Works of Heart, Inc.

I was thinking the other day how fast time seems to pass.  As a child it seemed that it took forever for your birthday to arrive or for the Holiday Season to begin.  This past March I turned 50 – and as I look back, especially at this past year I realize that the 365 days have flown by.

How many of us get embroiled in the pace of our society?  We are inundated with information in a split-second.  We are attached to our cell phones, our email (through our cell phones), we seem to be rushed all the time, too much to do and not enough time to do it all.  Many times we’re mentally scattered, we feel out of control, we are so focused on work that we lose our priorities like loved ones and kindness.  Some of us may feel a pit in our stomach responding to pressures of our lives, we’re impatient, have lost our compassion and lost a zest for life.  I know sometimes I forget to breathe.

When I overload, I try to breathe.  I take a few minutes and just connect with my breath, I imagine myself in slow motion – physically and emotionally.  I count my breaths in one minute because research has proven that if you breathe more than 15 times in one minute, that your brain is sending a mild fight-or-flight message to your body.  If you slow down your breathing , your body will respond.  It’s just a few minutes each day, it’s just time – time invested in you.

As I examine this past year I realize that I could have created more time.  A few moments here, an hour or so there – but it would mean that I had to change my perspective.

I realized that over the past year I’ve lost many moments, even hours in a state of worry, negativity or entwined in a drama with someone or something.  I had to ask myself, “What if I had stopped grasping, stopped pushing, and just stepped back and looked at the person or situation and accepted it?” – versus dwelling on it for minutes, hours, or days.  How much time would I have saved?  How much better would I have felt with peace of mind?”

Not too long ago I read an interview with the Dalai Lama and he was asked what he thought about the many years of strife in Tibet.  His response has changed me.  He kindly and softly said something like this – they have destroyed our monasteries, killed or maimed our monks, burned our sacred texts – why do you think I would allow them to take my peace of mind?  I realized that my peace of mind had been taken – by me.  I realized that had I learned to develop more peace of mind I could have saved myself pain and time.

Well, we’re happy to announce that we can help you with that…..because both Cathy & Damon Coyne will be returning to the Valley June 4th through the 9th –  to share their gifts.  Here’s the details.  Ask yourself, “Need Change for a Paradigm?”  (okay couldn’t resist the pun)

Cathy Coyne Spiritual Midwife

Cathy will be sharing her spiritual gifts with individuals while visiting the Carbondale area.  She relays messages from her client’s guides and angels in addition to her own angelic elders.  In these powerful sessions, she allows herself to be a channel of healing wisdom, clarity and guidance that illuminates the path of your journey.  She sees the energetic corridors of possibilities that lay ahead for people and empowers them to see their lives from the perspective of higher dimension, presented  with amazing detail & love.  Readings can be scheduled thru Asteria at 970.963.4679.  Schedule a 1 hr. ($100) or a 30 min. ($60) private session with Cathy from 6/4 thru 6/9. 

Cathy will also be doing readings and surveying client’s homes with her husband Damon, a Building Biology Environmental  Consultant and Feng Shui Expert.  For more info, visit www.intentionalenvironment.com or attend their lecture “Is Your Home Supporting or Depleting Your Health & Ability to Manifest Your Intentions” at Asteria School of Whole-istic Healing Saturday June 5 at either 10 am or 3 pm (2 hour interactive presentation).  To schedule a home or business consultation with Damon & Cathy, please call Asteria at 970.963.4679. 

 

Damon Coyne, Building Biology Environmental Consultant

Damon Coyne is a certified Building Biology Environmental Consultant (BBEC) trained through the Institute for Bau Biology and Ecology.  As an environmental inspector, artist, feng shui design consultant and dowser he brings many gifts to his work. Damon is an inspiring speaker and teacher of feng shui and creating healthy homes and buildings.  Damon is visiting from 6/4-9, to schedule your home or business consultation call 970.963.4679—don’t miss this opportunity.

Why is it important to learn about & address Environmental Stressors?

• Allergies have increased from 1 in 30 in 1950, to 1 in 2.5 people today
• There has been a 70% increase in asthma in the last 10 years
• Electrical wiring in your home or office can disrupt neurology & accelerate cancer growth
• European countries have dismantled wireless networks in schools & libraries
• When stressors are removed the benefits include:  better sleep, increased immunity, increased clarity and productivity

For more info, visit www.intentionalenvironment.com or attend their lecture

“Is Your Home Supporting or Depleting Your Health & Ability to Manifest Your Intentions”

at Asteria School of Whole-istic Healing Saturday June 5 at either 10 am or 3 pm (2 hour interactive presentation).  To schedule a home or business consultation with Damon & Cathy, please call Asteria at 970.963.4679. 

