The Heart is Not Just Another Chakra

NOTE: This post definitely doesn’t work too well as a transcript, so I hope you watch the video.

It is worth mentioning that I am not teaching from a chakra-based model. I’m teaching from an East Asian or Chinese medicine model, in which the Heart is considered the center. It’s not just another rung on the ladder upward.

East Asian medicine is a Heart-centered model, a model of starting in the center, such that as the Heart expands, first it expands to encompass both the throat and the solar plexus as part of the Heart.

Then as it gets even bigger, it encompasses the third eye and the second chakra; and then it fully encompasses the crown and the root. 

And it’s not really just up and down. It’s more like the expansion of a sphere.

The sphere of influence of the Heart encompasses, and in its encompassment, it transforms things into their own true nature—their nature in heart, rather than in loss of Heart. 

You’ll see this all throughout Chinese medicine, where, for instance, we are not trying to get rid of fear; we are trying to bring it within the sphere of the Heart, where it becomes wisdom, a kind of deep, deep listening: “Something’s happening here; what it is ain’t exactly clear.” The more we bring Heart into it, the less it’s a useless and wasting paranoia, and more of sense of, “I can’t put my finger on it precisely yet, but I know it’s right over there… and I know how to navigate.” 

We’re not trying to get rid of anger. As it becomes Heart-infused and Heart-embraced, it becomes powerful activism. 

We’re not trying to get rid of grief. When suffused, infused, and embraced by the Heart, it becomes righteousness, and so on through the Five Elements. 

Every single organ system and every single aspect of the body is not just to be transcended; it’s to be lived into with Heart, and then it becomes what it really is. 

There are many traits and many qualities that are not particularly attractive when in loss of Heart, and all kinds of organs that frankly are a pain in the ass for self and other when off on their own tack, running amok. The Lung is complaining, “The curtains, the curtains are terrible,” and the Kidneys are groaning, “I must have power,” and the Liver is growling, “I’m gonna punch him in the face.” 

Everything inside of us is a complete pain in the ass unless it is subsumed in the Heart; unless it is subsumed, embraced, and transformed into its actual proper nature. A Lung is not really a Lung; it’s a rogue Lung. It’s a degenerate Lung; it’s a royal fanatic, a picky, picky, picky Lung unless it is embraced, subsumed, and transformed by the Heart into something that it always really was, and was meant to be. 

Your Kidneys, your Colon, even your body hair—everything only actually has the chance to be what it really is with Heart. The other chakras don’t have that mojo. 

I’m thinking about a time when I was a student participant in a group healing. We were all allowing something to come up that needed to be washed in the Heart. What I brought up were my inner preemptive strike nuclear warheads. I grew up in Manhattan, and all my Manhattan came up, going waaaay beyond just safety on the subway platform. 

I brought it to the Heart, and let the Love into it. Talk about the washing machine effect! I was shaking and sweating and finally, it changed into a deep blessing. I felt transformed into someone who could handle the presence of violence without running, and with a lot of love. The teacher walked by at that moment and said, “Yeah, now you’re a real warrior.” 

This was previously a part of me that I had been so incredibly ashamed of, and thought, “That’s bad. That’s a bad part of me.” Now I feel like I’m a badass, and a good one; a Heart-centered badass. 

That’s the transformative power of the Heart. That’s not all the other chakras. It’s just the Heart. That part of me, which was in loss of Heart and massively compensating with weaponry, took Heart and became what it really is, and really always was.

Would you like to learn more about Whole Heart Connection? Join me at an upcoming live workshop.

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