Hearts freak me out. I'll just say that from the start. In Nursing School I had to do a clinical on a Telemetry floor. (for non-medical people Telemetry is a monitor that send a signal to a big switchboard at the Nurses Station telling exactly what is going on with every single heart inside every single patient on the unit). I felt like I would throw up every day. I had more admiration than I can communicate for the nurses and doctors who took care of those patients. I also knew after about 12 seconds on that floor that I would never want to work in Cardiac nursing.
Hearts are, I will admit, amazing. They are so predominant in our culture that we don't even notice them anymore. We sing about them, we talk about them, we sign little love notes with them, we fear them and we love them. We have an entire holiday devoted to them. (Wal-Mart at Valentine's Day time - aka the day after Christmas??) Hearts are an ever-present entity in our world.
Medically the heart is...well it is the heart of the body. This is the organ that pumps blood (the life force) to all other parts of the body. This is the organ that HAS to work. This is the organ that, if broken, can shut down the entire body and all it's systems. This is basically the sun in the universe that is the human body. This is a very important organ. It is also a sad medical fact that heart disease kills more Americans than any other cause. And, yet, as a society who fears cancer more than anything else we never ever hear of heart cancer.
The heart is a big player in our language. When we are sad, we describe ourselves as heartsick or heartbroken. Our heart hurts when we see others in pain or suffering. We say "bless your heart" when we hear someone's sad tale. (or in the South we women say it when we want to say something rude but have too much class to do so!) When we get frightened we throw out the casual, "I almost had a heart attack!" We talk of getting to the "heart" of the problem or of having a "heart to heart" conversation.
From the standpoint of religion hearts get lots of attention as well. Blood (the life force that flows to and from the heart) washes away our sins, stands as a symbol of our bond with our Savior, and represents the sacrifice of life that ultimately secured our salvation. We accept Jesus into our heart and we believe that he lives in our heart. His love fills our heart and we spread that love in the hopes that He can live in others' hearts as well. Love is the blood that is the life force that sustains us spiritually.
What is the deal with hearts!? Why does this organ get so much play? We don't have a holiday that has the kidney or the gall bladder as it's mascot. We don't have a thymus to thymus conversation with our closest confidante. We don't have affairs of the lung. I've never received a note stamped with a little brain that said "I love you." Things that make you go hmmm!
I recently started to read a book called "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Chakras." For those that don't know chakras are (according to ancient Indian wisdom) little wheels of spinning energy that are located along the energy pathways of the body. These are the little things that are responsible for things like butterflies in your stomach, a lump in your throat, or that hollow feeling you get in your chest when you are lonely. They are not physical but you feel them that way.
So, here is the lesson I have learned (am learning) about the heart. It should come as no surprise that the Heart Chakra is the chakra associated with love and also with breathing. (like when we are in love we say that it "takes our breath away" - albeit in a good way) This is also associated with our ability to give and receive love, compassion, altruism, etc.) This chakra is associated with the entire cardiovascular system.
Some of the physical issues that can be associated with blockage in this area are heart disease (duh!), breathing issues, depression, and immunity disorders. Psychologically there is often problems with being intolerant, cold, overly critical, and constantly unsuccessful in maintaining relationships with others. If this area is overloaded there tends to be (phycially) heart enlargement, low blood pressure and breast problems. Psychologically we see co-depencency, clinginess, jealousy and constant unsuccessfulness in maintaining relationships with others.
This is a pretty important chakra!
So, basically loving ourselves and others is critically important. If we don't do it our Chakra gets blocked (spiritually) and our heart gets in trouble (physically).
Well, it looks like a simple little lesson. We are supposed to love each other and ourselves. (I feel like I've heard that somewhere before - Love you neighbor as yourself.) That should be easy right?
This is something I know. Love is hard work. Love is NOT our human nature. We fight over everything, we find ways to create heirarchy in every arena of our life. We look for ways to feel superior to each other, to control and dominate one another. We all do that. We all hurt one another. We fight wars over love (Helen of Troy anyone??) Put two people in a room together and given enough time there is going to be a fight. Love is something that we have to choose. But choose it we must! It is critical to our very survival!
Love is the most vital force there is. Love can move mountains. Love can heal anything. There is a power in love that is nowhere else. Love is truly the blood in the body that is our spiritural existence.
We throw that word around like crazy and we think if we feel a tiny blip of it that we have "loved." But that romanticized notion of love is not it. Those butterflies we feel when our loved one comes near us is just a tiny part of this notion. Let me give you the Biblical description of this word:
Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. (I Corinthians 13:11 - New Living Translation)
Now, look at each element in that statement of what love is not and look above at the psychological effects of a blocked Heart Chakra. Then look at the physical effects and at the statistics of health issues in our country. When I saw that I couldn't believe it!
We have got to wake up and realize that we are choking the life force (love) out of the body (world) that we live in and it has to stop! We have got to stop finding ways to condemn, judge and shun one another. We have to reach out to one another and have the connection that we are supposed to have!
The sins that we commit are many and constant. ALL of us are depending on grace. We have all sinned and (this is big)...there is not a sin that trumps the others. If you are a speed limit breaker you have no right to judge the cleptomaniac. The adulterer shouldn't point fingers at the murderer. Society puts weights on sins, the soul does not. Wrong is simply wrong and we all eat from that cake.
I felt like I had been slapped in the face when this truth got shared with me. I realized how I have, over the years, cut myself off in so many ways from others. I realized that I can't love others if I am judging their actions. (and I grew up in a very judgy environment so I tend to be judgy!) How I had shut down my heart chakra and stopped letting love flow through me. I realized that my inability to cry even when my mind told me I was sad was a result of a blocked heart chakra. (Darn those ancient Indians were pretty smart!)
The Heart of the Matter is This....we are all made of the same stuff. We all have the same need for survival. Physically we all must have blood flowing through our body to take all the good stuff that each individual cell must have to survive. Block off the flow of that and our cells get sick, can't function to their full potential, feel like they have to hoard or overproduce, etc. This will eventually lead to the death of our amazing and glorious body. I have learned that Spiritually it is exactly the same.
Spiritually we all must have love flowing through our body to take all the good stuff that each individual soul must have to survive. Block off the flow of that and our souls get sick, can't function to their full potential, feel like they have to hoard or overproduce (overcompensate), etc. And...this is the important part....this will eventually lead to the death of our amazing and glorious soul (aka the disconnect of our soul from the life force that is love). Biblically we are taught that God is Love and that being diconnected from him leads to spiritual death (Hell). It's the same pie no matter how you slice it!
So that is my very long and wordy way of describing this lesson I recently received (finally). I realize that I am a nerd and have to make everything complicated and deep. Otherwise John Lennon tried to just sum it up for me in a cute little song (which I have always loved - get it...loved? haha) called "All You Need is Love." He was right. It is all we need.
Just a little side note - hearts still freak me out. But a very wise woman and fabulous nurse once told me that she loves hearts because hearts are easy to fix. She meant medically/physically but I believe that they are also easy to fix spiritually.
My goal from this lesson is to get out there and start loving. I am a nurse and I tend to try to heal so this is going to be my spiritual way of trying to spread some healing. I am going to love every day. (and if I act in an unloving way - point it out to me and remind me that my heart chakra needs to stay open!)
I love you all and I am going to start acting like it!
Tracy
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