At The Root Of What Matters

English is an interesting language, in which some words have double entendres which are actually inter-related. For example, my colleague Aron Gersh wrote about, when we say "I feel deeply touched inside," the word touched has both an emotional and physical meaning. It may be the way you touch me "outside" on my skin, that reaches my heart, creating a feeling of being emotionally touched. Or if you touch me emotionally, I may be more open to letting you touch me "physically."

The word "matter" is another one of those words. When we say something "matters" to us, we are talking about an emotional meaning. What "matters" is important to us, and occupies space in the heart. And "matter" is also a term relating to objects or forms we find in the physical world. We make jokes about the brain as "gray matter." Or we can look at physical substances through the eyes of a physicist (who will focus on how matter occupies space and possesses mass as distinct from energy).

And to further this line of inquiry, the relationship between what emotionally matters and physical matter is actually quite significant too: what matters to us informs where we need to direct our energy in an actionable way to create what we want in our lives. This includes forms of matter, like house, or cars, or people we want to meet. Bottom line: what matters to us really matters.

When we direct our energy without considering what really matters, we can be creative. But we may not be happy with what we end up creating. Learning how to identify what really matters, and let ourselves accept or embrace what really matters is often an introspective journey which requires guidance and work. Learning what really matters requires learning to listen to the heart, and identify the heart's priorities and values. When we direct our energy in alignment with your heart's priorities and values, we are able to manifest things that we really care about.

When we create things we really care about, we feel our efforts are purposeful and the results are more likely to make us happy. We can create from the soul level up, from the inside out. We create things that fit and resonate and feel right. When we create what we think we "should" create or feel pressured to create by outside forces without consideration for whether it really fits our inner priorities and values, we are more likely to feel stress and pressure, rather than flow and happiness.

The heart has the strongest electromagnetic field in the body, so harnessing this energy and directing it towards a goal that matters, feels powerful and often leaves us feeling empowered. What we create may also benefit other people, and leave them feeling empowered as well.

When we get to "the heart of the matter," we are also getting to the root of what matters. This root anchors our actions. And our actions are anchored in the heart. In essence we become practical physicists, translating energy into matter through our actions. This is where science and spirituality meet, and vision and reality can meet. This is where life can feel magical and fun as well as meaningful and significant.

Being able to get to the heart of the matter, to really know what matters and to take action based on what really matters creates more of what really matters in both our emotional and physical world.

Living From the Heart Workshop

On Friday, May 20, I will be giving a workshop on Living From the Heart at the home of Margaret Arndt and David Sneickus in Newton, MA.

LIVING FROM THE HEART

Our hearts thrive when our lives are "coherent," meaning we have a sense that life is purposeful, manageable and meaningful. This approach to living makes us happier and healthier in all ways. The messages we receive from the culture, however, do not often invite us to go inward and listen to our hearts. Instead, we are told to do more, go faster and keep going...skipping over the critical messages our hearts and bodies give us moment to moment and over time about the things we really need.

In this evening workshop, you will have a chance to slow down, bring your focus inwards and listen to your own heart. We will explore some of our basic human needs (beyond food, shelter and clothing...like being welcome in the world, not having to do it all alone, and having emotional and spiritual connection), and how to bring more of what really matters into our lives. We will do meditation, experiential exercises and partnered sharings drawing from EKP body psychotherapy to nourish and honor our hearts.

Linda Marks, MSM, has practiced body psychotherapy with individuals, couples, families and groupsfor 26 years. EKP (Emotional-Kinesthetic Psychotherapy), a heart-centered, psychospiritual body psychotherapy method is her contribution to the field. Linda has presented nationally and internationally, published two books and hundreds of articles, taught at universities and professional conferences and has appeared on radio and television. She also practice coaching and mediation. Her website is www.healingheartpower.com.

For more information, contact msarndt@verizon.net

Happiness Versus Well-Being

On Tuesday, March 15, the Wall Street Journal published an article entitled, "Is Happiness Overrated?" With positive psychology as one of today's popular buzzwords in research and media circles, who would question whether pursuing happiness might, as the WSJ article suggests, be doing us more harm than good?

It turns out that "happiness as people usually think of it--the experience of pleasure and positive feelings," is not nearly as important to physical health as meaning and purpose. Engaging in meaningful, purposeful activity creates a deeper and more impactful positive state, which is called "eudaimonic well-being," than lighter, fun, which is called "hedonic well-being." The effects of eudaimonic well-being contribute not only to better mental health and cognitive acuity but also to a longer life than focusing on achieving feelings of happiness alone.

Dr. Carol Ryff and her team of researchers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, found that eudaimonic well-being reduced the impact of known risk factors like low education level on some critical health indicators. "Participants with low education level and greater eudaimonic well-being had lower levels of interleukin-6, an inflammatory marker of disease associated with cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, and Alzheimer's disease" than those with lower levels of eudaimonic well-being, even when taking hedonic well-being into account.

Too, researchers say that focusing too much on happiness, "can actually lead to feeling less happy." All too easily, we become addicted to the "quick fix," and swim on the surface of life, leaving the deeper layers of our beings untended.

While small, fleeting pleasures, like listening to good music, enjoying a good dinner or getting a new outfit, give us a burts of good feeling, in the long term, these activities, which contribute to "hedonic well-being," do not have real staying power. The article notes that raising children, volunteering or going to graduate school "may be less pleasureable day to day," but gives us more of a sense of fulfillment, "of being the best one can be, particularly in the long run."

Another important principal is everything in moderation. It is not human to be happy all the time, nor is it necessarily desireable. Life brings challenges, loss and hard times. To be able to feel through these different experiences is critical to being human. Being too unhappy too often is not good for us. And being more at peace more often is indeed more enjoyable. Yet, in a culture that has become far too narcissistic, "fixating on being happy in itself can become a psychological burden," reflects Dr. Ryff.