Power of the Heart

My talk last week on Heart-Based Living got me thinking about one of the first times I made a visceral connection to the power of my own heart. I still very much remember the day, three years ago. I was struggling with a decision I had made to distance myself physically from a difficult family member. After years of heart-ache, I had decided to stop participating in the chaos and instead send care. On this particular afternoon, I had begun the oh-so-familiar pattern of worry but in midstream remembered my commitment to send care. I sat down and began a series of heart-felt statements, envisioning them first for myself and then for my family member:

May you be happy,
may you be healthy and strong,
safe and protected,
free from inner and outer harm.
May you live in your world with ease and grace.*

As I completed my last well-wishing phrase, the phone rang, punctuating the silence. Amazingly, I heard the voice of my loved one on the machine and rose from the couch to answer. In the twenty-two years since moving far from home, I could have counted on one hand the number of times this family member had called. I picked up and replied, "I was just praying for you and me." What followed was one of the best conversations we had ever shared. When we hung up, I was convinced that tremendous power lied not in statements of well-wishing but rather in the shift of my perception.

A journey of the heart began as I started consciously tending the ephemeral parts of me and my loved one: in dreams, in letters, in phone calls. I continued to maintain physical distance, investing instead in the power of my heart.

Three years after I committed to heart-based care, my loved one passed away. When I attended the funeral, family assumed I harbored regret over not seeing him before he died. Words could not explain how completely opposite of regret I felt--instead, through the softening of my own heart over the years, I experienced complete reconciliation. A few hours before my loved one's passing, I was gifted with a face-to-face visit with him in a dream. It prepared me for the transformation that was about to take place. Throughout the dream references to the heart abounded.


*adapted from traditional Metta or "Loving-Kindness" phrases