The Heart Energies

“The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know.” — BLAISE PASCAL

I had been editing my book for the 4th or 5th time. As year turned into year, I lost track of the number of times I’d read through the manuscript. This current run through my book came about just as I was completing it for publication. On a whim, I sent a text to a beta reader who had offered to read the book. Would she have time to read it in the next week? She said she had time, so I sent the manuscript to her and another beta reader.

Four days later I knew something was wrong when they began sending me corrections, lots of them. I felt waves of shock ripple through me. I was stunned. My manuscript had already been through a copy and developmental edit. Something was terribly wrong. Unsure of my next steps and plagued by self-doubt about my writing skills, I struggled with what I should do next.

As it happened, a few weeks before, I’d spoken with a bookstore owner about my book and asked him for feedback on my book cover. He was thoughtful and honest. In our discussion, he’d mentioned the importance of editing and told me a story. An author asked him to remove her book from the shelves. Apparently, someone had informed her that her book required editing after its publication. The book owner knew someone who was an editor and referred her.

Maybe I could contact this same editor for help, I thought. I called her and she said she would read a little of the manuscript and give me her opinion. Her email arrived a couple of days later. She advised a book reread after taking a break, focusing on incorporating subtle improvements for reader engagement, and using a writing aid would help me catch grammar and style mistakes.

The words she wrote helped me get back on track, but the way she worded her email felt healing and uplifting. I recall thinking I wish I could write like that. As I read and reread her email, I could feel internal changes happening; the words bypassed my brain and spoke to my heart. I took her advice, and a couple of weeks later began again.

Now, at Chapter 10, I was re-editing the subchapter titled “The Heart Energies”. I finished the corrections and then clicked on the critique chapter button on my writing aid. It was positive, except for a couple of areas highlighted for improvement. One of them was to expand on the concept of heart energies. I was impatient and tired, but I thought I’d dive in, anyway.

It was a bigger area than I thought, as my mind expanded to viable concepts. Wrinkling my nose, I began researching. I struggled and lost motivation, but then I found a book which changed everything. This author corroborated what I sensed: the heart is not just a pump. It can communicate its energy and our souls play a part in it. Here’s what the author states:

Science has recently discovered three startling new possibilities regarding how we think, feel, love, heal, and find meaning in our life. This research suggests that the heart thinks, cells remember, and that both of these processes are related to an as yet mysterious, extremely powerful, but very subtle energy with properties unlike any other known force.1

Wait a nanosecond, our heart thinks? The next day, I was still editing the sub-chapter and researching when I stumbled upon this quote:

Dr. Armour, in 1991, discovered that the heart has its ‘little brain’ or ‘intrinsic cardiac nervous system.’ This ‘heart brain’ is composed of 40,000 neurons that are alike neurons in the brain, meaning that the heart has its own nervous system. In addition, the heart communicates with the brain in many methods: neurologically, biochemically, biophysically, and energetically.”2  

That statement shed new light on the supremacy of the brain’s domain. The heart probably doesn’t think the same way as the brain, but I believe we’re just beginning to fathom the power of our heart energies. Now I was getting excited as I read trauma engages the mind and body “right down to the cellular level”. 

The impact of trauma is felt at the body’s cellular level, influencing everything from immune function to hormonal balance, sleep cycles, and digestion. . . . This means that healing from trauma will engage not just the mind, but also the body, right down to the cellular level.3

In my brain, this quote linked trauma with my body’s cells. Given that my heart thinks and has its own nervous system, wouldn’t it be able to communicate with cells? I’d been thinking about the shock of finding out my book wasn’t as ready for publication as I thought it was, and I wasn’t the writer I thought I was, either. It behaved like a trauma in my body, so I wondered if my cells kept the memory of my pain, and if so, would my cells release that pain? What have I got to lose? I thought. I’ll ask my heart to send a message to my cells to remove the pain linked to those memories.

Halfway through my walk, I had to sit on a bench as waves of energy were radiating from my soul upward toward my heart. Time disappeared, but I think I sat for ten minutes. A couple walked by and looked concerned, bringing me back to the present. It seemed like my heart sent its messages to remove the emotional pain from my cells and my soul removed it from my body. Is my soul that connected to my heart and is my heart that interconnected with my body physically?

From the experience I had on my walk, I’m convinced my soul, heart, and body worked together for healing to occur. I could probably add another chapter to my book from the reading I’ve done. Right now, however, I’m grateful for three important conclusions: (1) There are more books waiting to be written and I will choose my editors more carefully. (2) My body, life, and writing improves when I write from the heart. (3) The healing I received would not have been possible without feedback from my beta readers.

1 Paul Pearsall, Ph.D., The Heart's Code: Tapping the Wisdom and Power of Our Heart Energy, (Harmony Books: 1999), p. 4.

2, 3 Alshami AM. Pain: Is It All in the Brain or the Heart? Curr Pain Headache Rep. 2019 Nov 14;23(12):88. doi: 10.1007/s11916-019-0827-4. PMID: 31728781.

 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31728781/#:~:text=Armour%2C%20in%201991%2C%20discovered%20that,;%20Heart;%20Hurt;%20Pain.