Healing Touch California
A Network for All Healing Touch Practitioners & Students
HEART CENTERED LUNCHING
By Caroline Elliott
RN, BScN, HTPA
cxelliott@gmail.com
For the last two years I have had the privilege of leading the lunchtime education session at Healing Touch California’s Annual Regional Symposium. Eating a great meal, catching up with friends, and having a meaningful discussion that meets the requirement for one
continuing education credit could be a challenge. But it wasn’t. It proved to be relevant, touching, powerful and informative. One
participant reported, “Listening and sharing our stories at our table was …very beautiful.”
Utilizing D. Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory allowed for this. This cyclic, holistic perspective of learning combines
concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization and active experimentation. “Do, Observe, Think and Plan.” That’s the brain part of the education event. The heart part of the session was super easy.
The theme of this year’s symposium was Healing from the Heart. We spent a very heart centered lunchtime discussing how we feel and know we are heart centered, what practices we do to live a heart centered life, and then shared examples of how we live a heart centered life. As each person shared they held a beautiful heart-shaped stone in their hands (These were later raffled off to raise money for the HT CA Scholarship Fund).
The mere act of holding the heart stone, setting our intentions and focusing on being heart centered facilitated the expansion of the heart. This was evident as I looked around the room to assess how this education session was going. As reported, when we are heart centered we feel expansive, peaceful, free, joyous and light of heart. Our thoughts are clear and communication goes smoothly. We are honest and free of judgment, fear and anxiety. Synchronistically, life flows easily. We find ourselves in the right place at the right time, and we laugh more often. Awareness of being present is very powerful. Most people reported daily practice keeps them heart centered. The higher vibration of being in nature, meditation, prayer or journaling, alternating with exercise and yoga, are vital. Of course, Healing Touch practices of balancing, opening, aligning and realigning the chakras though focus on the core star, hara
alignment, self chakra connection, and the heart lock assist us to live a heart centered life. Some also use singing bowls, bells, crystals and essential oils as tools.A guaranteed way to be heart centered, you reported, is to volunteer and be of service to others…live life with gratitude…be in the moment…imagine. Following is a full list of all the written answers that were reported during the break out session at the lunch event at Healing Touch California's 8th Annual Symposium. Note that the number of asterisks represent the number of times the same answer was given.
How do we feel and know we are heart centered?
- A greater sense of peace
- Awareness of “rightness” of situation
- Clarity of thought
- Empowerment
- Better boundaries
- Thankful for life
- Aware fear and anxiety interferes with health and wholeness
- No negative thoughts, no stress
- Able to look for synchronicities in life
- Humility
- Not having to “know”
- Free**/freedom** Free of judgment*/non judgment****
- Inner peace/inner pitch in alignment
- My life has a flow to it/life flows effortlessly
- Everything falls into place
- Compassion
- Limitless
- Expansive**
- Laugh a lot
- Loving
- See the beauty and love all around me
- Lighthearted/ lightness*/light* “My body smiles”
- Heart centered translates to love
- Feeling of love for others
- At “home”
- Relaxed and energetic at the same time
- Warm in the chest/warm
- Warmth and loving kindness flows
- Joy
- Happiness
- Peaceful/peace* Calm****
- Grounded
- Allow
- Open to possibilities
- See from a higher perspective without judgment
- Mind slows down I feel
- I am a healing presence to those I am with
- Connected
- At one with nature
- Floating – a gentle high
- Consciously living at the zero point
- Absent of time and space
- Feel spacious
- The invisible is more real than the material
- Clean
- Alive*
- Open****
- Receptive
- Balanced
- Thoughts clear, not distracted
- Communication with others and work – just flows
- Gratitude***/grateful/deep sense of appreciation
- In the present moment
- Present moment awareness/in the present
- The invisible is more real than the material
- My heart leaps with joy and gratitude
- My body is very comfortable being heart centered …the divine love flows through my hands
What practices we do to live a heart centered life?
- Self care** (higher pitch-self regulated)
- Exercise***/Yoga*****/qigong*/swim
- Journal
- Practice of heart-lock*
- Intention to be heart centered
- Forgiveness and acceptance of a person's behavior
- Heart based living in the midst of change
- Meditation*******
- Vipassana meditation
- Quiet time
- Do work that I love
- Be with a group that feeds me, family, friends, clients, community
- Connection with others
- Service to others/focus on service/clowning/teaching/laughing
- Honor the work
- Daily full body connection
- Grounding
- Prayer**
- Balancing chakras*
- Chakra opening
- Hara alignment
- Self chakra connection** in morning/ at bedtime
- Realign with the core star throughout day
- Be/walk in nature**/camp
- Hug a tree
- Time management
- Give back to family, friends, those in need
- Work with sacred images
- Learn the sacred mother’s 108 names in Sanskrit
- Singing bowls and bells at work to help ground and center**
- B. Joy’s four attributes of the heart as morning meditation
- Volunteering*** (HT/hospice/hospital/VAs)
- Devi chanting in a.m.
- Sufism 5x/day prayers
- Connect my heart with the divine
- During difficult situations – let go of control and set intention for the best outcome for all
- Thankful for life/gratitude/thankful for where I live
- Connect with others
- Keep awareness of thoughts to know where I am
- Pray for others through out day, ie., the homeless, the frazzled mother struggling with her children
- Use eye contact
- Unconditional love
- Gratitude/Say thank you a lot
- Take time to be in the moment and be kind to yourself
- Write negative thoughts on paper and then visualize it being crumpled and tossed out
What are examples of living a heart centered life?
- Animals know when we are not heart centered/Care for animals, dogs, cats, birds
- Accept that I am having difficulties and accept that that is where I am right now
- Remembering to let go and “turn it all over”
- Be in the moment
- Awareness of how different we are but yet the same
- Find the good in people and say it to them
- Keep working at it I get still
- The session made me realize how out of alignment I am with my heart
- Lunch with Caroline (really, someone wrote that – thank you!)
- I feel divine love flowing from my heart and hands
- Support World Wildlife – Save the Rhinos
- When I teach, I teach from the heart
- Sharing from the heart opens the heart more
- Follow the energy of the group and adjust
- I live and meditate on the four attributes of the heart: compassion, innate harmony, healing presence, and unconditional love
- Remember that we have the capacity to choose to stay in the love when others are not and that helps all of us
- I can help other people
- Balance the science and heart centered modalities and develop vocabulary to describe the dynamic healing process
- Laugh and find the REAL joy in being with healing touch people
- Enjoy a sense of community with Healing Heart Group
- Consciously live at point zero
- Awareness of how I have been out of alignment with my heart
- My work is so much more important to me than I thought