Stop by and meet Cathy & Damon at our Grand Opening of Asteria School of Whole-istic Healing (333 Main Street, Carbondale, CO) and our “First Friday” Celebration,  June 4th.

Yes, I was “one of them.”  Years ago, my beliefs about alternative or complementary health care options were very limited.  Comments such as, “It can’t possibly work, it’s a fad and it’s too different for me,” may have been uttered from my lips.  Having been raised in a Western medical family, I thought that Western medicine was the only option for health.  I was ignorant in a very true sense, not one of negativity – just lack of knowledge.

When I became aware of the options and then the differences between conventional Western medicine and alternative / complementary modalities, my beliefs changed – this my attitude, career and life have changed in response.

For years, I had struggled with chronic physical pain and negative emotional states, and Western medicine had no solution for me except medication.  I am not one to take pills, so I opened my eyes and my mind to find other alternatives so that I could heal physically and emotionally.  I came to realize that for me, the essential differences between Western medicine and alternative modalities could be found in three areas:  language, approach and integration.

The first thing I noticed when experiencing alternative medicine was the difference in language.  My earlier world of Western medicine had taught me words like antibiotic, anti-inflammatory, pain killer, hypertension and disorder – all very paternalistic in my view.  These words communicate the absence of something or a perception of negativity.  Conversely, alternative medicine shared words like balance, tonify, restore or transform, which seemed much more holistic and preventative to me.

Approach also seemed diametrically opposed.  The Western medical approach is one of attacking the main complaint (and only the main complaint) and doing it in a very short time frame – the magic bullet philosophy.  My recent visit with a Western physican lasted less than 10 minutes (and by the way cost me $250).  The result – a prescription.  Alternative therapies focus on the whole person physically, emotionally and spiritually and their patterns that result.  Many practitioners in my arena spend between 90 minutes and two hours on initial visits with patients, because they want to know them “whole-istically.”  Taking time to know your patient / client is a critical investment for wellness.

This partnering and extensive knowledge of the patient also enable these practitioners to focus on not only short-term treatment but also long-term lifestyle changes – hence the integration difference.  In my 50 years of conventional medical encounters, I have never been asked how I wanted to feel now, much less years from now.  As a result of my experiences with Western medicine, I believe it to be reactive versus proactive.

Western medicine has tackled acute illness very effectively; its strength in diagnostics and technology cannot be surpassed.  As the next century arrives, we will continue to be challenged with issues not classified as acute – issues of disease prevention, holistic wellness, and the management of chronic illnesses for which Western medicine has only limited successes.  It is the limited successes that bring patients to the doors of complementary practitioners.

Non-acute issues may be life’s ups and downs, financial stressors or relationship problems at work or home.  “Whole-istic Coaching” is an example of a complementary modality that addresses non-acute issues.  We are capable of working with a wide range of issues – from fears / phobias to allergies, to life transitions, depressive moods, repetitive trends in one’s life, issues surrounding relationships and self-esteem and lack of motivation.  The list goes on to include just about anything that gets in the way of a person’s happiness, success or fulfillment.  We coach to facilitate a transformation from where you are today to where you want to be.  This type of work could be described as a new wisdom about self.

My life has shared many pieces of wisdom with me.  One such wisdom led me to acupuncture for the elimination of fibromyalgia pain, and another wisdom led me to create “Whole-istic Coaching” to re-route my patterns and eliminate my negative emotional states of the past.  These wisdoms not only changed my health, but they changed what I do for a living.  It is wisdom that creates epiphanies and epiphanies that have created a desire inside of me to become a “barefoot doctor,” and “curandero” – a traditional healer such as those who have healed their people for thousands of years.

As I look back at years ago, I realize that what seemed different and strange to me at first has become a true appreciation and, most importantly, a way of life.

Did you know that many scientists and researchers today, along with neurocardiologists, believe that the heart, which maintains a constant two-way dialogue and relationship involving many processes with the brain, contains a brain in its own right.

The heart and brain actually influence one another’s functioning, and though not commonly known, the heart sends a great deal more information to the brain than the other way around. The information it sends includes heart signals that can influence a person’s perception, emotional experience and higher cognitive functions.

