Mind the Heart
By
Cobi Swanepoel
We tend to see the heart as just another organ in the body, but as so many people suffer from heart-related dis-ease it is time to take a deeper, and different, look at the heart.
In Traditional Chinese Medicine the Heart is the organ associated with the Fire Element, and it houses the Mind (Shen).
The Fire Element is mainly responsible for the qualities we draw upon to relate to others.
When the Fire Element has become weakened, people find themselves unable to fully give and receive love. Joy is the emotion related to Fire and the Heart.
The spirit rests in the heart and when the mind is disturbed, noisy or busy, the heart/spirit reacts.
The Heart is the king (emperor). It is the ruler of the kingdom (other organs), and as such holds the space for others to do their job. As with any government if the king is weak the whole kingdom feels insecure and is on shaky ground.
Obvious will be the lack of peace within our heart centre, radiating anxiety and chaos, rather than peace.
Intense and prolonged emotions become causes of disease – it affects all organs, but it is only the Mind that recognizes and feels them.
For example; Anger affects the Liver, but the Liver cannot feel it because it does not house the Mind. Only the Heart can feel it, because it houses the Mind.
It is for this reason that all emotions eventually affect the heart (in addition to other specific organs), and it is in this sense that the Heart is the “emperor “of all the other organs.
Negative Emotions in TCM-Fire Element out of balance
Excessive joy, inappropriate laughter, insensitive, cynical, hateful, cruel, thoughtless
Positive Emotions in TCM – Fire Element in balance
Joy, compassion, spiritual, hearty, respectful, loving, forgiving
Fire Symptoms
High or low blood pressure, pain in chest or back, bloodshot eyes, headaches, shortness of breath.
Functions of the Mind (Shen)
Consciousness, thinking, memory, insight, sleep, wisdom, intelligence, ideas, affections, feelings, senses
As the heart is the residence of the Mind, it includes emotional problems such as anxiety
The ECG is the electrical recording of the heart. The heart generates the body’s most powerful and extensive rhythmic electromagnetic field. It is 60 times greater in amplitude than brain waves and permeates and reaches every cell in the body.
The heart secretes a hormone that has receptor sites in the brain, (the heart and the brain really do communicate with each other….)
Scientific research has concluded that a person’s emotional state is communicated throughout the body via the heart’s electromagnetic field, so that every cell in the body is aware of the person’s emotions.
Negative emotions are associated with an erratic, disordered, incoherent, pattern in the heart’s rhythm
With positive emotions the electromagnetic field of the heart becomes more stable.
Animals always act from their heart-energy, which is why they can love unconditionally and forgive immediately.