Daily Excerpt: How to Live from Your Heart (Hucknall): From Chapter 5, The Heart's True Functions

 

Excerpt from How to Live from Your Heart:

The Heart’s True Functions 

The heart chalice has many functions. Some of these were mentioned in the last chapter on the different types of energy that pass through the heart. Besides energy, the heart also contains knowledge that is part of a person’s individuality. The individuality is comprised of all the positive and negative characteristics that have been played out and accumulated through many lifetimes. If you don’t believe in past lives, you can call these accumulations part of the collective unconscious, a term coming from the research of Carl Jung, a famous psychotherapist in the last century. 

These accumulations carry aspects of the different cultures on the planet, and those aspects in turn constitute hidden qualities that can emerge during your lifetime. If your heart is functioning with the positive qualities, then you will appear to others as a warm-hearted, kind, and loving person. If your heart is functioning with the negative qualities, you will appear to others as cold, distant and uncaring. Sometimes a person will operate with both qualities. Depending on a person’s mood, he may appear loving or cold. Since everyone’s personality can contain both positive and negative characteristics, it would be helpful to identify what these are for you. 

Exercise: Think about how you feel toward certain people. Make a list of your associates, people you know, and also your family, friends and fellow workers. After you have made the list, take each name, place it in your heart center, and ask yourself how you feel about this person. If you have a warm feeling, note that next to the name. Then ask yourself: Why do I feel warmth toward this person? If you have a cold feeling, mark that next to the name. Then ask yourself: Why do I feel coldness toward this person? 

In doing this exercise, you can begin to determine how you use your heart constantly to express your inner feelings. Look at the list of those for whom you feel coldness, and taking one name at a time, ask yourself the following questions: Is it possible for me to change my feelings toward this person? If the answer is yes, ask: What is the best way to do this? If the answer is no, ask: Is there anything about this person that I can feel warm about? 

It’s possible that each person towards whom you feel coldness has an aspect in his personality that you dislike. If you can find something positive in the person, you may be able to change the feeling of dislike to neutral. The person may never be a close friend, but maybe you can begin to feel some warmth toward him because of the positive trait. It’s a good practice to do this in order to change a cold heart to one that is always functioning as a warm heart. 

Some people come into this life having a warm heart naturally. Such a person could also have developed this type of heart because he had warm-hearted parents, especially a warm-hearted mother. Such childhood conditioning helps build a positively functioning heart. 

 Exercise: Ask yourself the following questions: What kind of heart quality does my mother have? What kind of heart quality does my father have? If you have siblings, consider each one and ask what kind of heart quality the sibling has. If you have close relatives, reflect on each name and ask what kind of heart quality each one has. Try to remember your teachers in school, and considering each name, ask what kind of heart quality the teacher had. Take the names of all your close friends and ask what kind of heart quality each of them has. 

When you do this exercise, divide your responses into two sections, placing the warm-hearted people on one side and the cold-hearted ones on the other. If some of the people have a combination heart quality of warm and cold, list these separately. Sometimes a person is attracted to someone with the opposite quality. If you are warm-hearted, someone who seems cold and distant may intrigue you. That person may be an intellectual who interests you. And the opposite is true: if you are cold and distant, you may be attracted to someone who is warm and caring. You may be a bit afraid of such a person, but the warmth will draw you in. When the heart is working with warmth, it can hold qualities that are rare and difficult to obtain: for example, compassion, deeper understanding, the ability to mirror someone, helping someone remain centered, sending calming energy to someone who is feeling emotional, and also the ability to comfort and send caring feelings to someone who is having difficulties. 

 These types of heart functions make a difference in any relationship. When you truly use your heart to connect to someone, you can experience what the person is feeling, and only then can you help him. Otherwise, you are in your own feelings of what the person needs from you, and those feelings may be incorrect. 

Exercise: Try an experiment. Ask a good friend to do it with you. Sit opposite each other. Each one of you thinks of a difficult situation that you are or were in that the friend doesn’t know. Talk superficially about it, but don’t say what you really are feeling or need to say. Make it surface talk. Each of you also link with your heart and try to link to the other person’s heart. Try to understand intuitively the hidden things that are not being said, and then try to respond from your intuitive sense, in a kind and loving way. You will be surprised at some of the insights you begin to have, insights that can really be helpful. 

Every time you meet with someone, do this exercise silently inside and try to listen with your heart. The more you practice this, the less difficult it becomes. It’s a way of developing the true functions of your heart. 

This book has earned the following recognition awards:

Pinnacle Book Achievement Award
Finalist, 2016 Book of the Year Awards
Finalist, Best Books Award
Book Excellence Award

Review comments:

"...a satisfying blend of workbook, philosophical and spiritual discussion, and example-filled examples of the force of heart anergy and its power to affect and change not just individual lives, but the world." Self-Help Shelf, MidWest Book Review

"...offers wonderful insights into ourselves and others and should not be ignored." Carol Anderson, US Review of Books

"The author weaves the physical and the spiritual plane together beautifully." Mamta Madhavan, Readers' Favorite

"...brings a wonderfully warm exploration of energy-based spirituality into real-world decision-making." Jeremiah Rood, Clarion Reviews

"This book is a gem. It tells you with illuminating clarity and practical wisdom how living from your Heart is key to becoming the most authentic person you ever can be and become. From detailed instructions to effective examples and case stories you learn that your Heart is the most reliable source, not your mind, for deepening your relationships, inspiring your creati

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