Uplifting your heart

"Best of all is it to preserve everything in a pure, still heart, and let there be for every pulse a thanksgiving, and for every breath a song."

Konrad von Gesner

Today's post is inspired by a gift I received this morning... Fellow blogger Susan Meyerott, who writes a great blog called 'Lightarted Living' (which I highly recommend), used one of my ideas and both created a cool blog post about it and also created some beautiful artwork inspired by it. So I thought it life enhancing to share her delightful artwork with you here, and write some more about the ideas behind it.

Communicating with your heart and gut brains

Over the last year or so I've been doing a lot of research on the enteric (gut) brain and cardiac (heart) brain and how they communicate and integrate together with the cranial (head) brain. I've been determining what the core competencies are of each of these neural networks and how best to work with them to align them.

[I've blogged in the past about the heart and gut brains, and you can read more about them here:

• Heart Coherence
• Aligning your multi-mind
• Messages from the Unconscious
• Habits and Patterns  
• Smiling for happiness and health 

]

Together with a great friend of mine, Marvin Oka, one of the top NLP trainers in the world, we've developed a field we are calling mBIT (multiple Brain Integration Techniques), and we are currently running Action Research Workshops to codify our research and findings. mBIT is based on behavioral modeling informed by the lastest neuro-physiological and neuro-psych research about the heart and gut brains.

One of the simple yet powerful techniques I've created for communicating with and aligning your heart and gut brains based on mBIT is the one that Sue blogged about and created her delightful artwork for.

The idea behind this technique is to use focused breathing, along with metaphor and positive emotion, to send messages to your heart and then your gut. This leads to a re-balancing of your Autonomic Nervous System (ANS), from Sympathetic dominance, back to coherence between the Sympathetic and Parasympathetic arms of the ANS.

I'll be sharing more about mBIT over the coming months. Marvin and I have scheduled a 10 day writing sabbatical next month to begin work on our book about mBIT and the science and techniques involved with it. (Stay tuned and let me know if you're interested in hearing about when the book will be released. Let me know too if you're interested in attending any workshops or webinars that we'll be running later this year and into the next. You can contact me by leaving a comment or emailing me at: grant @ soosalu . com)

So what's the 'Uplifting your heart' technique?

Well, it's really amazingly simple. Whenever you are feeling stressed or in need of some uplifting or calming, simply take a few minutes to sit and breath in and out calmly and evenly, taking approx. 6 seconds on the inbreath and 6 seconds on the outbreath. Make sure the in and out breaths are of the same duration. (There's a reason and science behind this.)

As you breath in, imagine that the breath is uplifting your heart. Feel that uplifting feeling. And smile as you do this. Smiling makes a key difference. Really feel your heart being uplifted as you do this. You can imagine a color or light filling your heart with uplifting positive energy and love. And you can take that light, color and feeling and experience it going all the way from your heart to your head, taking these uplifting feelings and messages from your heart into your mind.

As you breath out, imagine your breath going down from your  head/heart to your gut, taking with it calming feelings and messages. Really feel that letting go, relaxing, calming sense fill your belly.

Breath in 'uplifting your heart', breath out and down 'calming your gut'. Continue doing this, as you smile, and feel so aligned and calmed.

It's really that simpe! Try it now. Practice it every moment you get a chance and it will serve you well in the stressful moments in which you might need it. There's a lot of science and logic behind what appears to be a very simple process. The heart leads the head and gut, and the heart itself can be guided through breathing and positive emotion. So use the 'Uplifting your heart' technique to guide and integrate your multiple neural networks and gain congruence and alignment in your life.

life enhancing smiles,

Grant