As so many of us know, our heart, the life giving pump that it is, plays a critical role in our health, each and every moment of our waking day.Orchestrated to beat over 100,000x/day through electrochemical messages (we call Nerve Flow), it delivers life saving blood to each organ, tissue and cell in order that we can produce energy that leads our bodies to perform work.
Recent research however has made more clear to us today than ever before that in many situations, we can better serve our health by making choices from our heart than we can from our head. And while researchers like Sheena Iyengar, are not denying the importance of education and knowledge, they are more readily demonstrating the supportive role listening to our heart plays when it comes to the impact our choices have on our long term health & wellbeing…
A new level of scientific understanding exists today in the field of brain behaviour & choice. Not only about which choices we make, but how best to make them too. When it comes to improving our health, we are given many choices, but rarely told that in the end, we should ask our own heart which one feels right for us. Although science does a great job of providing evidence for so many different ways to eat, exercise and get rid of pain, science today is telling us that it is less important what the “they” says about what do do with our health, than what the “I” says may be best for me. In other words, science is now saying there needs to be a sense of heart, harmony and grace about the choices rather than merely knowledge if we want the best outcome, especially when it comes to improving health & healing. As Blaise Pascal said, “The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.”
Ironically enough, it has become our new heightened level of knowledge that has led us back to this understanding of the role of the heart in making choices that will improve our health & healing over the long term. Indeed the popularity of the WELLNESS movement these days is a testament to this “Big Idea”.
Today, the field of neuroscience which encompasses psychoneuroimmunology, neurotheology, social psychology and molecular epigentics are demonstrating the influence of the heart on health in dramatic new ways.
Although I’ve heard it said that decisions made from the heart are simply good intentions and that the road to hell is paved with these alone as in the end they serve no one. I’ve also come to appreciate that it is better to have a healthy intention and heart behind what you do that it is to have only reason for with it alone, we will find ourselves in a world where the conventionality of our wisdom squeeze our the love in our hearts.
“Love tells me I’m everything, wisdom tells me I’m nothing and somewhere between the two, my life flows”.
To have a healthy heart than is not simply a measurement of one’s blood pressure or cholesterol levels, but rather as well a cultivated spirit of gratitude, authenticity, appreciation of beauty and an ability to make a choice that harmonizes with one’s health. I’ve never been against the decisions people make to take drugs for depression or vaccines to boost their immune system, but I have always been against the idea that says creates restrictions to the choices that in fact can be made available to those who want to lead a healthier life.
So this year, as we learn more about taking better care of ourselves, let’s be sure we choose from our heart too and not just our head the foods we will eat, the exercise we’ll embark upon and the relationships we’ll build. This is just as important to living with less subluxation as having a normal healthy spine. Let’s be sure the tendancies of judgement, fear, worry or blame get replaced with more love, faith, hope & trust.
With Valentine’s just past, let’s carry the spirit of our heart into our daily routines as we move closer to the magic of the season which gives rise to joy, blessings and the magic of Easter.
To learn more about making choices from our heart, join us for our up & coming next Living Well Workshop on Wednesday, February 27th at 6:30pm onsite at VC. Call our front desk to sign up your seat today. Seats are limited to the first 15!
