Interesting questions aren't they. The first one seems easier than the second - as though we can imagine ourselves being wholehearted for moments in our life but the thought of living a wholehearted life seems much more challenging.
Understandably too. Wholeheartedness requires an open heart and an open mind.
I discuss living wholeheartedly with fellow A Course of Love facilitator, Lynn Kidd in the below video.
Of course there wasn't time to discuss everything.....here are some of the things I wished I'd had time for!
Wholeheartedness requires an open heart and an open mind. How do you feel about opening your heart?
From the position of the mind alone the world around us doesn't seem worthy of our heart. There is too much violence, too much oppression, too much corruption, too much to worry about and too much that makes us a little scared, too much........ of all the things we don't want. We only feel safe, even sensible, to open our heart to life when it includes things we want, desire and like. The result... we protectively lock our hearts away to hold safe the love held within and we give our mind the job of logically navigating us through life.
Even while we've given the mind authority, the position of the heart is a little different. The heart, when protectively closed, yearns for connection, yearns for expression of all the love it knows is possible and yearns to be seen in relationship.
What we've forgotten is that the mind and heart both want the same things, though they go about creating these things in very different ways. They both want healthy, loving relationships, kindness in day to day life, thoughtfulness, recognition of each other, creativity and authenticity. We've forgotten because we live in a world that only recognises success through status or accumulation of wealth even though we know that status and wealth aren't always synonymous with being an authentic person or a wholehearted person.
Which begs the question why do we strive towards status or wealth. Because we think we will feel more certain of ourselves and our survival with more resources.
Is it true? Perhaps if survival is only measured materially and physically. However, if survival includes matters of the heart such as fulfillment, love, creativity, compassion, hope, resilience, receptivity, presence and joy, then status and wealth don't always, actually, rarely lead to fullness of being.
We know that survival does include matters of the heart, because a person who has hope, love, kindness, and compassion, all the qualities that we'd collectively call faith, is a resilient person. Resilient people are survivors.
Just a glance at the world around us....and it's undeniable that we could do with more heart. More wholeheartedness so that the mind and heart can co-create a new future where freedom, joy, creativity, abundance, love, health, connection, kindness and happiness are experienced in daily life.
But life isn't like that yet.....so how do we open our hearts to a world consisting of all the things we don't want? It takes willingness.
Willingness usually comes one of two ways; either when the pain we feel from our heart yearning for a connection strong enough to liberate us becomes too great or when we've transcended the limits of time and space through an unexpected experience (I talk about these in the More Love Podcast). Lots of people experience one or both of these scenarios and it triggers a desire to understand why we feel as though there is more to life than meets the eye.
Willingness begins the journey to wholeheartedness. Wholeheartedness requires an open heart and an open mind. What does the mind need to be open to.....our heart - it's the internal connection that is required to bring into existence the authentic connections, with others and with life itself, that we so desire.
Opening the mind to the heart begins by introducing an understanding of the contrast between living from the mind compared to living from wholeheartedness - this gives us the opportunity to choose to bring the heart back into relationship with the mind to create that internal connection. Wholeheartedness comes when the mind and heart are in relationship and as you begin to understand what this relationship means you come to see how the mind without the heart relies on control, comparison, judgement and how fear influences everything.
After opening the mind to the heart and bringing the heart back into relationship with the mind you start to see the world around you from a position of wholeheartedness. It takes practise but it does come because it's your natural state of being. The only reason it's not familiar to you is because we live in a world that shuns our sensitivity to emotions, feelings and energy and instead measures success based on status and wealth.
Living wholeheartedly is more a set of life skills for an extraordinary life than it is a destination. As I said in the interview, life can sweep us away and break our internal connection and therefore our authentic connection to life itself. However, the discipline required or life skills required quickly become a habit we love to have. The reward of wholeheartedness is an extraordinary life, where synchronicities surprise and delight us, where miracles become possible and where comfort, certainty, creativity and confidence become part of daily life.
If only living wholeheartedly was taught at school, the world would be a different place! Creative habits would be considered normal. Transcendent experiences would be considered normal. Our health would improve, we'd become resilient people, we'd see more common qualities within one another than we would see irreconcilable differences, we'd enjoy quality relationships and the list could go on and on..... an extraordinary life doesn't fit into a single sentence or even a list!
