4-28-2013

The ART in Heart! 3 Simple Steps to Cultivate Your Heart Connection

by Ronna Prince

Long before I had the idea to make a film about journeying to the heart, I was searching to find an authentic heart-connection with myself. I thought I had lost my heart connection, shut it down, or walled it off. Somewhere along the line, I bought the idea that I was NOT in my heart. Now I’ve come to the conclusion that I HAVE been in my heart all along and my sense is that you too, have been your heart all along!

Where did we get the idea anyway that we could be NOT in our hearts and still live and breathe in the world? Oh, I know what it means when we say, “my heart is closed down”. When I’ve said that in the past, I meant I was choosing, consciously or not, to avoid my feelings. I was choosing, consciously or not, to say and do what I thought I should say and do, vs what was truly in alignment with my feelings and thoughts as an integrated whole.

Just take a moment and breathe that in. Close your eyes, touch your heart and feel the truth of this:

I am always in my heart.

How does that feel? Let that percolate or cultivate a bit.. because it’s different for everyone. When I started cultivating this, it felt true. But as I allowed this truth to grow inside of me, layers of complexity expanded.. different branches of feelings, just like a sapling grows a number of branches that will eventually become the sturdy main limbs of the tree, I felt different aspects of this reality emerge into my awareness.

I am always in my heart.

Here’s some awarenesses that emerge for me as I repeat this and feel it-know and breathe it:

• Yes, I am and I love myself for that
• At times, I don’t allow myself to feel what’s truly in my heart. When that is occurring, I am usually afraid, angry or resentful of someone or something.
• Sometimes I ignore my heart and follow my head. When that is occurring I am acting from the programs that run around inside my head when I’m not fully being in the here and now.
• And, when I experience synchronicities – I am always, in that magical moment, fully heart-centered.. I pay attention to these times because they are solid gold experiences of authentic connection.

Just play with the phrase. I would love it if you emailed me or commented below on some of your own heart awarenesses. I am gathering “heart awarenesses” to post on the website and to include in my new book. Stay tuned for more on that!

I am always in my heart! For those of you who are interested in numerology – this is a GOLDEN NUGGET:

This little phrase is solid GOLD. “I am always in my heart” = 82 the beautiful Artemis bottle of aura-soma red/pink, representing passion and compassion. The gold is in the balance of consonants and vowels: the consonants in this phrase = 41 and  the vowels = 41. 41 is the El Dorado bottle of aura-soma – Solid Gold!

When we acknowledge that we are always in our hearts, then we can joyfully, authentically, and responsibly express our whole being, whether it is just to ourselves and also in our inter-relations with others.. and as I’ve remembered to BE the ART in Heart, this state of being extends to our relationships with everything- our animal friends, our environment, our home, our community, our world.

As I’ve cultivated the ART in heart, my inner garden is flourishing more and more. My outer world is beautifully aligning with the integrated inner heart and mind space of Oneness. Not so much the spiritual oneness that is free-floating presence and beingness- but a practical and efficient oneness where my heart and mind are in confluence – the state of being merged together, an integrated place of authentic alignment and action.

So here are my three easy steps:  Alignment – Remember - Trust

When you notice you are avoiding your feelings or doing something you think you should do but don’t want to, or any other form of disconnect or inauthenticity, stop what you’re doing (or not doing!) and ask:

Step 1: Am I in Alignment with my authentic feelings and thoughts?

 The art in this step is to breathe and to allow yourself to notice what is happening in your body.  When you are not in alignment with your thoughts and feelings- it always, 100% of the time, shows up as discomfort somewhere in your body. Most people feel it in their solar plexus, the gut intuition that says “hey.. this is hard to stomach… something is off here!” Answer the question from your body-intuition  because your body knows and is responding to misalignments all the time!

If you find you are out of alignment, then go on to the next step:

Step 2: Remember that your heart is the most powerful organ in your body. It sends signals to your brain to tell it what to do in terms of the release of stress-related and vitality producing hormones. The heart’s measurable signal is 1,000x more powerful than the brain’s measurable signal. (See our film for the information sources of these statements). 

