Shifting sands into heart sense

So much in my life recently has been about sifting through my history and understanding much more about how that history that has led to me being the person I have been and how I am aiming now to be the emotionally regulated adult more of the time. It’s good to have a goal!

Over the last 20 years, I have worked through talking therapies, mostly in the psychodynamic or person-centered fields as these have the depth and breadth of psychical understanding that has resonated with me. I spent four years training as a therapist in the nineties and then another ten years working as a person-centred coach and mentor, so I have some personal experience too.

Books on my nightstand have usually been in the field of depth psychology, or therapy. For example “The Therapeutic Relationship” by Petruska Clarkson, or the “Boundaries of the Soul: The practice of Jung’s Psychology” by June Singer.  Then I expanded the repertoire into mindfulness and the overlap with healthy mind, this led me to such books as “The Mindful Way through Depression” by Mark Williams and “Wherever You Go, There You Are” by Jon Kabat Zinn, and many many others in similar vein; books by Pema Chodron, Brene Brown, Oriah Mountain Dreamer. On it went but a great deal of this was “head-sense” for me and somehow I had yet to find the route to connect it all to “heart- sense”, that discernment that I feel connected, I am integrated mind, body and soul.

Gradually over the last four years, I have been doing the work I have described here on the blog. More and more it seems I am turning to that heart-sense, tuning in to my heart. I had already begun to understand that a healthy mind also needs a healthy body. But it is more than that; it also needs a connection to that body, a direct route to listen, to deeply listen to the small voice that has spent many years muted or indeed mute.

I began that part of the voyage of discovery about 18 months ago by going to see a massage therapist regularly to help me make connections to my body. Even to stay mentally in my body while someone is touching me can be a challenge so this was not an easy ask for me, or even at times a pleasant experience. Over the last year I have begun to relax and enjoy being massaged more – trust is such a huge part of any relationship and does take time to develop – it’s great that I can now do this.

I also began practising yoga this summer. My body was telling me it wanted to move more, and yoga is a mindful way to build stamina and body awareness. I did a few uTube videos and found a way to make up a flow that suited me and takes about half an hour. I do that about three times a week, I aim for every day but sometimes life happens!

I have moved more into the mindful presence of yoga and seen, or more accurately felt, my balance, my posture, and my energy improve. I have also been informed by my massage therapist that my muscles are more open to deeper work and so there is and will be, a greater benefit to me of the work she is doing. I hope that this opening will continue and as it does I can move more and more mindfully back into my body and unmute the small voice that it shares with me, if I listen.