heartmath
If you’ve ever faced an unexpected event that threatened to derail something you’ve worked on for a long time, you know, as I do, that it’s a good idea to have a strategy or two to in place in order to react quickly and effectively and, with your intellect functioning under full power. I was reminded of this last week, the day before our screening of Sacred Journey of the Heart to international distributors during the Cannes Film Festival. I’m very grateful I was able to tap into my “Presence-Peace-Power” equation, because I certainly needed it!
I had lived through plenty of times where my default pattern was to go into what I now identify as Presumption-Panic-Impairment. As I revealed in the film, this pattern originated in my past of childhood abuse. All my HeartMath training and Radical Forgiveness work in the course of making the film gave me the healing tools I needed so that I would not: a) “presume the worst”, b) go into a panic and then c) make decisions and take actions that were “intellectually impaired”. We know now that the under stress and panic, the body marshals its reserves for a real battle, moving blood and oxygen supplies away from the higher cortical thinking centers of the brain and into the large muscles of the legs, arms and chest to prepare for action. This state does not facilitate good intellectual decision making!
It was Sunday morning and my distribution representative mentioned to me that I needed to bring my film’s blu-ray disk to the projection office for the screening the next day, Monday night at 8 pm. I was on my way out the door to attend a producers’ breakfast workshop and looking forward to an interesting day. When he told me this, my heart felt like it stopped for a moment, and I said, “Um, what do you mean me? I’m supposed to deliver a blu-ray disk? I don’t have one with me in France! I thought you had everything we needed for the screening!” He reminded me that we had emailed about this a few months ago — and then my heart felt like it actually dropped, when I had to admit, “OMG, I forgot! The blu-ray disks are in my office in Phoenix!” 
I could feel my old panic pattern begin raise its head as my heart was gearing up to start pounding. The second I felt this sensation, I stopped and focused on my heart, and consciously slowed down my breathing and my heart rate itself as I internally told myself, “ease-up, take a minute, slow down”. I had learned HeartMath’s latest technique called “Inner Ease” when I completed my training last December and this was my immediate go-to technique. Instead of allowing my imagination to go down the road of seeing a room full of distribution professionals and no film for them to view, I focused on tapping into a feeling of easing up and staying in Presence – or the present moment. We had time, albeit not much, to find a solution!
I was able to consciously slow down my heart rate because I’ve practiced heart coherence for a few years now. As a result, I can prevent myself from going into a full physiological adrenal stress response when it’s not needed. I’m sure I had a small burst of adrenaline but this is not a bad thing when you know how to come back to balance quickly. As Dr. Deborah Rozman, President of HeartMath LLC, says in the film, “In a state of coherence, you learn to live from a place where your heart and brain are in balance, your decisions are better and you don’t wear out your body!”
If you’re interested in learning the specific techniques of how to do this too, I’ll be teaching a 3 hour online HeartMath webinar that you can attend from anywhere as long as you have a computer and the internet. The webinar will include specific instructions on the Inner Ease practice and a number of other effective HeartMath techniques to use in these types of situations as well as in ordinary day to day interactions. The webinar will take place on June 14 from 9 to noon, Pacific time. Click here for more details.
After a minute or so of going into presence and inner peace, I was able to take effective action. I got on the phone to Fed Ex in the USA to find out if they could move heaven and earth and get a DVD from Arizona to southern France in less than 48 hours, beginning on a Sunday (it turns out they could!) At the same, we asked our distribution rep to call the film screening office at the Palais in Cannes to find out if they could project a high quality replicated DVD, of which I had brought plenty with me to France. It took about 30 minutes to get it all sorted out, but the good news is that from this place of power, versus panic, we were able to get to a quick and easy solution. And I didn’t put myself into massive physiological stress in the time that it took for us find the best solution for the issue at hand.
We had a full theater for our film screening on Monday night and the film looked as beautiful as ever (thanks Skip and Scott, our director and editor!) I encourage you to give yourself the gift of learning some practical techniques that improve the quality of your life in every day situations as well as those unexpected occurrences that inevitably come up!
3 easy steps!
We’ve all heard that speaking in public is the #1 fear reported in most surveys about fears and phobias. For most people, it ranks above fear of failure and fear of death. To me, fear of public speaking is an extension of a deeper issue: fear of speaking from the heart.
What if you had no fear of speaking from your heart, not just in public, but in your relationships, at work and even in those day to day interactions that contain small (or large) annoyances, like someone crowding in front of you in a line, being treated rudely by a store clerk or being ignored?
Have you ever had an experience in your life so challenging that your heart physically hurt? These are the occurrences in life that give rise to the term “heartache” or “broken hearted”. I’ve had a recent experience with this feeling which gives me the opportunity to dive deeper into my own heart and practice the process of using the power in my heart that I talk about all the time.