What this means is that when you remember the power in your heart, you will be motivated to regulate and integrate your heart and mind, your emotions and thoughts. This takes practice, but the good news is that this practice can be measured by the EmWave2 monitor that was created by the Institute of HeartMath (available on my website). But you don’t even need a device to do this, although it’s helped me tremendously!

The art in this step is simply this:  “My heart knows my truth”. If you get quiet and listen, it really does. (And I do say “my truth”, because it allows me to own that what is true for me may be different for you.) My heart knew for example, that I was not in alignment with the message I wanted to share with the world when we began filming. You can see this in my before and after video.. I was shut down and out of alignment with my heart’s truth. (and again, I was NOT disconnected from my heart.. it just can’t be.)   My heart’s truth was that I was scared, resentful and trying to pretend I wasn’t!  Whether we’re aware of it or not, we really do “wear our heart on our sleeves”, or actually, on our faces!!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOlpsRe2XHo

The most empowering work I have ever done in my life was (and IS still) to remember to listen to my heart. To get real.. to laugh, cry, sing, play, sky dive, scream, let go and really love myself in every moment. I learned from Colin Tipping and many other teachers along the way to completing the film, that lasting change happens when we learn to love the darkest parts of ourselves. When I loved the part of myself that was resentful and bitter about the past, I let go of wanting things to be different than they are in the present which leads us to step 3.

Step 3: - Trust.  Here’s the question I ask: (and pay close attention to the way this is worded)

Why am I NOW trusting my heart?

This is a creative way of aligning your conscious and subconscious mind with your feeling state in the power of your heart.  The usual way of asking this question is this: “Am I willing to trust my heart?” I’ve recently encountered the work of Noah St John that he terms “Afformations” which I highly recommend. (Thank you Stacey VB!) If you ask yourself … am I willing to… your conscious mind might say,” Sure, I’m willing”, but if your subconscious mind is NOT willing because of past experience, then whatever you may decide, will not be in alignment with what you actually DO. I’ve discovered it’s very easy to get your subconscious mind into alignment if you shift the question into the state of the goal already having been achieved. (In this case, trusting your heart). We all know about the power of being grateful in advance of something actually happening. Doing it this way is so easy that it’s fun. Just try it a few times. Play with it. See what answers bubble up spontaneously.

Here’s just a few of the answers my integrated heart- mind comes up with.

• I am now trusting my heart because I made a choice to quit living through the lens of my past
• I am now trusting my heart because I’ve noticed that everything flows more easily…
• I am now trusting my heart because I am seeing the nuances of connection to everything around me in this state.

The art in this step is simply this:  “I am now trusting my heart”.

We all love confirmation. When you practice these three steps to cultivate the Art in your Heart, expect to see confirmation. It will be there. Confirmation of your heart integration can be anything at all.

I was really in Art of my Heart yesterday when I reached out a singer-songwriter I had just met who has written a beautiful song and put it on YouTube,  Ruth Wishengrad’s “Just the Way you Are”.  I was driving my car while supporting her (blue-tooth activated cell phone!) and a red tailed hawk flew in a straight-line from about a half mile away until it flew right over my car! The Red-talked hawk has always been in my power animal family and represents intuition and vision.  I notice these things all the time now. Big and small. And I now expand the organic feeling of gratitude that emerges from my heart. I  just let it flow in, out and all around me as I expand, amplify and contribute to the heart-signal of earth (the same exact electro-magnetic signal of our human heart!)

Finally, again, for my numerology fans, you will LOVE this confirmation. As most of you know, Sacred Journey of the Heart equals exactly 111 in Pythagorean numerology (a simple system where you assign the letters of the alphabet a number value using the numbers 1 through 9. A=1, B=2, C=3, etc.) The Art in my three simple heart steps are these three phrases:

I am always in my heart. My heart knows my truth. I am now trusting my heart.

The numerology of these three phrases =276. The consonants = 165. And yes, the vowels, known as the secret code for the “true heart’s desire” = 111! The triple Master number 111 is an indicator of integration. Integration of mind-body-spirit, mother-father-child, and any other trinity that holds true for you.

Heart felt blessings from my heart to yours,

Ronna Prince