My writing teacher shares the prompt and sets a timer for five minutes. Can anyone capture what the heart says in five minutes… ?
Before beginning, I consider the question; the heart does not speak. Or does she*? I pick up a purple Profile ballpoint, and begin writing.:
She is small, contained and constricted. (She is… !?) She longs for touch. Alive — a live touch. (She does.) Her song has no words. A sounding bowl, a well, a cauldron, a shining Sun of a star. (I am truly “listening” now, choosing words with care, trying to capture what she is “saying.”) She grows, opening the walls surrounding her, not moving through them (for “through” does not capture the feeling); she opens the walls, atom by atom, saturating what would restrict/constrain her, transforming the bounds, liberating herself, by moving the walls to dance, to shimmer, lucid with love! LOVE, she says. Only love. Always love.
The heart does not have a word-based language, even though we may subconsciously attempt to impose one on her. Not only are words human-made, and quite recently at that; they spring from the left brain, which is biologically incapable of generating, receiving or feeling empathy, love. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Every time we use verbal language to express what the heart is “saying,” we are at a disadvantage. So when we have a difficult time expressing, or even understanding our feelings with words, we can go easy on ourselves. (Hopefully we go easy on others, too.)
What a travesty, a horror even, to attribute a word-based language to the heart. And we often do it without thinking, or more accurately, without feeling, without noticing sensations in our bodies. We don’t necessarily choose to do this. It’s the water we swim in. Our culture is left-brain oriented, logic oriented, thinking oriented. To survive in this world, we may think we need to move at a speed faster than the speed of our body, too fast to take the time necessary for our brains to shift back to our sensations, to a more inclusive awareness, an integrated awareness, an awareness that nurtures our wellbeing. How do we do that?
Have you ever tried softening your gaze, looking without staring or trying to focus, instead simply allowing your eyes to receive the world before you and around you? Go ahead and try it now. Intend to receive what you see rather than “reaching” for it. Do you feel a little more relaxed? A bit more body-aware? A bit less stressed? Listening to the heart is sort of like that.
What if, as a way to discover what the heart is “saying,” we soften our focus and open our awareness to feelings, to sensations, “dropping below the neck.” We can allow our attention to drift downward, literally below our linear thoughts, away from our left-brain-verbal-language-centered (and sometimes circular or obsessive) thinking to our body sensations and to our heart. Then, only after we are present in our body, we try on words. We do so slowly, with care, noticing how the body, how the heart, responds to our choices. The beauty of this practice is that it only takes a moment, and we can do it anywhere, as often as we like, without anyone knowing.
I wrote the opening vignette for this piece with pen on paper. I do this daily and encourage my clients and students to do so as well. Analog writing can help us to slow down, allow the mind to naturally slow to the speed of our pen, and feel the visceral sensation of writing as we create each letter with our own unique, personal style. This simple creative act can feel pleasurable, luxurious even, and is one way to practice more sensory awareness, a way to tap into our present moment, our sensations, our heart, our body.
While I enjoy this practice, it’s not the only way to listen to your heart. Some people loathe writing, especially by hand. Many people don’t know how. Teaching penmanship is no longer required in over half of US states, which I find shocking. Not only is cursive a form of individual, creative self-expression, it’s an access point to power, to our history and our rights. How do we not teach children the skill necessary for them to read the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, their grandmother’s apple pie recipe, and sign their name on a love letter... ?!
But that’s a story for another time. For now, in this month of Love, I invite you to give yourself ten minutes a day for your own self-loving, heart-aware practice, perhaps beginning with a question:
What Does Your ❤️ “Say”?
Let me know how it goes. My heart would love to hear from yours!
Always,
❤️ Sage
*For today, I felt nurtured referring to my heart as “she”. Please choose whatever pronouns feel good to you—and your heart!
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