CHAPTER 1

How to Use This Book

Tell me, can you love life and let love find you when you are lost?

—Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Of all the organs that make up the human body, the heart and the heart alone isconsidered to be the guardian of the complex emotion we call love. Love, ourheart-felt attraction to another and our heartfelt acceptance of ourself, hasdeep and tangled roots. It begins in utero with a unique blood bond when thislife-giving fluid is exchanged between the heart of the fetus and the heart ofthe mother. From conception on, this bond is complex. The mother's blood is thefoundation for the uterine lining to which the fetus must anchor itself. Thehealth of the mother's lifeblood determines the health of that first fetalenvironment. Even as the fetus's liver begins to manufacture its own bloodsupply, the mother's steady heartbeat orients this new life to the rush and roarof the maternal heart's functions. This bond not only keeps the fetus alive, butit allows the fetal heart to record the biochemical messages that will prepareit for other kinds of bonds—emotional, physical, spiiritaul, and psychological—afterbirth. The prenate's heart is being prepared for a capacity for love,compassion, and empathy. After birth this original heart-to-heart relationshiphas to widen and develop sensitivity to others if the infant is to relate to therich and varied complexity we perceive as life.

As children, we are taught logic and reason as the primary tools for discerningthe accuracy of our perceptions. But few of us are encouraged to listen to ourhearts, whose nonverbal responses may at first be less clear but are far moreunbiased than those of our brains. There is no surer way to find out whom youare truly meant to become—your life's purpose—than by learning to listen to yourheart. Across the years, as your life grows increasingly more complex, yourheart can guide you as you seek to identify your true self. To ignore yourheart-centered input would be a major loss.

Over and over our heart gives us nudges and clues about our unlived or ignoredlife possibilities. What we learn too late in life is that the very qualitiesand talents that we so want to support or that we admire in others are the verytalents and qualities that we know in our heart are right for us. Any time Ifind myself admiring a particular quality in another person, I always turn tothe intelligence of my heart and ask myself, "Where is this quality or talenthidden away and yet to be claimed in me?" And equally, any time I find myselfstrongly disliking someone or something about another I turn to my heart andask, "Where is this attitude or trait or fear in me?" I have never found thisquestion not to yield a meaningful, and often life-changing, response. The wayof heart-centered living is unabashedly honest—it is not for the timid or theindifferent pilgrim.

Reducing Heart Stress by Reclaiming the Wisdom That Is Yours

We live in a very stressful world. The everyday necessities of living, likecommuting, jobs, and children, require more flexibility and attention tointrapersonal resources like fortitude, faith, courage, and confidence than everbefore in our history, as we are drawn ever deeper into a global community.Daily we are faced with decisions and choices unique to these times—many ofwhich we feel ill equipped to manage. Most of us intensify our search foranswers when we are under stress—feeling caught up in the complications andpressures that surround us. During this period of time the rhythms of our brainand our heart become out of synch with one another, we feel this as a lack offocus, an imbalance of mind and body.

Your body radiates energy called an electromagnetic field. You know when it isworking well and in balance because you feel centered and filled with energy.Your heart's electromagnetic energy is 5,000 times stronger than that of yourbrain. In fact, research shows that your heart has its own capacity forintelligence that is controlled neither by the brain nor by the autonomicnervous system. No one can yet explain exactly why the heart is able to beatindependently of control by the brain or the influence of the nervous system,but it does. Energy cardiologists tell us that the heart has its own "littlebrain" that enables it to act independently of the big brain and to producefeelings, directions, and solutions all on its own.

As you learn to access and trust the wisdom of your heart's intuitiveintelligence, you will find that your brain and heart rhythms will becomesmoother, more synchronized, just as they do with a feeling of deep love, ormeditation, or beauty. Even if you are in distress, accessing this capacity forheart guidance will immediately begin to reduce your stress level, especially ifyou are able to combine it with the genuine intimacy of relating to another,heart to heart. When you feel related, you also feel renewed, reassured that youare more in tune with the depths of your own humanity. No matter how frightenedor ill you may be, you will feel empowered by the inner sense of unity that yoursharing brings.

A clear example on a national scale of this immediate heart felt healingresponse under dire circumstances was our instinctual reaching out on September11, 2001—to strangers, to friends, to family—to anyone who was willing to meetus heart to heart. Our intellects could not grasp the enormity of our loss. Ourhearts could.

Simply turning and listening to the heart that loves you is one of the mostprotective things you can do for yourself and for humankind. The entire worldseeks healing—healing begins with love and love begins with bone-honestrelating—from the heart.

So let's look at how you can use this book to get to know yourself intimatelyfrom the depths of your heart while uncovering your destiny, your unlived life.

The Purpose of This Book

First, I have written this book to help you uncover the unlived truths in yourlife, to find what your heart can tell you about your soul's purpose, about yourdestiny, that you are unaware of or yearning for but afraid to create. Layer bylayer you will carefully brush away the debris of your mistaken beliefs andunearth your deepest self by turning to your heart and its intuitiveintelligence.

This book is simply written, but its message is anything but simple. It isserious, it is sincere, and it is absolutely real. Whether you believe it ornot, your life has a purpose that transcends your ordinary everyday existence.You have a soul that is alive and vitally present within every cell of your bodyand that can be found very readily by turning to your heart. This incarnateenergy is intelligently and...