The Symphony of the Body and the Sweet Sounds of the Heart
A few months ago, I started meditating specifically on my heart chakra. I’ve always liked the idea of focusing on the chakras. There is an anatomic correlation of the autonomic nervous system and glands and hormones associated with every chakra. As an Osteopath, we are taught that the autonomic nervous system plays an infinitely crucial role in our health, as do hormones of course, so it seemed like a high yield area to focus on during my meditations.
When I first started the heart focused meditations, I didn’t feel much. I tend to have a buzzing sensation in the middle of my forehead whenever tuning in to the 6th chakra, also known as the first eye. Shifting the focus to my heart chakra didn’t yield this same sensation. It just felt like nothing. Patience is a virtue and consistency is a key, so I just kept up the practice anyways.
At the Across the Water gathering this October, a sacred women’s circle for modern day times, my friend Sita went a step further in inspiring a heart centered focus. She proposed that we shift the lens at which we perceive the world from that of our brains to our hearts.
The body is akin to an orchestra of different cells each contributing to a symphony that is our health and wellness. Shifting the lens, from which we approach the world, from the brain to the heart, is like focusing on the violin rather than the flute. By tuning in to a different instrument, the song is still the same, but the experience is different.
The body is akin to an orchestra of different cells each contributing to a symphony that is our health and wellness. Shifting the lens, from which we approach the world, from the brain to the heart, is like focusing on the violin rather than the flute. By tuning in to a different instrument, the song is still the same, but the experience is different.
Let’s examine the melodies, rhythms, tempos and tones that exist between the brain and the heart that ultimately create the music of our lives.
There is a neurological connection
The parasympathetic nervous system via the Vagus nerve
The sympathetic via a diffuse nervous plexus coming from T1-T4 surrounding the aorta and bronchial tree
There is a electromagnetic connection
As any magnetic force is created so too is an electric force - they always go hand in hand. The brain primarily generates an electric force while the heart primarily generates a magnetic force
Photo Heartmath.org
There is a biophysical connection
As the heart pumps blood, it is creating a physical wave in the blood that receptors in the walls of arteries detect and subsequently alter our vitals like blood pressure and heart rate.
Some scientists now believe that this biophysical communication goes a step farther. They have found that the blood leaving the heart is actually in a vortex configuration, which is more energetically charged. These scientists postulate that different characteristics of vortexes act as signals about what organs should receive the blood (1).
There is a biochemical connection
There is evidence that when the heart detects the brain hormone, oxytocin (the love hormone), the heart muscle is able to regenerate (2). This is direct proof that love heals a broken heart!
Stress detected from the heart via emotions, then communicates with the brain to secrete CRH, which then stimulates our adrenal glands to produce our stress hormone, cortisol.
Months later, when I go to meditate on my heart chakra, I now feel something. It can best be described as a subtle richness spreading over my chest – though vocabulary can never truly do justice when explaining energetics. There is a distant interplay between the heart and the brain I now understand as biological, chemical, physical, and energetic – or just plain musical. Ultimately, for me, to live with the lens of my life from the heart has added a deeper level of perception that adds another dimension in shaping my reality.
When we practice gratitude this holiday season, specifically Thanksgiving, instead of thinking about what you are grateful, try and feel it with your heart and see if there is a different quality to the emotions or sensations appreciated in your body.
1. Cowan, Tom. Human Heart, Cosmic Heart. Chelsea Green Publishing. Nov, 2016.
2. Wasserman, Aaron, et al. “Oxytocin promotes epicardial cell activation and heart regeneration after cardiac injury.” Front Cell Dev Biol. 2022; 10: 985298.