Even though most of us find our willingness to discover how to be a wholehearted person long after we leave school I can assure you, it's still worth the journey.
With love, Helen
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TRANSCRIPT of Living in Wholeheartedness interview
Lynn 0:24 Okay, welcome everyone to our Wisdom Of The Heart video series and today I'd like to introduce our guest who is joining us from Queensland, Australia, so I want to welcome Helen Reynolds, thank you so much Helen for being here. It's, it's really an honor to have you join us from all across the globe.
Helen 0:50 Thank you, Lynn, and it's a pleasure to be here and lucky for Zoom, huh. We're creating interconnections, all, all around the planet thanks to zoom and other platforms like that.
Lynn 1:05 Well I really appreciate you taking time out today and so I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Helen and she's going to get us started. And just maybe read a couple sentences from a chapter in A Course of Love, it's the first treatise chapter five, and it's entitled The choice for Love. And so we'll go ahead and let Helen just kind of start us off and then we're just expand from there. So Helen, go ahead and kind of turn it over to you and let's see where it goes.
Helen 1:39 Let's see where it go's. Oh, that's all we can do at the moment, isn't it? I mean the world is showing us that we have to be willing to step into the unknown. And the only way we can be comfortable doing that is if we know who we truly are. And the only way to know who we truly are, is to know where our heart is. And of course we have a heart beating in our body, and but our heart is more than that, it's more than that it connects us to who we really are, it's the physical organ that that crosses the spirit physical barrier, it's the organ that, that brings us together into our wholeness. And so that's, I just love passages about the heart and. And this is a lovely one. It's the as you said it's the first treatises, the treatises on the art of thought which is just so incredibly important at the moment we're being so challenged with the way we think, with everything that's going on with COVID and it's only going to get more dramatic. We're going to be pushed more and more and more to correct our thinking and to hold strong to the art of thought. So, this is the first chapter, the, actually it's the first treatise, the fifth chapter and verse, the body. "The body, and thus the you whom you think you are, would not experience anything without the presence of the heart. The heart is the only cause of your experience here. When released from the ego thought system, the heart becomes the determiner of what you experience since you know, it is the cause. This is what is meant by the mind and the heart being joined in union, or being wholehearted. It is the real you, or center of your Self (capital S) self being joined with the only thought system that is real, the thought system of truth. How could a thought system based on anything but the truth lead to anything, but illusion."
I just think that really captures where we're needing to be right now we need to hold strong to who we really are and to do that we have to join the heart and the mind in wholeheartedness. And we have to, but we don't have to there's no have to but that's the, that's the nicest way to journey into this unknown future that the whole world is facing right now.
Lynn 4:23 Beautiful. Yeah, I love that passage and everything you were saying is really resonating so deeply. And I agree is, you know, just gone for me it's like I've, that's where I've been trying to I wouldn't say trying to but actually dropping, I would prefer maybe say dropping into that space of wholeheartedness where I really feel that I'm connected at the center of my being, where the mind and heart are actually joined or just as one it's, it's really not two separate things as you were saying, it's like the almost like the bridge, it's almost like a bridge between
Helen 5:08 the heart does bridge, and beautiful work from the HeartMath Institute has a heart has this magnificent ability to send and receive electromagnetic signals. And we, they have been able to prove that our heart signals send and receive up to three meters or is it nine feet outside of our body. That's why it's the organ that that bridges the non physical with the physical, and it's just so important to be bridging that and bringing it into unity at the moment, and it gives us the capacity to go within and go without you know as above so below as is, go as within so without. And so we're able to unify that spirit part of us are that. The other way to think of it is that we are always embraced by our heart space. So we're in the course of love, I'm not good at remembering the exact verses but it says we cannot escape. There is no escape, because we are always, always embraced by the heart space all around us all the time, we just need to open ...I kind of say it's like, open my big, bring your mind into open heartedness. Like you said we dropped down into the heart space. So we actually have to bring our mind to open our mind to receive the heart, in, in many ways, and that's what the you know that's what the course is about the first book in the, in the course is about opening the mind to receive the heart.