Dr. J. Andrew Armour first introduced the term heart brain in 1991. Armour showed that the heart’s complex intrinsic nervous system qualified it as a “little brain.” This heart brain, the HeartMath book, Science of the Heart, explains “is an intricate network of several types of neurons, neurotransmitters, proteins and support cells like those found in the brain proper. Its elaborate circuitry enables it to act independently of the cranial brain – to learn, remember, and even feel and sense.”

One of the most important discoveries HeartMath researchers made in relation to the heart brain, which HeartMath also calls the intelligent heart, is that “intentionally altering one’s emotional state through heart focusing techniques modifies ascending neurological input from the heart to the brain.” This suggests that “as people experience sincere positive feeling states, in which the heart’s rhythms become more coherent, the changed information flow from the heart to the brain may act to modify cortical function and influence performance. These findings may also help explain the significant shifts in perception, increased mental clarity and heightened intuitive awareness many individuals have reported when practicing the HeartMath techniques.”

Supplied by the Institute of Heart Math 

Bananas contain three natural sugars – sucrose, fructose and glucose.  These combined with fiber, a banana gives an instant, sustained and substantial boost of energy.  Research has proven that just two bananas provide enough energy for a strenuous 90 minute workout.  But energy isn’t the only way a banana can help us.  Check out this list…..

Depression:  according to a survey undertaken by MIND amongst people suffering from depression, many felt much better after eating a banana.  This is because bananas contain tryptophan, a type of protein that the body converts into serotonin, know to make you relax, improve your mood and generally make you feel happier.

PMS:  forget the pills – eat a banana.  The vitamin B6 a banana contains regulates blood gluose levels, which affect mood.

Anemia:  high in iron, bananas can stimulate the production of hemoglobin in the blood.

Blood Pressure:  this unique fruit is extremely high in potassium yet low in salt, making it perfect to beat blood pressure.  So much so  that the US Food and Drug Administration has allowed the banana industry to make official claims about BP reduction.

Brain Power:  this potassium-packed fruit assists in making students more alert.

Constipation:  yes, I brought it up.  High in fiber, it can assist in normal functioning hopefully avoiding laxatives.

Hangover:  one of the quickest ways of curing a hangover is to make a banana milkshake, sweetened with honey.  the banana calms the stomach and the honey builds up depleted blood sugar levels and the milk soothes and re-hydrates your system.

Heartburn:  they have a natural antacid effect on the body.

Morning Sickness:  snacking on bananas between meals assists blood sugar levels and can help avoid morning sickness.

Mosquito Bites:  try rubbing the bite area with  the inside of a banana skin.  Many people find it amazingly successful at reducing swelling and irritation.

Nerves:  because bananas are high in B vitamins, the help calm the nervous system.

Ulcers:  the banana neutralizes over-acidity and reduces irritation.

Smoking:  the B6, B12 bananas contain as well as potassium and magnesium help the body recover from nicotine withdrawal.

Stress:  potassium is an important mineral, which helps normalize heartbeat, sends oxygen to the brain and regulates your body’s water balance.  When we are stressed our metabolic rate rises, thereby reducing our potassium levels.  These can be balanced with the help of a banana.

Strokes:  according to research in “The New England Journal of Medicine” eating bananas as a part of a regular diet can cut the risk of having a stroke by as much as 40%.

Warts:  those keen on natural alternatives swear that if you want to kill off a wart, take a piece of banana skin and place it on the wart, with the yellow side of the peel out.  Carefully tape the banana skin in place.

When you compare a banana to an apple – the banana has 4 times the protein, twice the carbohydrate, 3 times the phosphorous, 5 times the vitamin A and iron, and twice the other vitamins and minerals.  It is also rich in potassium and is not incredibly expensive.  Maybe we should change the saying to, “a banana a day keeps the doctor away.”

An important first step in transforming emotional stress is cleaning up strong, negative emotions and judgments as they come up. As soon as you start to feel your energy going sideways, you can use Neutral to refocus within yourself and go back to the heart. This will clear your emotions as you go and start building your empowerment to clear even more.

Once your emotions become disturbed, your mind will tend to jump in with judgments toward yourself or others. The mind, like a computer, starts a process of analyzing why, calculating next steps, and bringing up memories of what happened when you felt like that before. The Power of Neutral tool helps you put this mental momentum on pause so you can neutralize your reactions and thoughts. The Power of Neutral allows the guidance of your heart, your heart intelligence, to come in and stop the energy drain.

