did his job extremely well and helped me survive childhood. Wow.

Thank him and soothe him, do not battle and interrogate him.

She talks about our divine masculine and feminine sides.

Funny, she says my feminine side is active, look at my empathy not repeating what my dad did to me. Interesting concept.

Had to digest those words for a while.

Maybe having the abuse I endured through childhood, gave me a better life than being in another environment. Her words bring ideas I have never imagined.

I realize all my PTSD symptoms are directly related to my “Ego”.

If I meditate, focus intently, my PTSD goes away, along with my “Ego” for a while.

My era is filled with toxic masculinity, a denial of emotions being thought of as strength.

That adds up to a flawed “Ego”, an intolerant, angry, anxious guy.

I need to filter my “Ego” through my heart. Cleanse it of the damage it accumulated navigating through childhood trauma.

Rarely, if at all, has therapy addressed my heart.

When the heart is in observer role, we are at a deeper, spiritual level.

This all resonates with me.

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Stress, PTSD and our Heart

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A growing body of compelling scientific evidence is demonstrating a link between mental and emotional attitudes, physiological health and long-term well-being:

* 60% to 80% of primary care doctor visits are related to stress, yet only 3% of patients receive stress management help.

* In a study of 5,716 middle-aged people, those with the highest self-regulation abilities were over 50 times more likely to be alive and without chronic disease 15 years later than those with the lowest self-regulation scores.

* Positive emotions are a reliable predictor of better health, even for those without food or shelter while negative emotions are a reliable predictor of worse health even when basic needs like food, shelter and safety are met.

* A Harvard Medical School Study of 1,623 heart attack survivors found that when subjects became angry during emotional conflicts, their risk of subsequent heart attacks was more than double that of those who remained calm.

* A review of 225 studies concluded that positive emotions promote and foster sociability and activity, altruism, strong bodies and immune systems, effective conflict resolution skills, success and thriving.

* A study of elderly nuns found that those who expressed the most positive emotions in early adulthood lived an average of 10 years longer.

* Men who complain of high anxiety are up to six times more likely than calmer men to suffer sudden cardiac death.

* In a groundbreaking study of 1,200 people at high risk of poor health, those who learned to alter unhealthy mental and emotional attitudes through self-regulation training were over four times more likely to be alive 13 years later than an equal-sized control group.

* A 20-year study of over 1,700 older men conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health found that worry about social conditions, health and personal finances all significantly increased the risk of coronary heart disease.

* Over one-half of heart disease cases are not explained by the standard risk factors such as high cholesterol, smoking or sedentary lifestyle.

* An international study of 2,829 people ages 55 to 85 found that individuals who reported the highest levels of personal mastery – feelings of control over life events – had a nearly 60% lower risk of than those who felt relatively helpless in the face of life’s challenges.

* According to a Mayo Clinic study of individuals with heart disease, psychological stress was the strongest predictor of future cardiac events such as cardiac death, cardiac arrest and heart attacks.

* Three 10-year studies concluded that emotional stress was more predictive of death from cancer and cardiovascular disease than from smoking; people who were unable to effectively manage their stress had a 40% higher death rate than nonstressed individuals.

* A study of heart attack survivors showed that patients’ emotional states and relationships in the period after myocardial infarction were as important as the disease severity in determining their prognosis.

* Separate studies showed that the risk of developing heart disease is significantly increased for people who impulsively vent their anger as well as for those who tend to repress angry feelings.

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