Lynn 6:53 Yeah, open the mind to the wisdom of the heart. Yeah, I love that and I'm familiar with the Heartmath Institute and like you said, there's actually, I think what they call it is coherence. Yeah, yeah, in general, it generates a harmonic energy field. And when you're in that space. I mean that's the, that's you're actually embodying the inner wisdom of the Self, and that radiates out to everything and everyone it touches and permeates and encompasses all of it as you were saying I just the world
Helen 7:30 Look, we're so challenge challenged in the world at the moment to hold strong to our wholeheartedness. I've been particularly challenged over the last 10 days you know I started looking into, to try and find the truth about what's going on, and it just swept me away so to anyone who's watching this video, it's way more important to stay wholehearted than it is to try and work out what's going on because regardless of what's going on, we're going to be asked, forced, pushed, to go forward into an unknown set of circumstances, the world is going through a set of circumstances that has never ever been done before. And it's therefore it's on our only way to step forward into the unknown with any kind of certainty is to bring that certainty from wholeheartedness and to know that we're always embraced always embraced and surrounded by love. You know sometimes I remind myself...I think if all this love is around me, what am I doing to it, am I telling it to, you know, because when you're in a bad mood we all are human right, we have bad moods at times and things get us down and we worry we get swept away by worrying about family members or friends or whatever. And so in those moments I kind of remind myself that I'm surrounded by love, but I'm so worried I'm essentially saying, Oh get stuffed love. I don't want you today, you know like because the worry pushes pushes contracts us become contracted and no longer able to receive we've essentially become contracted up into our heads, you know. And then, if, if we're able to, to recognize that in ourselves and open our minds back to our hearts and then open our hearts to the love that's surrounding us. Everything changes our body relaxes and expands our heart expands our perception of our options expand our perception of the goodness in other people expands, everything changes.
Lynn 9:39 Yeah, it's yeah it's beautiful it's transformational and you know it's interesting, I'm glad you brought that up because to get to this practical aspect of it as you were just saying, you know, with everything that's going on on the planet right now. You know we had a discussion about this earlier in a zoom group today. And, you know, I wanted to ask you which is because this question comes up all the time is, you know, if we're not fully sustained yet, and this place of wholeheartedness or Christ consciousness or, you know. Resting in God or whatever you want to call it. And these disturbances arise, you know, the anxiety, the worries and like you said you use that word contraction. Do you have any like practical ways that you actually use like when you feel a little bit unsettled and you want to drop back into that beautiful space of wholeheartedness like just practically speaking,
Helen 10:46 Yeah, yeah. The first is the ability to observe you've been swept away and
Lynn 10:53 beautiful
Helen 10:54 second is acceptance that you've been swept away. I mean, at that point, there is no point in beating yourself up for having been swept away. Look, we're human, we're human, we are sensitive beings that have tapped into the energy of the heart, we're all sensitive so we're going to be sensitive about what's going on around us, and we're going to feel it, and we need to be okay we need to accept that we're going to feel it. And then, depends how far I've been swept, but sometimes I literally just have to put my hands on my chest, and physically feel my heartbeat. To, you know, that sort of when I've been swept a long way away from who I truly am, and just use the physical sensation of the heartbeat to bring me back. And then, I imagine my attention. You know when when we're swept away as I said before, all our attention is in our head with worry and anxiety and confusion and fear, and I literally imagine my brain kind of draining down into the heartbeat. It's just sort of this energy move from my head into the physical heartbeat. And then, then I noticed that my shoulders begin to relax. And then I imagine that energy field that's coming out from my heart, and into the space around me, and then I have to, you know, it requires a degree of discipline, this requires discipline. And I remind myself that the love is coming back to me as well, you know it's not a one way street. I am loved, I am embraced by love as we all are. And it's that space in between us that unifies us. So, so that's sort of how I practically do it it's wider, you know, you start logically because you've been swept away the mind has gone into worry of confusion and whatever. So you have to start with the mind you have to bring the logic back in and then and then move into an energy space, whatever. So that's the thing, we're all individuals, and when, whenever more individuated than we are when we're in our heart space. So, what works for me, something similar, might work for a few people and something very different might work for many many many many other people because we are all different. And essentially it's that moving from the logic into the energetic heart space that's pure positive love energy.
