Question about Atrial Fibrillation

November 19th, 2007

Dear Puran and Susanna,
Thank you for your work on the Four Dimensions of the Heart. I am interested in coming to one of your workshops. My question is have you worked with people with heart arrhythmias? I have atrial fibrillation and it seems to be moving now from “transcient”, where most of the time I was not having episodes to “persistent” (more and longer episodes). It is possible if I sign up for the workshop, I will be having an AF episode. I read and enjoyed your book, “Living from the Heart”.
Best Regards,
Marilyn

Dear Marilyn,

Please consider that I am not trained in medicine and have no background in medicine. My own personal experience is that conscious attention on the heartbeat forms a feedback loop that results in greater stability of the heart rhythm. HeartMath has some information on this. They’ve done great research in this area. Although I believe their method, called “Freeze Frame”, to be seriously flawed, it still shows that placing your attention on the heart brings great benefit to the physical heart organ. The problem with the Freeze Frame method, as we see it, is that it requires concentrating only on positive emotions, such as appreciation and gratitude. Firstly, this is very difficult, because the heart does not differentiate emotions into ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ - that judgment is made by the mind. Secondly, to do so places a harmful limitation on the heart, saying ‘feel this’ and ‘don’t feel that’. It’s not how the heart works. The heart feels all emotions, joy, pain, longing, exaltation, sadness, empathy, peace, and all other emotions. When you energize your heart without placing these restrictions on it, the heart responds with a surge of energy and emotion.

The parallels through the mind-body connection between the physical heart and the emotional heart are so strong that it’s safe to say your Atrial Fibrillation has some emotional counterpart. Even more important than treating the symptom is finding and treating the cause. That’s what Heart Rhythm Meditation does best. As you “listen” to your heartbeat, you will feel a deeper level of emotion than you can reach normally, and you will bring the power of your breath and attention to an area of your emotional body that needs exactly that in order to heal. We all have wounds in our hearts that must wait, perhaps decades, for a moment of strength sufficient for their integration. No judgment. Feelings that remain unresolved move from the unconscious to the physical in order to become conscious. Beneath every physical signal is an emotional issue, and beneath that is a spiritual revelation. No one can tell you what these are, but your heart will speak to you clearly when you develop a communication with it. The first step toward that communication is to listen to it beat. Heart Rhythm Meditation will bring the message that your heart has to give you so strongly into your awareness that your heart will no longer have to flutter to get your attention. I urge you to take up this practice immediately, to reduce the strain on your physical body from having to operate as an instrument for your emotional and mystical heart.

With love,

Puran

Entry Filed under: Heart Rate Variability, The Heart, Emotional health, Health