We need to think about healing our attention which as
become so fragmented and diffuse that we fail to realize how important a
concentrated attention IS to our health and our quality of life.
Refocusing our attention from negative habits and behaviors is critical to
our overall health and well being. When your attention is refocused in the
heart, many health benefits are possible.
Regardless
of whether I direct my attention voluntarily or involuntarily,
attention always possesses a certain strength or energy. I can
perceive objects superficially, with "distributed"
attention energy. Today this is called multitasking. But I
can also pay more and more attention to objects, emotions,
goals. We need to concentrate and refocus our attention on
the essence of our total person in the heart.
Combining this research with what the
Institute of Heart Math has shown has opened up for me new models of sustainable holistic
health that do not involve large investment in drugs or other invasive
therapies.
We need to reorient
our faculty of attention from cerebro centric (head based) to
cardio-centric (heart based). Many techniques to focus the
attention in use today involve Images or other forms of imagination.
However the attention should be focused within the physical heart using the
breath to re-concentrate the attention from the head to the physical heart. Then
we want to concentrate on positive, sustained emotions and minimize
concentration on negative emotions (for more on positive and
negative emotions click here)
We need to learn to concentrate the mind
in the heart. The mind is where the attention is. To concentrate the
mind in the heart means to establish the attention in the heart. The mind
is inseparable from attention; where one is there will be the other.
The energy of reason, logic, and discursive intellectual processes is distinct from the attention and the mind.
The key to controlling our electromagnetic energy body is to control it from
the heart
My research into alternative
methods of sustainable health have continuously led me back to the heart.
Many of the central health disorders of modern life are also related to
the heart and the cardio-vascular system. With heart based practice we can
learn to use the heart to heal the heart.
The heart is
a dynamical energy generating system; it not only pumps blood but
also pumps energy to the rest of the body and generates and
electro-magnetic wave field that is far greater than the one generated by
the brain. Shifting attention to the heart has for its
objective becoming aware and controlling this electromagnetic wave field. We need to learn to
differentiate our electromagnetic energy from our spiritual energy
Thoughts and even subtle
emotions influence the activity and balance of the
parasympathetic and the sympathetic nervous system collectively called the autonomic nervous
system (ANS). The ANS interacts with our digestive, cardiovascular, immune
and hormonal systems. Negative reactions create disorder and imbalance in
the ANS. Positive feelings such as appreciation create increased
order and balance in our nervous system that are now measurable with the
advanced technology of modern science, such as increased hormonal
and immune system balance and more efficient brain function.
In a healthy individual the
heart rate estimated at any given time represents the net effect of the
parasympathetic (vagus) nerves, which slow heart rate, and the sympathetic
nerves, which accelerate it. These changes are influenced by emotions,
thoughts and physical exercise. Our changing heart rhythms affect not only
the heart but also the brain’s ability to process information, including
decision-making, problem-solving and creativity.
When we learn to
intentionally shift the focus of our attention to the area of the heart,
and invoke specific feeling states such as love and appreciation, this
automatically manifests increased autonomic nervous system balance.
In particular, enhanced balance between the parasympathetic and sympathetic
nervous system.
Intentional focus of
attention solely on
the heart leads to increased self-management of one's mental and emotional
states that automatically manifests as more highly ordered physiological
states that affect the functioning of the whole body including the brain.
One of the
reasons I became a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church (EOC) was my
discovery that the EOC had preserved methods of heart focused practices
that would automatically balance the ANS, which are the practice of the
virtues. I further discovered that these
heart based practices would release the therapeutic
energy given at baptism for use in personal spiritual and physical health development.
The concentration of
attention in the physical heart is the starting-point for positive, sustained
emotional appreciation and love and the point of departure for all true
prayer, especially the Prayer of the Heart.
And since prayer is an
excellent way of sustained heart focused appreciation, it directs human
energy into the field of transpersonal energy. When your personal energy
links up with uncreated energy we begin to experience the sustained
health benefits of truly holistic health. And this
link carries with it a holistic health energy that can impact many of the
disorders we experience in our every-day living... (To continue at
the Therapy page click here.
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