The Heart of Movement 4 - The senses of the heart

Yesterday, Ollie was radiantly happy. 

He runs the organic grocery store beneath my practice with his Mother and an energetic staff. He’s young and postponed his Uni degree after his father decided there was more to life than 2.00am fruit market trips three times a week. 

He’s often very focussed and genial but this was very different. I didn’t ask why he was so happy because I was so startled. It was infectious and gave me a real lift. 

I sometimes feel that myself. It’s often when I’m enthused by a new idea. I walk through the streets of Avalon and notice that people, who normally don’t engage, are smiling back at me from metres away. 

Why does this happen?

I have a number of hunches but it’s certainly not clear when you look at related research. In fact, that’s true of everything we’ve been looking at this term. That’s why I’m trying to just focus on the experience. 

So .. is this a good representation of coherent breathing and the heart brain connection? 

It’s certainly a beautifully co-ordinated action and that smile!

Tenor

So this week we’ll be exploring the heart brain connection and it’s a pretty amazing. 

As I mentioned last week the heart has its own little nervous system that enables it to carry out some functions independently of our brain but it’s the interaction between all the systems of our body that produces the flow and variability of our heart rate. 

An average heart rate is 73 beats a minute but a heart dis-connected from the brain in a lab beats at about 100 beats a minute. So there is some serious regulation going on to maintain a resting heart rate. How does it happen? 

I’ve been reading Paul Nurse’s fabulous book ‘What is life? Understanding biology in 5 steps’ and he argues that the sorting of information about ourselves and our environment is a fundamental component of life. (I’ve posted a video of him speaking on the FB page)

Sorting information for modern humans is a complicated affair. 

To begin with there are so many biological processes both relying on and delivering information. This occurs everywhere from single cells right through to whole systems. On top of that we have the abstract perspectives of language - the narratives that filter our experience.

Here is a photo of my lovely parents on holiday in Russia. I’m sure when they walked the streets that day people smiled back at them too.

But when my biological system was navigating the world in early adolescence it made a decision that they were dangerous and that I wasn’t free around them! I knew that was true because I was 14 year old and knew everything. That interpretation of what was going on influenced the way I perceived my world and also the decisions I made for quite a long time. 

Of course, there was little to justify that decision and I eventually realised that they were both quite safe and that the substance of my hard won character was actually built on their example. 

At the time, of course, rejecting the world view of my parents felt joyous. I stumbled out into that beautiful new world certain of my moral rectitude. Well of course I was right! It felt so positive .. so true ..

I mention this as much of the online narrative about the heart is framed in terms of positive and negative emotion. Follow your heart! Think positive loving thoughts to control your destiny, manifest things and make the world a better place! 

.. and of course there is a point to that. I don’t have people spontaneously interacting with me when I am wandering the streets immersed in confusion or even gentle melancholy. Positive emotions like joy, love or even moral rectitude are compelling.

The thing is, how do we know something is good or bad? So often the decisions we make are not that well informed. Addictions are a good case in point. How are we ever to know?

So we’ll be exploring the heart brain connection this week with a little humility.

Should we be listening to the messages of the brain - in particular the ongoing narrative of our internal dialogue - or to the messages of our heart and gut - the feelings of peace or unease? 

Perhaps we could use the heart to feel what we are sensing or thinking and the head to clarify the context of what we’re feeling?

Luckily we don’t have to make any decisions! We’ll pay attention to it all without any need for action. We’ll just observe the way we respond to the things we perceive and sense it through the heart and head .. How do they use the rest of the body?

Created using the Visible Bodies App

There is one thing I find fascinating and that is the feeling of resonance. Our heart does radiate a magnetic field far stronger than that of our brain and we live in an ocean of magnetic currents ..

Benjamin Suter Via UnSplash

Does the rhythmic beating of our heart harmonise with those around us? Does magnetic attraction have a biological or physical basis? There are no clear answers but it is certainly an interesting thing to pay attention to. 

So we’ll consider that radiance and we’ll consider the way we perceive our environment through the heart and gut. 

I can’t leave the gut out of a heart/brain lesson

Did you know that the gut contains around 100 million neurons? They enable it to feel the inner world of our viscera and its contents. It can control many aspects of gut behaviour independently of our brain. 

The gut informs our state of mind - butterflies in the stomach is one example. In fact, 80% of signals from the vagus nerve - the gut’s primary nerve are going from the gut to the brain and not the other way around. 

It’s the same for the heart. 

The brain has about 10 billion neurons and also radiates waves. It’s the connection of it all that is so beautiful.

Giphy

So we’ll seek some stillness in movement and listen.

I can recommend doing the last lesson again. It’s a lovely feeling but perhaps more importantly I’ve been noticing how often my heart and lungs become chaotic. The thing is that it’s not too hard to bring that sense of peace back but you need to be aware of it first. 

You’ll add another piece with this lesson.