Judging yourself or others causes energy to back up in your system and feels bad. It doesn’t bring helpful solutions. It only makes us feel disappointed in ourselves, which drains more energy. We can stop this in its tracks by using The Power of Neutral.

Practicing The Power of Neutral helps bring your mind, emotions and physiology to a state of neutral. Think of neutral as a “time-out zone” where you can step back, neutralize your emotions and see more options with objective clarity.

The Power of Neutral Tool ^†:

1. Take a time-out. Breathe slow and deeply. Imagine the air entering and leaving through your heart area in the center of your chest.

 

1. Try to disengage from your stressful thoughts and feelings as you continue breathing.

 

1. Continue until you have chilled out and neutralized the emotional charge.

 

In Step 2, disengage from your stressful thoughts and feelings as you continue to breathe. Just having the intent to disengage can help you release a lot of the emotional energy.

In Step 3, you continue the process until you have chilled out and neutralized the emotional charge. This doesn’t mean irritability, anxiety, or other stressful feelings will have totally evaporated. It merely means the charged energy has been taken out and you have stopped accumulating stress. Even if you can’t totally neutralize a reaction in the moment, simply making the effort to shift into neutral will stop the accumulation of anxiety or stress about it. It will give you a chance to regroup your energies and refocus.

One of the things that can help you get to neutral is asking yourself, “Do I really want to keep draining energy and stressing about the situation or how bad I feel?” For example, right before a situation that normally makes you anxious or stressed, you may start negatively projecting the idea you will blow it or be judged by others. This is the perfect time to use The Power of Neutral. Otherwise, your emotional reaction will kick in and drain you. And even if you don’t get completely calm, going to Neutral still reduces a lot of stress and helps you refocus.

As you build your ability to use this tool, you will acquire a new type of emotional energy maintenance. This translates into more energy to do the things you really want to do.

From Institute of Heart Math

Many people have asked for a sample heart-based meditation. Following is one I have shared with my Community.

Ajahn Chah a Buddhist monk, likens the heart to the hand. If you hold out your open hand you realize that you can rest things on the open hand – but its use is limited. If you close your hand to a fist you realize it can grasp things, but again its use is limited. It is only because we can close and open our hand in response to circumstances that we realize our hand truly works for us. It is the same with the heart – we realize that we can open and close our heart and knowing that we can open the heart provides us with understanding and compassion.

So as we begin our meditation today, please take a few deep breaths and settle into our chairs, please tune into your breath and your body first. Notice your breath as you exhale, notice any tension in your body – and as you exhale release that tension. Begin with your feet, ankles, knees – and release any tightness as your body becomes more relaxed. Next notice your hips, & torso release tightness and breathe into a more relaxed state. Then move that calm and relaxed feeling into your shoulders, neck and down your arms. Now move that calm and relaxed feeling into your head, giving away any thoughts that don’t serve you. Once your physical body feels relaxed…take another deep breath and tune into your heart. What do you feel right now? Is it different than what you want to feel?

The heart is about compassion, love, caring, and introspection. In Our meditation today we will not only ask our minds and body to listen but also our hearts. As you continue to breathe deeply – In your minds eye I’d like you imagine that there is a gentle soft rain dropping into your heart. Rain not only cleanses what it falls upon but it also stands for recognition, acceptance, investigation, and non-identification. So, as you breathe deeply ask your mind and your heart to open like your hand and listen to my words.

Recognition is the first principle of heart transformation. When we are stuck in our life, we must begin with a willingness to see what is so. It asks us to notice what is really happening now It asks us to step out of any possible denial. It asks us to question, wonder, listen and look at our situation without getting stuck in fear. With recognition, our hearts become aware to where we are.

Acceptance is the next principle of heart transformation. Acceptance allows us to relax and open to the facts before us. Acceptance is a willing movement of the heart to include whatever is before it. We can only transform the world if we are willing to transform ourselves. Acceptance is also the willingness to love ourselves, be compassionate for who we are and respect that.

Investigation is seeing deeply. In recognition and acceptance we recognize our dilemma and accept the truth of the whole situation. Whenever we are stuck it may be because we’ve not looked deeply enough into the nature of the experience.

Non-identification means that we stop taking the experience as “me” or “mine.” We see how our identification creates dependence, anxiety, and perhaps stress.

When we feel held by a caring presence, by something larger than our small frightened self, we begin to find room in our own heart for the fragments of our life, and the lives of others. The suffering that might have seemed too much can awaken us to the sweetness of compassion.

