Our current society’s view will provide a picture of how successful we’ve become intellectually. Our diverse cultures developed awesome philosophy, science and technology libraries. Over short time periods we attain some new height in digital manifestation. There is no questioning the human’s capacity for intellect.

But intellect alone only manifests what the intellect can produce and that is only part of the human’s full expression. Despite these advances, we can still find mischief abundance among the civilizations. We have more advanced technology alongside the increased capacity to destroy each other. With the very same advances we’ve become capable of harnessing them to annihilate each other.

Creating advances only to set us back by the very same creations doesn’t seem very intelligent to me. Are we missing something?

What we’re missing is heart-intelligence.

A Beautiful Mind with Heart-Intelligence

In western science, the mind is seen as a distinct unit a human being possesses. As with much of this science’s segmented approach, the mind is given its house in the brain and the brain is given the master title of all of the bodily functions. As the intellect’s governor, the brain is viewed as the chief officer given the highest responsibility and the most credit for our capabilities as a species.

But the mind was not always just seen as being in the head. Traditional Chinese Medicine, for example, views the mind and heart in the same realm. According to their system, when you speak of heart, you are speaking of mind, and when you discuss the mind you inevitably connect the heart. A wounded heart meant a wounded mind. When your heart was full of joy, so would be your mind.

Seen in this way, we come to acknowledge that there is an intelligence level our society tends to ignore in favor of a colder, more distant and objective flavor of smarts. We associate high intelligence commonly with being a robotic know-it-all, a calculating individual who lacks emotional content. This kind of smart knows a lot and cares very little for feeling anything. We fail to realize the heart is just as smart. 

The Brain in Your Heart?

Our science has come to realize the validity in the ancient TCM system of combining the heart and mind. We assumed the brain held all of the neurons, but the human heart contains around 40,000 neurons with feeling, learning, sensing and remembering capacities. Not only does it possess these brain functions, it can communicate information directly to the brain and the rest of the body. This means your heart is truly smart and can tell you things your brain might be missing out on.

When you feel that energy rush, that joyful emotion before you’re about to take a dive into your favorite lake, it may not just be adrenaline. Maybe your body (your heart) is also telling you how important it is to be in that environment, with water, closer to the elements.

But when we suppress our emotions, dull our hearts, we gradually desensitize this intelligence for reliance on what we may find to be more “useful,” cold-hard, left-brained processing in the cranium. We need not sacrifice one for the other; we maximize our experiences when these different abilities work in synergy. This is true balance.

Men & Women Need Heart-Intelligence

Although there exists the dominating idea that men are mostly emotion-suppressant, I daresay both men and women have become more heart-suppressive in our society for different reasons.

Men have been cultured here to stomp out traces of emotion, perceiving any expression of them as warrants for attack due to weakness. An emotion signals an energetic effect within him, connected to the limbic system, and to demonstrate something has an influence on a man, and outwardly give it more energy by giving in to it, is given a stamp of disapproval.

Extreme emotion does cause damaging effects to the frontal lobe and prefrontal cortex, but instead of educating young boys on how to process and transmute emotions, allowing them to be understood, flow and transform, they psychically block their energetic flow, compounding it with aggressive energies. The result is they seep into the subconscious mind where they fester then emerge wild and unruly. We then have men who can become as tough as rock yet crumble easily under the slightest emotional challenge, or appear calm and collected then snap into rage fits when emotionally hurt.

Women, whose natures have closer affinity to the heart-intelligence, also find their special smarts dulled through self-suppression. The pattern: when young, she is open and free; her heart is expressive. As is her connection to the divine, she opens herself when she feels connection. If she experiences harsh treatment such as abuse or manipulations particularly in relationships, her heart power gradually shuts down. The giving nature she once possessed becomes wounded and fed up, spiritually exhausted from repeatedly being taken advantage of. Her solution is to adopt the coldness, which can protect her heart but lock her out of those amazing heart-intuition powers.

So both sexes have a heart challenge and we can just observe our world today to see how that’s been going.

