My Heart Knows I Am Whole

I am whole and unbroken.

At our core, we are all basically whole. We often lose awareness of that with the clamoring of our primitive brain, and the pace and stress of our lives. Many of our alarming thoughts are generated by our nervous system perceiving danger and trying to protect us. We develop long standing habits of disconnecting, ruminating or turning against ourselves.

All parts of us work for our good. Our eyes scan for visual cues of safety or threat so we can respond and protect ourselves. Our brain is on duty using prior experience and beliefs to make up a story about or make sense of the input we receive through our senses.

We hold our breath to protect ourselves — a good intention but hard on our health. Yet even when this is a decades old habit, as we become aware of it, our body softens in its longing for deep, nourishing breaths.

It is such a relief to feel our shoulders release their tension, to unclench our jaw and gut, or to shake the edginess out of our arms and legs. The persistence of contraction and tightness in our body has a negative effect. That’s clear. What we sometimes misinterpret is the underlying intention. Our nervous system is detecting threat and is trying to warn and protect us. One way to calm ourselves is to look for cues of safety in this moment. We take some deeper…