During a two-day retreat in late January in Berkeley with my friends, Jon and Michael, I had a powerful insight: my heart matters. No, not just the physical heart, but the experience of feeling my emotional heart. The key part of the insight was that feeling love is (a) key to guiding me professionally, because my purpose is shaped by and expressed through love and (b) something I don't want to die not having felt fully.
So I have declared February Heart Month.
This has led to a couple of new practices (yes, there is still space to add more to the day!):
- Daily heart-opening practice. Could be poetry, writing, listening to an inspirational speaker, movie, or music. The Meditations for Thais that I listen to twice (10 min total) after my workout evokes warmth in the heart. But the best practice has been simply pausing in the midst of activity to feel sensations in the heart and send the breath into them and observe the result. For example, last night Jacob took an hour to fall asleep. While I was sitting with him and then laying next to him, I started to notice my heart and granted myself permission to feel it. A warm, silky feeling entered my experience
- Daily wordcentric practice. Worldcentric means embracing everyone in my sense of self. The idea for this came from past experiences reading or listening to inspirational people who call me to my highest self, particularly while discussing what's happening in our world. A piece of writing by Parker Palmer is one example. Ken Wilber's book One Taste is another. Yet I'm finding it difficult to quickly access sources. Interestingly, my own writing seems to do the trick as well as anything...
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