I was astonished to read recently that studies have found that stress can be more detrimental to our health than smoking.[1] It reminded me of the ancient wisdom of the KaHuna Principles, number one being - IKE - The world is what you think it is and you create your own reality. If we perceive the world as stressful, then we suffer. If we perceive the world as something that we can have resilience with, then we are empowered to live life in that way. This hits on another one of the KaHuna Principles - MANA - All power comes from within, being confident you can live an empowered life.
There are seven principles in total that come from this ancient wisdom of the Hawaiian/Polynesian Island traditional ways, and all of them are lessons in Emotional Intelligence. Our culture appears to be very focused on mental and intellectual Intelligence, which doesn’t seem to be doing much for our foundations of health and happiness in society. This is evidenced in the book ‘Science of the Heart, Exploring the role of the heart in human performance’ released by The Heart Math Institute in 2015.[1] It covers a lot of research into the impact of stress on our health along with emotional and heart intelligence, which captures beautifully the nature of my work as a Kinesiologist.
What first lead me to Kinesiology back in 1997 was this fact that mental and intellectual intelligence was destroying my body and starving my heart. I was an eighteen year old young woman who was very focused on health, eating well, exercising and having high ambitions in life, but not able to be functional because my body and heart were screaming at me by displaying a number of debilitating symptoms. In my practice as a Kinesiologist over these 20 plus years I have witnessed many other people in the same quandary and my practice has become very much focused on supporting people to connect with the wisdom of the body and the heart, in addition to the intelligence of the brain and mind.
There is a whole branch of science now that is dedicated to explaining this aspect of life - psychoneuroimmunology - which explains how our emotions and mental state of being creates chemical messages in the body which affect our neurological and immune functions. The Chinese have known this for thousands of years and know that certain organ and glandular functions are affected by certain emotions and this forms the foundations of many Kinesiology techniques for balancing the body. Now we are all agreeing that emotions get stuck in the body and affect our health and our resilience in life.[2]
In the interest of keeping this article short, succinct and punchy and thus to be palatable for our modern, fast paced, information overloaded life, I am going to hone in on the intelligence of the heart and give you some strategies for emotional intelligence and housekeeping. If you need more evidence about how important it is to tend to your emotional intelligence there are resources listed at the bottom of this article that delve into this.
In my work as a health practitioner I am frequently working with an incredible intelligence system in the body called ‘the heart brain’. The gut brain has received a lot of attention in our modern world, yet our heart brain is more central, as this is the intelligence system that keeps in balance our brain, nervous system, fluid balance, blood chemistry and psycho-emotional aspects of health and supports our resilience in life.[1] It has the capacity to learn, remember and make decisions for our wellbeing.[1] In Chinese Medicine it is known to help us to have a good restful sleep, clear thinking and physical and emotional resilience.[3]
One of the KaHuna principles is the principle of Aloha - to love is to be happy. If there is only one thing you remember from the article when you head back out into your life, I want this to be it. It is so simple and so powerful. When we focus our attention on the things that we are grateful for, on loving and caring for ourself and others, and on respecting and appreciating our environment that is our beautiful and restorative natural world, we have the power to heal so much.
Simply by giving attention to our emotions, what our heart is feeling and sensing, we are doing our housekeeping for emotional intelligence. Emotions have an energy frequency that needs to be heard and channelled with a heart-centred perspective. By giving some attention to them, moving with them and refocusing ourselves on the love and support that is available, we are supporting the heart brain.[1] We not only positively influence ourselves when we develop strong connection and coherence in the heart brain, we also positively influence those around us and support the entrainment of the heart coherence for others. [4]
A simple activity that can support you to connect with the power of the heart for healing is to take a minute or two to stop, close your eyes and breathe slowly and deeply with awareness to your heart. Here lies another of the KaHuna principles - MAKIA - energy flows where attention goes - the power of focused awareness. The heart has an amazing ability to transform emotional energy, and you can imagine breathing that challenging emotion into your heart, hold it there a moment and then breathe out with the intention of letting it go. Another simple practice which I love comes from a quote from the famous poet Rumi. “Close your eyes, fall in love, stay there.”
If you want any more suggestions or support in cultivating your emotional intelligence and heart brain functions, I would love to continue sharing with you. You can get in touch with me at my email info@soulnurturing.com.au or phone 0427 320 302.
Love and joy to us all,
Simone.
1] McCraty, R. 2015. SCIENCE OF THE HEART, Exploring the Role of the Heart in Human Performance, Volume 2. HeartMath Institute. Accessed online https://www.heartmath.org
2] Pert, C. 1997. Molecules of Emotion. Simon and Schuster
3] Beinfield H. & Korngold, E. 1991. Between Heaven and Earth: A Guide to Chinese Medicine, Balantine Books, New York
4] Morris, S.M., Facilitating collective coherence: Group Effects on Heart Rate Variability Coherence and Heart Rhythm Synchronization. Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, 2010. 16(4): p. 62-72.