The power of your sweetheart:
Using the heart chakra to support your dreams.
by Jeannette Maw
The month we celebrate Valentine’s Day is a perfect time to focus on our own hearts and our innate ability to create life as we want it. The heart is an awesome energy center that, when consciously directed, has the potential to bring all our dreams to life! Here’s how.
Our energy structure
In the Sanskrit system of the body’s energy centers, the base, sacral, and solar plexus chakras are associated with emotion; the crown, forehead and throat chakras are associated with thought. The center of this system, the heart, is where thought and emotion combine to create heart-based feelings and beliefs. (Which makes sense since we often refer to our beliefs as something we “know in our heart.”) When it comes to deliberate creation, what we believe in our heart is the energy that dictates what unfolds in our lives.
In “The Spontaneous Healing of Belief” (2008: Hay House), Gregg Braden explains that emotion is the power source (think of it as the fuel) and thoughts are the guidance system (like the steering) that combine to direct the unfolding experiences in our lives. Braden and other manifesting experts tell us that while thoughts are important, they have little power by themselves. Without emotional fuel, these thoughts are the equivalent of empty “wishes.” In other words, to think the thought or just say the words is not powerful in and of itself. It’s when strong emotions are included and we believe the thought that things happen.
By using thought to harness and direct the power of emotions, we create feelings in the heart chakra-what we think fueled by the emotion associated with that thought.
While there are only two basic emotions-love and its opposite (hate or fear)-these two emotions combine with thoughts to create a wide variety of feelings: compassion, empathy, envy, appreciation. Make sense so far?
Our heart-based feelings are the key to what we attract in life; it’s what drives our creative efforts (whether on a conscious basis or not). By understanding how the process works, we can learn to deliberately direct our feelings in ways that allow us to achieve our greatest dreams and desires. Once we understand the power of belief -that our personal beliefs dictate what can and cannot happen in our world-and learn how to shift our beliefs purposely to support what we want to experience in life, we literally become “miracle makers.” At least, it seems like miracles at first, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll consider it quite a normal experience.
Why is it that so many people who were inspired by cursory law of attraction material like “The Secret” found disappointing results as they practiced holding new thoughts? Often it’s because although their thoughts may have shifted, their beliefs didn’t. You can say the words, but if you doubt them, the feeling of doubt overrules the words. As we see in the chakra system, it’s not the thought alone that creates our unfolding reality. It’s the belief, the combination of thoughts and emotions leading to heart-based beliefs that direct what hap-pens next in our lives. We would do well to learn to choose our beliefs purposely in accordance with whatever beliefs best support our dreams and desires.
So if belief is the “heart” of it all, and it’s not as simple as just thinking a new thought, how do we powerfully take charge of our creative abilities?
Shifting beliefs
Some experts say that since beliefs are just habits of thought, we can create new beliefs by simply repeating new thoughts. We just choose an affirmation (the thought we want to be true) and repeat it until it becomes a belief. Many people have success with this practice (I am one); others conclude it doesn’t work. A likely reason is that they didn’t commit to spending enough time with the new thought before giving up, or they chose words that didn’t “click” to create new feelings. My personal belief is that this can be an effective approach, but it does require commitment and possibly a significant investment of time. (Those who believe affirmations and mantras are not effective would of course have that experience, since that’s what they believe!)
Fortunately, there are additional methods for shifting beliefs.
Many of my coach colleagues use a technique known as Psych-K, where the brain is rewired with new neural connections in a process that takes 20 minutes or so with a trained facilitator. The process includes giving three answers to each of four different questions, then utilizing the body’s physiology to reprogram for new beliefs. Kinesiology is also involved to test and confirm the effectiveness of the work. (Katherine Moyer teaches a basic workshop on Psych-K in Salt Lake. Visit www.enhancedpotential.com for details.) My experience with this technique is that even using just the first half (giving the three answers to four questions) can make a dramatic shift in one’s feeling state. Try it yourself-give three answers to each of the following questions:
- What will I see that proves my goal is achieved?
- What will I hear that evidences my success?
- What will I say that shows I got what I wanted?
- What will I touch/feel that shows my successful results have unfolded?
Coming up with those responses takes your brain to a place it may not have been before, which creates new neural connections and is the beginning of new belief in your ability to experience what you want.
Other methods for altering your beliefs are offered by Braden in “The Spontaneous Healing of Belief.” One tool he describes is a “logic patch,” to circumvent faulty programming that keeps you stuck in a reality you don’t want. A logic patch involves the mathematical proof formula of “If, And, Then” statements. In order to rewrite our reality, according to Braden, we have to give ourselves a reason to believe something new: “We can convince our conscious minds of a new belief through the power of logic. Once the mind sees a reason to think differently about the world, it will allow the heart to embrace that possibility as a new belief-that is, to feel that it is true.”
Regardless of the approach employed to shift beliefs, what matters is that we get conscious of our heart-based vibrations that either limit or empower our success-and then make adjustments as called for. Regardless of technique, once we take charge of what we’re flowing from that center chakra, we can experience the sweet benefits of deliberate, conscious creation.
Jeannette Maw is a Law of Attraction coach and founder of Good Vibe Coaching in Salt Lake City. www.goodvibecoach.com