A Prosperity Message from The Heart

How can we attract prosperity?

On the one hand, we can rely on smart decision-making, strategic planning, to-do lists, and our intellectual capacity to get things done. All these things, particularly from our brain’s point of view, are absolutely necessary for the achievement of goals.

However, being smart and being organized doesn’t tell the whole story when it comes to being a prosperity magnet. You also need to tap into your intuition and energy. While your feelings and intuitive wisdom are often dismissed as being irrelevant when it comes to creating prosperity, they play a crucial role.

In order to create an abundant life, we must understand what our heart really wants.

 So, how do we do this?

 How can we “listen” to our hearts?

 Dr. Dan Siegel, a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and the founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center once said, “The mind is an embodied and relational process regulating the flow of energy and information.”

 Translated into plain English, this means our minds are inextricably linked both with our bodies’ nervous system and energy (as well as those of other human beings).

 To understand fully how this works, let us take a deep dive into the extensive research done by the HeartMath Institute on the interactions between the heart and the brain.

 Most of us have been taught in school that the heart responds to “orders” sent by the brain in the form of neural signals. What is far less known, is that the process goes both ways. In fact, the heart sends more signals to the brain than the brain sends to the heart! Even more important, these heart signals affect how our brains process emotions and cognitive abilities—our perception, attention, memory, and more.

 For example, when you are stressed, your heart rhythm becomes erratic and the pattern of neural signals traveling from the heart to the brain inhibits higher cognitive functions, including your ability to think clearly or make decisions. Equally, stress has a profound effect on the brain’s emotional processes which serves to amplify the negative emotions related to the stress you are experiencing.

 In contrast, positive emotional states appear to have the opposite effect, facilitating cognitive function and reinforcing positive feelings and emotional stability. Sustained positive emotions, which generate coherence in your heart rhythm, not only benefit your body but also profoundly improve how you perceive, think, feel, and perform.

To fully grasp the heart-brain connection, we need to understand how the heart works.

 We used to believe that the heart at rest operates much like a metronome, beating out in a regular, steady rhythm. We now know this is untrue. The rhythm of a healthy heart—even under resting conditions—is surprisingly irregular. This naturally occurring variation in heart rate is called heart rate variability (HRV).

 HRV is the result of the action of two branches of our autonomic nervous system (ANS)—the part of the nervous system that regulates most of the body’s internal functions. One of the branches contains the sympathetic nerves that accelerate heart rate while the other branch contains the parasympathetic nerves that slow the heart rate down. These two branches continuously interact so that our cardiovascular activity is optimal and can react appropriately to changing conditions.

Many factors affect the activity of the ANS which, in turn, influences HRV: our breathing patterns, physical activity, and even our thoughts. However, it is actually our feelings and emotions which most powerfully influence our heart’s rhythm.

Emotional stress that stems from anger, frustration, and anxiety will induce irregular and erratic heart rhythm patterns, an indication that the signals produced by the two branches of the ANS are “out of sync” with each other.

It’s like driving a car with one foot on the gas pedal (the sympathetic nervous system) and the other on the brake (the parasympathetic nervous system) at the same time. This creates a jerky ride and burns more gas—not to mention it takes a toll on the car. Likewise, stressful emotions create incoherent signals to our nervous system, causing our body to operate inefficiently, deplete our energy, and produce extra wear and tear on our entire system.

Positive emotions, because they send a very different signal, have the opposite effect. When we experience emotions like love or joy, our heart rhythm is highly ordered, smooth, harmonious, and coherent. When we generate a coherent heart rhythm, the activity in the two branches of the ANS is synchronized and the body’s systems operate with efficiency. That’s precisely why positive emotions feel so good—they actually help our body’s systems to work better.

 According to the HeartMath Institute’s research, sustained positive emotions facilitate a body-wide shift into a state called psychophysiological coherence where there is harmony between our psychological (mental and emotional) and physiological (bodily) processes.

Psychophysiological coherence allows us to function optimally: our body and brain works better; we feel better and we perform better. This is precisely why we need to pay attention to our heart—our feelings, intuition, and bodily energy—in order to successfully attain prosperity in our lives.

 If you are interested in learning more about this, let’s talk!

 You can sign up for a complimentary conversation with me HERE.