Thinking with your heart

So last week Corey and I attended one of our weekly Prana Practices sessions. This time, the topic was about "Heart-Centered Living: Our Heart as an Organ of Perception." I was originally excited because it was going to be a combination of hard science with metaphysics and health. And I was not at all disappointed.

I learned a lot about the physiology and neuroanatomy of the heart, which was incredibly fascinating. As many people know, our bodies, and most living things (if not all), emit some sort of electromagnetic radiation - a biotic field if you will. Turns out that the heart's radiated field can be detected up to 15 or 16 feet away by modern scientific instruments, and that the heart's signal is 5000x greater than that of our brain. How insane! The argument is that the heart can serve as a sense organ because of its ability to interact with other biotic fields, it's close connection with the human brain, and ability to act as a center of consciousness. Try to think about how sometimes your brain (or logic, if you will) tells you one thing, but your gut (yet another seat of consciousness!) or your heart (emotional instinct?) tells you to act in a different fashion. Thing is, different parts of the body can be telling you different things based on the information that each knows. Thus, I think there's a lot to be said for people who have their brain and heart (and even gut!) in sync - think how much more perceptive, decisive, and happy you could be! Therefore, I argue to listen to your heart more often than not, or at least don't ignore it, regardless of how absurd it might sound. As the presenter that night said, "Who knows if you're making it up ... but does it really matter? If you think about it, the message is coming from somewhere in your body, so you're not really making it up ."