HeartFulness

My approach to the spiritual journey has evolved over the years into my intention for awakening and aligning with the values and direction that comes from the Heart. Rather than a belief system or specific ceremonies and practices, the Way of the Heart involves pursuit of a way of being that transcends our base human condition. It involves curiosity rather than certainty, a journey rather than a destination, and a sense of community rather than isolation.

I see four fundamental human values need our attention in order to live from the Heart. A commitment to the ongoing cultivation of these, I think, is critical to our personal and cultural transformation, and are too often suppressed in our families and culture. These values or needs are Authenticity, Purpose, Connection, and Co-Creation.

We live in a culture deeply wounded by our collected trauma. Our history and current condition is rooted in a story and values very foreign to the human heart. We are all affected in some ways by the fear, scarcity, competition, separation, violence, and inequality that permeates our culture.

We desperately need a shift in consciousness, a cultural transformation that starts with personal awakening and empowerment generated from the deepest place within. We need a personal and collective movement toward a social environment cultured from the Heart.

Culture has two relevant definitions, one having to do with our collective norms and practices, the other with the microorganisms that affect the nourishment of our food and beverages. Working with relationships and community building for most of my adult life, and baking sourdough bread over the past decade, has brought both of these definitions clearly into sync for me.

The culture we nurture by our inner life, our words, behavior, attitudes, and our interaction with others, greatly contributes, directly and indirectly to  the flavor and substance of our surrounding culture. As a great spiritual teacher once said, “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three pecks of flour until it was all leavened.” (Mathew 13:33)

Our current culture has been fed and flavored by our personal and collective history, by both the beauty and trauma in our families, education, relationships, and society. Our story, identity, and life direction is colored by ego structures and defense mechanisms rooted in the conditioning of our past.

We need a new story, conditioning, and flavor… we need the empowerment that can only come from the Heart, a personal and collective awakening and vision. Feeding and care of the heart provides the transformation and empowerment necessary for the personal and collective results that we desire and need.

A CoCreative Path is an approach to awakening and empowerment, focusing on personal, relational, and social transformation. With attention to Authenticity, Purpose, Connection, and CoCreation, we continually shift our personal and collective consciousness through an ever deepening alignment with our true self, others, the planet, and the Source that sustains all.

My early attempts at meditation were often thwarted by a struggle to empty or focus my mind. I saw it as a personal spiritual practice, which never quite landed for me. One book that did inspire me early, was Be Here Now by Ram Das. Over the years I became more comfortable with the idea of contemplation as a more whole way of focusing my attention .

In more recent years, I have very much appreciated the contribution of Neuroscience to meditation in the form of Mindfulness.. Mindfulness has helped me to understand meditation as simply the effort to be present. I have also been inspired by the focus of Emotional Intelligence on personal and relational awareness. 

Today, along with practices that help me to let go of the chatter and focus my attention, I try to primarily remember to take moments of observation to notice my surroundings and relationships; to notice what I am sensing, thinking, and feeling. Aware by Daniel Siegel  is a helpful guide for practicing mindfulness.

“When we speak of mindfulness, it is important to keep in mind that we equally mean heartfulness. In fact, in Asian languages, the word for “mind” and the word for “heart” are usually the same. So if you are not hearing or feeling the word heartfulness when you encounter or use the word mindfulness, you are in all likelihood missing its essence” Jon Kabat-Zinn

The movement of mindfulness to heartfulness is a movement toward Relationship and Emotional Intelligence. In his book From Mindfulness to Heartness, Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu expounds on several areas of attention to focus the practice of mindfulness on the Journey of the Heart. These areas are Vulnerability, Authenticity, Connectedness, Listening, Acceptance, Gratitude, and Service. 

A concept and practice for me on the journey from mindfulness to heartfulness is the inner connection and harmony of Coherence. The Institute of HeartMath has been studying the connection and communication between the heart and brain for 30ish years, its effect on our body and on the electromagnetic field that connects us with each other. Through measurement of heart rate variability, brain waves, and the electromagnetic field, HeartMath has explored the effect of negative and positive emotions like appreciation and gratitude. 

My experience has shown that the practice of coherent breathwork, and the mindful focus of my attention on the feeling of appreciation and gratitude, provides a foundation for pursuing the Journey of the Heart in my personal life and in relationships. Heart Intelligence has qualified the contemplative spiritual approach and goal that the major religions have taught through the ages. The Way of the Heart is about growth in gratitude, compassion, and connection to All.

Cooperation is required for best results whenever two or more are gathered together. Even in the most hierarchical of situations, listening to everybody’s perspective and need is beneficial. Having a sense of respect and cooperation always produces best results.

On one level, A CoCreative Path can be thought of as a spiritual path. Deep cooperation and a sense of community is required for fulfillment of human and planetary needs. In any ecosystem, the harmony of cooperation is vital for a thriving environment.

As in any spiritual path, trust (or faith) is required for cooperation to work. Not faith as in some sort of belief in the concept, but a trust that compels us to surrender. In surrender to cooperation, we are called to the center where we offer our perspectives, strengths, and gifts. We also bring our wounds, failings, and confusion. In the center we learn to listen to all the voices, boldly embracing who we are and letting go of our illusion and control.

In the center we learn to see life from multiple perspectives rather than what we see behind our eyes or what we hear from the voices in our mind. We enter the heart of the whole and experience our unity from a place beyond theory.

I believe we are in the midst of a changing collective story. The old story in our culture teaches that we are essentially alone in a hostile environment. It’s a dog eat dog world where only the fittest survive. This runs deep in our collective psyche and has brought us to the edge of destruction. The old story is filled with victims and villains, and has produced all sorts of power and resource imbalances. The inherent fear in the story is the power that drives most of humanity at this time.

That story is a lie!

I believe people are waking up to the light in an unprecedented way. We are identifying many of the problems that we have developed – economic injustices, environmental disasters, and social disconnect. Many of us are also meeting the enemy head on and recognizing that s/he is us. We are growing in self awareness and also self acceptance. We are shifting from a place of judgment to empowerment, with a growing desire to co-create a new collective story. A critical mass can be seen faintly on the horizon.

To further shift our story and learn a new operational paradigm, we need to recover a deep sense of community and embrace a collaborative awareness. It is not enough to return to the unconscious sense of community in the past, along with it’s inherent us/them paradigm. We need to take a quantum leap forward into a collective and integrated whole.

In order to do this, we first need to embrace our individual center, the place in our heart where we know we are valued, loved, and complete – the place where our passion is ignited and our gifts emerge. There we need to cultivate self awareness and clear intention. We need to accept our ego with understanding and compassion, allowing our limiting beliefs, damaged emotions, and trapped energy to dissolve. We also need to explore who we are beyond our story, allowing our passion to burn and our gift to blossom.

We then need to embrace a collective center to fully function individually and together. To navigate the shift in our collective story, we deeply need to see our part in the whole. Like a cell in an organ, we need to embrace the community we are called to function within. And like an organ, our community needs to embrace the function it is called to serve the body.

In that collective center we learn the art of cooperation and to truly see our need for one another. We learn to see ourselves from a broader perspective, and also experience the harmony and synergy that emerges out of surrender. Like in our personal journey to a heart centered life, we learn to let go of our attachments in order to embrace a deeper sense of who we are. This is foundational to our cooperative work and, again like in our personal journey, it requires letting go of control and embracing the chaos to move deeper into the center.

I believe that it is only with this deeper sense of community and cooperation that we are going to fully awaken and emerge individually. I also believe it is the only place we are going to shift our collective story to pursue harmony and equilibrium, to co-create the world that we know in our heart is possible.