February - The Heart Month

“There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.” - John Andrew Holmes, Jr.

“In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart.” - Gandhi

There are two ways to look at the heart. One is physical and the other is spiritual.

Eating a more heart healthy diet or adding in some extra exercise that gets us moving is helpful in strengthening the heart. Or if we haven’t had a full medical exam in a while, maybe we should make an appointment to have our blood pressure checked and blood work done (my personal plan for the month) and then taking the necessary steps to improve any below normal findings.

Yoga teaches us that the body has seven energy centers or chakras. The fourth energy center is located at the heart. It is here that love, compassion, gratitude and self-acceptance lies. Think for a moment of all the heart expressions we use, for example “a heartfelt thank you,” “from the bottom of my heart,” and who amongst us doesn’t know the sadness of a ‘broken heart’. One of the reasons yoga has so many chest expansion poses such as backbends, is to help open up this area so that all the loving qualities of the heart can flow easier.

Here’s another way to think about it: Imagine a vertical line running down the center of the body. This vertical line is our connection with God, or Christ, your Source, the Universe, whatever your personal belief may be. Then imagine a horizontal line. This line represents our relationship with the world around us, our day-to-day life. These two lines intersect at the heart center, sometimes referred to as the Final Portal.

When we bring our hands to a prayer position at our heart and touch our thumbs to the breastbone, or bow our head in prayer, we are bringing our awareness inward and downward to the heart center, a reminder of the connection between the physical and spiritual world. How nice to know that the stuff that flows on the horizontal line can be lifted up on the vertical line to a higher power.

Focusing on strengthening our heart physically by eating right and exercising is vitally important to our overall health and well-being, but so too is taking the time to work on the spiritual side. A healthy heart flows with ease in all directions.

“It is the heart which perceives God and not the reason.” Blaise Pascal (17 century mathematician, physicist and religious philosopher.)