Lynn 13:50 Yeah, well, the first step is like sort of like to recognize it, and then the second, second step is to accept that that's what's happening. And I love that too because that's kind of what my experiences too is actually first noticed that and then, you know, not trying to push it away once I noticed that just to accept that this is what's arising in this moment. And yet, like you said, sometimes I, I noticed like sensations in the body, and sometimes I feel like you know that's part of the human experience as well. You know I want to say something about that because we were talking about that earlier is that, you know, in some spiritual circles, there's a, there's a denigration of the body, people, you know, see, it's not, you know and and they just, you know, given a bad rap, but we grounded though in this wholehearted space. It's it's fully human and fully divine, and so the body, even though it's ultimately, you know, an absolutely not real. I feel like the body. I'm gonna ask you how you feel but I'm just saying, for me it's like a, almost like a receiver that there's, there's signals and, and things that are going on in my body. It's it's almost like an energy field and you know I can feel disturbances that are rising like my neck tightens my shoulders tighten or feel, you know, butterflies in my stomach. And I think that's kind of part of the process to get more grounded, I don't know how you feel about that I wanted to ask you because we had talked about that earlier.
Helen 15:39 Yeah that's it's absolutely. I'm pretty sure somewhere in A Course Of Love that says that every single cell in our body is designed to send and receive. So, I agree with you there are some circles that think that the body is just a void or an empty, an empty space or illusion, it's an illusion. Yeah. This thing is though we cannot have a human experience without our body. Without a body we are still an extension of source or of God of or Christ Consciousness. But we're no longer physical beings, so therefore to be a physical human being that has the ability to taste and hear and feel, and all those beautiful things that we can do when we're human. We have to have a body, it's not negotiable. The most pleasurable way to have a body is going to be embodied is to be embodied by love. And to do that, we need to be wholehearted so it's a full circle back again. But, yeah, when I think about my body. I especially when I experience pain or discomfort of any kind. I remind myself that my body is informed, so I am in a physical form and and I am informed by spirit by my true source of being. And then that's what's in charge of me, that's what's giving my body life, and therefore when I experience pain or discomfort in my body. I have either adopted a thought pattern or a set of behaviors, mostly thought patterns and an some kind of unwillingness to receive the source of who I truly am. Because there is no suffering. In, if we're a direct extension of God. We are made in God's image and likeness, if we go back to the Bible and God is Spirit. I'm sorry I don't know the exact chapters and verses are not good like that. Now I've forgotten where I what my train of thought is.....Oh yes, I remember, if, if we are informed by spirit there is pain and suffering. Because Spirit is pure positive love energy.
Lynn 18:28 Yeah, yeah I think that's to the course of love is, you know, guiding us into is that elevated self of form, and it's elevated s capital S self, the divine self so I'm seeing it as, as you were saying like the body is almost like can be a transmission device it can be communications, or actually, it's actually more like, to me, a vessel from which that, you know, being informed by Spirit, the Spirit, God love flows through this vessel and. And so, it's a representation of love, but it's not, it's not who we truly are and I think that is something that, like I said it's so many spiritual circles oh you know the body's not real, it's illusory but you know, in the relative practical world as you were saying, we're having a human experience right here. So why deny that you know it's both and, you know, it's, it's the absolute and the relative, you know it's it's formless, and the form and the bodies for me is like a representation. Or there's another phrase that I came across and of course in miracles, where it said the body is a frame of holiness and that beautiful a frame of holiness.
Helen 19:58 If I go back in my mind, you know, a few. I don't know, five years ago or 10 years ago, not a good time keeper, like I'm not a good numbers remember. But, you know I spent, I went through that phase where you, you wonder what diet should I be having, which exercise should I be doing should I be eating raw foods, whole foods meat, no meat fish no fish eggs, blah blah blah blah blah. And you know it just, it just goes you know that that, that is trying to live in the body through the mind, and it just sweeps your away. And then, and it makes life really complicated, because suddenly now you've got this you know this dietary protocol and you've got to stick to it and you're probably going to evangelize it a little bit you know tell other people they shouldn't be eating eggs or they should be eating eggs or whatever it is. And then, eventually, you let all that go, and you know that your body is informed from the heart of who you truly are. And suddenly, life becomes simple. When you can, you can eat, or you're inspired to eat, and you can enjoy nature the way you're inspired to enjoy it and suddenly you can appreciate how other people are inspired to do or not do, whatever it is they're doing. And the point I'm trying to make is this absolute simplification of suddenly all the rules start dropping away and the only rule to use that term is to be wholehearted.
