Heart Sensing

Each time I sit down to write one of these articles I trust to the intuition of writing on what is present for me or pre-occupying me right now. A major presence for me recently has been heart palpitations and a sense of tiredness around living.

At a practical level I have been checked by my Doctor, I have moved to herbal support for early menopause and I continue to benefit from regular acupuncture.

At the level of my spirit I have wondered what my body is attempting to guide me to.

One thought suggested to me is that although I may have limited ordinary mental time I do have unlimited spiritual time - that this is an essential difference to be aware of when seeking freedom from the struggle & stress that generates my feeling of tiredness. I am not sure that I fully understand this! I do struggle with the ‘fullness’ of my living and seem to need wake up calls about what really matters for me.

Are my heart palpitations a reflection of being out of balance? Are they requests to live ‘taking heart’ and ‘heart fully’?

How do I do this in the face of what I see as non-negotiable requirements – to support my family, pay my way, and make a contribution? To meet those demands do I need to do work that does not fully engage me? Must I choose between ‘doing’ and my desire to ‘just be’?

Or is it more an issue, once again, of how I think about and live into my life? My sense is that ‘Yes, in part this is true’. So I am endeavouring to heart-sense my way into daily living with ordinary time and spiritual time. Is my heart in this? How do I stay heart-centered and honour my commitments from this place?

What is showing up is the need to pace myself differently, not necessarily do less, but to live and work with the rhythms of my being. What is showing up is the need to ask for and receive help. What is showing up, yet again, is the need to listen to and respond to my own heart and to the divine within me.

My two business cards (developed a number of years ago) have the same heart logo and two different yet connected ‘by-lines’. My coaching one is ‘wholehearted living’ and my celebrant one is ‘celebrating life’. I must have known something about myself and my need to be reminded of joy and grounded in intentional heart-focused living.

In one of The Prayer Tree poems about broken, cracked or cut hearts, Michael Leunig writes

‘Let a bird lean in the hole and sing
A simple song like a tiny bell
And let it ring.’
I am playing with this gently – a ding-a-ling to support joyfulness.

Arohanui
Kerry-Ann


References
‘The Prayer Tree’, Michael Leunig, HarperCollins 1990. Poem begins ‘ ‘When the heart …”