Being in the Heart (Soul) – Meditation

Background
Especially when we are at work, most of us are in our minds, using our rational thinking, most of the time. It’s important to become balanced between heart and mind. This is an exercise that has you spend more time in your heart, developing your ability to be in your heart when you want to.

Most effective decision-making comes from a balance between mind and heart, rationality and intuition/emotions. In real life we never have enough information to make a perfectly rational decision, so something other than rationality has to play a part. When undeveloped, this intuitional, emotional part of us (our heart, we might say) can steer us poorly; when developed it can steer us well.

The other value to being more in the heart is in our relationships. People react more positively to those who are in their hearts. Being in our heart, we are better able to notice our emotions and the emotions of others. The more we can notice emotions, the better we can be at diagnosing then, understanding them, and managing them. …Life also feels better when we are in our heart.

Note that being in the heart does not exclude being in the mind; this is a practice mainly for those who are imbalanced toward the mind.

Practice Instructions
• Find a quiet, undisturbed, comfortable place to sit with your eyes closed. (After a few days or weeks this can be done anywhere and with your eyes open.)
• Choose a length of time to do this. Many people find 4-5 minutes is good at first; later this practice can be accomplished in 5 seconds. You should practice this several times a day.
• Take 30 seconds to relax. (See instructions for this above.)
• Think of (re-create within yourself) a beautiful and intense feeling of love you’ve felt – it can be your love for someone else or being loved by someone else. Lock in that feeling; enjoy it.
• Clap your hands hard enough (just once) that you feel a tingling sensation in your hands.
• Place your hands over your heart and allow your heart to feel a tingling sensation. Wait until you feel the sensation in your heart.
• Allow that tingling sensation to gradually spread throughout your chest. Then allow that tingling sensation (allow the feeling in your heart) to gradually spread throughout your body. Finally, allow that feeling in your heart to even spread beyond the body perhaps as far out as your hands can reach.
• As much as you can, move your sense of self from your head to your heart. Center your self in your heart. Begin “thinking,” moving, deciding, from your heart rather than from your mind.
• (If you start to think about the tingling or get distracted by other thoughts, gently return your attention to your heart and wait for the tingling to return.)
• Allow the sensation in your heart and throughout your body to intensify.
• Think of someone you would like to send love to and send them your love. And sed love to as many people as you want to at that moment. You might notice as you do this that the sensation in your heart and your centeredness in our heart intensify.
• You may stop when you wish to.

Understanding
The point of this exercise is to get us more out of our head and more into our heart. Especially in the West, especially among men, and especially in business and work situations, we tend to be in our head much more than in our heart. Note for those not used to being in their heart: mind and heart always work together. It’s not that we are only in our head or only in our heart at any one point in time. Rather it’s the balance. This exercise helps us to be more in our heart and less stuck in our head.

Len Tischler has meditated for about 40 years and has taught hundreds of people to meditate. He has written and given talks about spirituality and meditation in the business world. Send your meditation questions to asklen [at] greenchicafe [dot] com for individual help. Stay tuned for The Daily Practice newsletter.

Many thanks to the author for permission to print, and we suggest you find other articles by Len Tischler at http://www.greenchicafe.com/ . He says that such meditations are very useful for people working in and leading organizations. We, at Yoga.com, agree and see a world in which all leaders are doing so from the heart.

©Len Tischler
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