Lynn 21:45 Yeah, I love that it's more simple than that. And it's it's like, I get the image of like you know, the anchoring in you know like you're anchoring in this, you know, the divine, you know, it's, it's in this moment, that's what's alive anyway it's, it's only real right here and now that's all there ever is. So, anchoring in, you know, the, the spirit it's informing everything. And this moment. And yeah, I think it's just something we just have to like you said, its a devotion. And just to give our whole minds and heart to this, because, you know, I love this line that is underneath the paragraph that you read in the same chapter of A Course of Love, where it says you must experience, and the experiences I italicize it says you must experience the reality of the new thought system are it will remain forever theoretical and that it, you know unless we have that living, breathing experience of it. It's just, it does remain there theoretical.
Helen 23:00 Yeah, I'm conscious of time because I think we could talk all day, But you know, in the way of the Marys, you know that beautiful,
Lynn 23:09 oh yeah Mirari that there is absolutely, and that,
Helen 23:15 you know, Mother Mary is, is both encouraging and instructing us to be the new based on quite the right word but to embrace the new and and that's you know that's that line about experience, experience the new and the new is that wholehearted way of being. And it's unfamiliar to us. Yeah, because we've never been that way before. Not, you know, often qualifying the things I say that, you know, some people have lived that way but as as a collective on Earth. That way in an extraordinarily long period of time so it's unfamiliar to us,
Lynn 24:10 we can trust as you say, we're always been held in love, we can trust we're being embraced by love, by god, by love. Yeah, it's this. Oh, yeah, it's all beautiful,
Helen 24:21 and the words trust and faith. Part of the English language and I say that to people sometimes that we have those words for a reason because we need them. You said something else that triggered a thought anyway it's gone so so. Yeah, the word devotion, that's what. Yeah. You know sometimes that brings up discomfort for people associated with. It has a lot of preconceived ideas around that word has baggage, let's just say as baggage. And so I think it's important for us to remember that it's certainly living wholeheartedly is a discipline but it makes life easier. It simplifies things, it gets you to the truth, faster, it holds more wisdom, and allows you to be your authentic self and to fully individuated self, you know, think about. To me that is just so obvious, I don't know why people sort of have any trouble with that because, look at the world you know it's encouraging sameness, the same education system across the world, or at least across the country. The same medical system as far as possible that's what's going on now, the same fashion trends, the same music trends, you know, where's the individuation in that. And then those who are seeking a mental kind of individuation or having to push themselves you know they're really trying to push their expression. Whereas when you come from wholeheartedness the individuation, is just natural, and suddenly you feel part of everything yet, standing, not standing apart just fully individuated. I can't think of another way to say it. Anyway, I got off on a little tangent there but Living from the heart space is easier synchronicities things. The thing that you need just comes to you. The piece of information that you need to be able to progress, whatever it is you're working on. One day I was working on my website which still needs some work actually. Anyway, I'm clicking away trying to sort something out. And I thought to myself, I actually don't know how to do this. And the idea just had me just move the mouse up here and click on that. I don't know, not to do that, and that you know that's how that's how the truth comes, it's just this little impulse. And, and, of course, it worked.
Lynn 27:23 Yeah, sorry, I got sidetracked. Yeah I was gonna say that harmonic energy field is, it's like a flow state, that's what I like to call it, it's like a flow state when you're in, when you're in that you're you're just totally open and you do receive the guidance and the intuition and what are the insights, whatever you need it because the analytical mind has is out of the way and you're open to something new. So yeah, I love that. Thank you so much how and we're running up on our time. So we're going to have to close but I just wanted to give you if he had any one, like last thought or something you wanted to share with everyone before we close
Helen 28:04 this we have a lot. We have said a lot. for anyone who, who, maybe isn't yet grounded in what we're talking about, just know that you are so much more than you know yourself to be so much more, so much more and you have so much more ability to do good here on Earth than you could ever imagine. And all it takes is a willingness to be wholehearted.
Lynn 28:34 Oh wow. Beautiful. Thank you so much, Helen, we're gonna have to close for today and maybe we can actually do it again at some point in the future. This was a lovely discussion, and I really enjoyed it so I just wanted to thank all our viewers out there and next time we'll have another guest that another topic thank you everyone. Blessings, peace and love.
Helen 28:57 Thank you for having me. Thank you for letting me share these words, and blessings, peace and love.
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