Sensitivity Needs a Redefinition

It’s important to redefine this idea of heart-intelligence as it relates to sensitivity. Being “sensitive” literally means being able to sense: touch, feel, taste, smell, hear and also includes the clair senses (audience, sentience, cognizance, etc.). To arouse our heart’s wisdom we need to develop more sensitivity. Our current public mind virus about this word equates “sensitive” with “weak” or “soft.” That needs to be eliminated.

Sensitivity is:

About awareness. This means recognizing what we experience, putting the consciousness flashlight on those experiences. This allows us to make better use of them, learn lessons and recognize opportunities.

About perception. This is the power to shift our understanding of an experience. When our perception is highly sensitive, we can psychically see a single situation from multiple angles. This helps us make wiser decisions since we can “see” the many results from our actions.

About bodily wakefulness. Being more sensitive returns awareness to the feelings and flows on and inside our bodies. We become more alive to the presence of others’ bodies as well. This sensitivity can help us recognize when we’re overworked, need to hydrate or even eat a certain food.

About emotional allowance. We return to healthy emotional energy flow with greater sensitivity. Since we become more aware, perceptive and awake, we can acknowledge feelings without being consumed by them or feeling a need to shut them down. If an experience triggers us to anger, for example, we then possess the ability to examine why we’re triggered, transform that and choose the appropriate response. Through practice we are no longer triggered.

Ways to Cultivate the Heart-Intelligence

Smile Meditation

This may feel awkward at first because you’re smiling at no one, but smiling for its own sake can stimulate feel-good hormones, stirring up the heart energy’s positive connection feelings.

Sit in a seat or on the floor in a comfortable position. Close your eyes, no need for specialized breathing. In this technique, you’re just going to imagine seeing someone you truly care about (or someone you’d like to care about but they don’t know it yet!). Imagine that person standing in front of you, smiling at you, you smiling at them. Now, you walk up to each other and hug. Feel what it’s like to touch chest-to-chest, that person’s warmth, their heart-intelligence blending with yours.

You can also do this exercise with someone in-person.

Cultivate Integrity

Integrity is thought and action alignment. Or, the shared intention among the mind, body and speech. Or, when our mind, body and spirit match. Whenever our intentions are different from what we say or do, we are out of integrity. The heart-intelligence gives us more immediate, intuitive understanding, it comes from a raw place in our being, and so it isn’t stuck through all of the brain-intellect processing like our thoughts. It can just hit us and we “know” because our processing flows optimally. Developing integrity naturally helps us become more trusting of what the heart is telling us.

The Green Gems

Green is the anahata or heart chakra color. This color’s aventurine is a luck stone for opportunities. Its energy works with yours to increase chances of manifesting prosperity from the heart space. It also assists in eliminating old patterns that no longer serve. You may keep this with you in your pocket, as a pendant or place on the heart during meditations.

A second green option is malachite. This powerful stone protects and transforms negative energies. Its energy supports inner alchemy and enhances perseverance. It also strengthens leadership capacity, to motivate others from passion rather than compulsion. The result is the ability to build relationships through that intuitive channel. Malachite can be toxic in its raw form, so obtain a polished version or enclosed within a resin generator. Also keep in your pocket, as a pendant or on the heart during meditation.

The World Could Use a Little More Heart

With the knowledge we have about the heart and its remarkable intelligence, we can see how heavy doses of this intuitive brilliance can end conflicts, external and internal. We can solve problems holistically. With it, we can align our being and be more sensitive to others, resulting in quality connections, a higher quality of life, living true in spirit on earth.

Crystal Vaults. (2017). Malachite Healing Therapies. Sourced from https://www.crystalvaults.com/crystal-encyclopedia/malachite.

Crystal Vaults. (2017). Green Aventurine Healing Therapies. Sourced from https://www.crystalvaults.com/crystal-encyclopedia/green-aventurine.

Ngui-Hon-Sang, J. (2017). Vitality Magazine. The Heart-Mind Connection. Sourced from http://vitalitymagazine.com/article/the-heart-mind-connection/.

Rozmon, D. (2013). Huffington Post. Let Your Heart Talk to Your Brain. Sourced from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/heartmath-llc/heart-wisdom_b_2615857.html.

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