Starting Over, Jan 2009. The Named Heart

Starting Over, Jan 2009. The Named Heart.

“There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” Albert Einstein

Give your heart a name today. Today.

Really think about this one because this happens to be the most important relationship in a woman’s lifespan. It always has been. Many of us won’t get this until heart attack and other cardiac related crises screech life as we know it to an abrupt, intrusive and sometimes devastating standstill. On top of no instruction manual on how to snap out of ‘cardiac crisis stunned’ or how to proceed back towards normalcy from this point on. Truly rude unwelcome events.

Why bother with the exercise of giving your heart a name? By naming your heart, you will be giving it a superbly personalized identity and you will find yourself taking it far more seriously. Maybe even really ‘looking’ at it for the first time. This is a sacred trust relationship. Once named, your heart suddenly becomes an entity you can converse with at any time of day or night. Oddly, we may not even realize what an adversarial stance we have taken with our heart until we name it. Speaking to the Named Heart begins the shift from intensely fearful, outraged, betrayed and angry feelings to the start of badly needed powerful healing connectedness that women need to seek out the most proactive, vigilant care available.

How do we name our heart? When we sit quietly and ‘listen’ with the entire body, images begin to flow through the mind. Maybe many images, many directions tug at you. Wait until the strongest feelings attach themselves to an image. This is your sensing heart making itself known to YOU. Give your heart a name that feels instantly amazing and powerful, maybe even makes you laugh out loud. One that makes your heart expand and swell with wonder every time you think it, utter it. You’ve hit the right chord when you literally feel sensations of movement. Joy radiates pulsations of healing. Calm descends.

From this moment forward we begin to dialogue with Heart on a regular basis and because of this, we finally grasp our amazing little organ is not trying to injure or kill us at all. Turn this deceptive and destructive mindset upside down and a whole new universe begins to unveil. We are able to see a grander, more gratifying picture of what we are currently going through. The female heart has its own ‘little brain’, a collection of approximately 40,000 neurons identical to neurons in the big brain so the two organs can chatter back and forth at rates of speed we can’t even comprehend in a never ending dance solely to keep us alive. Our muscular little heart has been wringing itself endlessly like a jumpy sponge, squeezing out 60,000 miles (YES, oui, da) of blood flow per day! It is even dubbed ‘the unselfish heart’ because it doesn’t simply absorb blood directly from inside the chambers but waits just like every other organ for blood to pump through external coronary arteries feeding the hungry muscles. It has even elegantly evolved protective housing in the form of a dangling fluid filled sac (pericardium) that normally cushions us from feeling the pumping action against the ribcage.

So no, your heart did not intentionally attack. Any number of other forces moved into position or collaborated to create minor and major injuries and crises across time but Heart fights for your life by building astonishing detours around defects, turning dead O2 deprived heart tissue quickly into strong scar tissue that can withstand the enormous pumping pressures and give us extra years. Heart tirelessly pulls every split second trick in its hardworking throbbing repertoire. And it will fight until something prevents it from doing so any longer. It knows no other way.

My heart is the most astoundingly loyal friend I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. It never leaves me. Ever. We are locked in deepest companionable life to the end. So I am so relieved I finally got it that my heart was calling out a name to me. Once that name manifested my entire attitude made a whopping adjustment. Something akin to the North and South magnetic poles flip-flopping. My quirky heart had always been on board. ‘I’ was the unaware entity. Now I listen to my heart with ease and respond gladly to its pulls. It knows things I have no way of knowing so I defer to it. Is it craving winter sunlight? I find a window and stay there while sunshine washes across my face. The heart smiles somewhere in the depths. We are eternal partners. On days I cannot help it I do what I can to at least stay out of its way. It has always tried to stay out of mine.

Give your Heart a name today. You’ll never feel alone again. You never were. You never are.

Happy New Year Everyone! May 2009 be full of wonders for all!

Jaynie

Each month of 2009 a new theme topic will be introduced. Everyone is invited to participate. It requires nothing more than sharing your own thoughts and experiences on the theme topic. Please feel free to introduce your own theme topic suggestions. We need all kinds of voices here. It is important to talk about all the things impacting our lives as women with heart issues. I am posting this under ‘Journal’ because it is my personal perspective. Post your own Starting Over discussion any time throughout this month.