Overcome any bitterness because you were not up to the magnitude of the pain entrusted to you…like the mother of the world who carries the pain of the world in her heart, you are sharing in the totality of this pain and are called upon to meet it in compassion and joy instead of self-pity.

From intention springs deed, from the deed springs the habits. From the habits grow character, from character develops destiny.

By Rina Burleson (from Sacred Fire Magazine)

There is wonder in the world, in everything around us, just below the surface of so called “ordinary” every-day reality.  You can notice it most in quiet outdoor places – in deep, hushed woods or open fields of flowing grass.  You can feel it in quiet, lapping waters and gentle breezes – but you have to listen for it, and you have to listen from a place deep inside, in the center of your being.

That place inside is where your heart beats its gentle rhythm, that place you point to when you point to yourself, that place where your deepest, truest self lives.  Babies are born living from this place.  Small children still know how to live form there.  But we, in Western culture, teach them to live in their minds rather than in their bodies and their hearts.  We may be the only culture that does this.  Aboriginal peoples grow up still living in their hearts, still connected to nature and wonder.

We do not.  We grow up living in our heads, disconnected from our deepest experiences, from our connection to the Earth and to all of life.  I am convinced that this is part of why we are destroying the Earth and aboriginal peoples are not – because we (unlike them) are out of touch with our bodies and hearts, where our sense of kinship with the rest of life lives.  By learning to live in our hearts again we can reconnect with the sense of kinship and with our deepest experiences in life.  We can reconnect with the wonder and immense power of nature.

When you live from your heart, your sense of wonder – that sense we all had as children – will awaken.  Walking through woods and fields you will notice that everything around you now has a spiritual quality to it, as though there is another dimension, numinous, just below the surface of things.  There is something very familiar about this feeling, as though you are right where you belong.

You may find yourself talking to trees, as well as to wind, water, grass, and the earth itself, and you may find that they respond.  You may discover that you are surrounded by a kind of love and support that you had no knowledge of before, because you lived in your mind and wore the blinders of the scientific world view.

You feel as though you are coming home after a long absence, and in a very real sense you are doing  just that.  You are coming home to the way life was meant to be lived.  You are coming home to your truest, deepest self.  You are coming home to ….well, life.

There are many other reasons to live from the heart.  It is in the heart center that we feel our inherent worth as human beings, and that we feel the inherent worth of all other beings.  The heart center is a place of love for yourself and for all Creation.  It is the place where you expeirence your larger self – where you know, as one of my teachers kept telling me, that “you are so much more than this.”

It is in your heart center that you sense the truth about people and their feelings.  If you listen from the heart you can tell whether a person really means what he says.  When someone tells you they love you, listen – not from your feeling heart but from your heart center.

I admit there is some confusion about this, because sometimes when we say that someone is following her heart we mean that she is following her feelings.  This is not what I am talking about.  The heart center is the heart chakra, inside your chest in the place you point to when you point to yourself.  It is an energy center, a meeting place of body and soul, and a window into the Divine.

As you learn to trust your heart center, life stops being a struggle.  Somehow you simply know what to do to take care of yourself and to get what you need.  Your heart center is where your intuittion lives, your sixth sense.  It can smell opportunity as a bear smells out honey.  It will urge you to the right place at the right time so that opportunity simply falls into your lap.  It may lead you to something as simple as an encounter with a friend, or to something as profound as the beginning of a new career.  But it is always wise to follow the urgings of your heart, because it is the place of inner wisdom.

If you listen to your heart center it will lead you, unsuspecting and unknowing, along the path leading to your true calling.  That calling is something that you are talented at and that you love doing, and when you are following your heart center and your calling you will find that the money will follow.  This is what Joseph Campbell is talking about when he says, “follow your bliss.”

The heart center is a place of deep wisdom.  It gives advice (if you speak to it) far wiser than anything the mind can come up with.

There are many reasons to learn to live from the heart.  There are many reasons to encourage our children to keep living from their hearts.  But the impetus for learning to live this way can’t come from the logical mind – it must come from the heart itself.  That is the only kind of motivation that really works.

To me the passion-inspiring reason to live in our hearts is the experience of life that results.  The wonder, power, and beauty of nature become palpable – you feel them flowing through and around you, linking you to everything that is, and you are part of that flow, of that field of numinous power.  Life is wondrous and you find you are so much more than you knew.

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If you’ve read this entire article and gotten to this point, you then know why we named our clinic Anahata Healing Arts – it is sanskrit for “heart chakra.”  Thanks for reading and thinking about your heart center.  Mary & Rob

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