My heart hurt when I found out that someone I trusted and supported was attempting to blame me and my company for something that occurred in their own life. It was difficult to believe that this was happening because my mission is to continue to help people heal their own heart-hurts by teaching honoring and empowering ways of forgiving and stepping out of the victim role. So I was essentially facing a choice: do I curl up and give up OR do I stand up and keep on going with the mission and vision of Sacred Journey of the Heart?
Well, for me there really is only one choice. As CS Lewis said, “courage, dear heart.”
I discovered that when heartache is happening, there is a frequency disturbance that occurs in the whole body that actually looks like a chaotic, dissonant pattern. This is similar but different than HeartMath’s heart rate variability definition of coherence. HeartMath’s coherence is defined as “an optimal state in which the heart, mind and emotions are all aligned and in synch.” The definition of coherence goes on as: “Physiologically the immune, hormonal and nervous systems function in a state of energetic communication.” In this state, the autonomic nervous system is resonating at a perfect 0.1 Hertz frequency and one’s heart rate variability pattern looks like a smooth wave. I’ve written a lot about this in prior blogs. This is a state of balance that feels really good.
But what happens in our bodies when we encounter a major upset? Every cell of our body can resonate with a “Chaotic hertz” frequency. High levels of chaotic hertz will impact every major organ system and also activate old emotional patterns of destructive cellular memories that Dr. Bruce Lipton talked about in his pioneering book, “The Biology of Belief.”
What I’ve discovered recently, is that during a heartache time, it’s more difficult to get into and stay in this 0.1 hertz frequency of coherence. I’ve experienced this myself and talked about it extensively with my HeartMath and Radical Forgiveness coaching clients. But in perfect timing, I recently came across the work of Dr. Alex Loyd, creator of the Master Key and author of the bestselling book “The Healing Code”. I’ve learned from Dr. Loyd that there is a specific heart-healing frequency that has to do more with the heart itself, vs the heart as it regulates the central nervous system. The specific frequency that Dr. Loyd uses in his technology is 528Hz, which equates to “e” or “mi” on the Gregorian 6 tone musical scale. This is certainly not new information but it came back to my attention at a very important time, just when I needed it!
Here’s an artistic depiction from Dr. Loyd, of what this chaotic hertz might look like:
Courtesy of Dr. Alex Loyd
And here, interestingly enough, is an actual readout from HeartMath’s emWave2 device , which measures physiological heart rate variability:
Pretty interesting connection, isn’t it?
Also, from HeartMath and in from hundreds of my own similar sessions on the emWave2, is the pattern of physiological coherence when we are feeling appreciation and gratitude:
I am so very grateful to have encountered Dr. Loyd’s work, thanks to Doug Parks a wonderful man who is a “people connector”. Doug connected me with Dr. Bruce Lipton who I interviewed in last September’s telesummuit, “The Science and Art of Opening Your Heart”. And thanks to Doug again, I’ve connected with Dr. Loyd who will be one of my special guests for the next telesummit, “The Science and Art of Healing Your Heart.” Dr. Loyd has graciously agreed to share his latest discoveries on heart healing and the frequency of Love, or 528 Hertz as part of June telesummit. (See below for more information about my guests and the broadcast dates!)
I have been a long-time fan of binaural tone technology and in fact, I’m listening to the Monroe Institute audio as write this article. The Monroe Institute pioneered the field of binarul beat research and created “Hemi-Synch”, a wonderful technology for regulating the body. Dr. Loyd, in my opinion, takes this technology even further as he incorporates the 528 Hertz musical tone into his audios and videos for amazing heart-healing. I’ve been using his system for just two weeks, and while I still experience some intense emotions about what I’ve experienced, I can say the my heart is no longer hurting. I attribute this to incorporating the Heart- Hertz frequency into my other daily practices of my own Heart Shift meditation*, using my HeartMath emWave and doing lots of radical forgiveness worksheets!
*My new gift to you will be online soon: a 20 minute guided meditation to shift your heart from guarded and defended, to open and free!
So I invite you all to share your own heart-healing experiences and to set the stage for the upcoming telesummit, The Science and Art of Healing Your Heart.
(Note for my non-US readers- TSA is the Transportation Security Administration, the group in charge of airport security in the US)
Airports and stress have come to by nearly synonymous since 9-11. The 9-11 incident changed our lives in many ways as a society, none more evident than our experience of traveling through the “friendly skies”. I travel extensively as part of sharing my film with the public and coaching with individual clients. While on the road, I am always asked by at least one person : “How can you stand to fly so much? Isn’t it just terrible at the airports today?” My answer is, “I love traveling and one of my favorite things to do is to lighten up a TSA agents’ day!”
But I had to consciously work on this, on many levels, especially when they started the “pat down search”. Here is a photo of how I felt before I hit upon an effective de-stress practice at the airport.
