Your Heart is Royal and it's More than a Pump
It's also the beacon of your purpose
Dear WW readers,
It’s getting HOT here on the Gulf Coast, and although I’m looking forward to summer, the long days are exhausting. I am learning to take breaks while the sun is at its peak. It may not be a siesta, exactly, but a recharge, waiting for the second half of the day to begin.
This is the FIRE season in TCM, and I think we can all understand why. I know all my menopausal friends are laughing and thinking, “Isn’t it always FIRE season?" LOL.
The season of fire is joyful, social, and abundant. If you imagine people in ancient times, in summer, the crops grew, the animals were prolific, and the weather was warm. Tribes traveled and festivals brought communities together.
It is a time of joy and light.
For those of you following the rhythms of nature, it’s also the time to tune into your Divine connection to purpose. And if you are thinking you did that in January, it wasn’t the right time.
The Heart as Emperor
The Heart is known as the Emperor in Chinese Medicine, reigning over all the other systems. It’s the Supreme Being and Ruler, both wise and powerful. And it is the premier organ of summer, when its qi and blood hit their peak. In summer, we can nourish the Heart and strengthen its energy, but we can also waste it, exhausting the Heart with excesses.
I’m diving into vivid descriptions in the next WW webinar, The Heart, The Emperor, and hitting a few highlights here to get your juices flowing.
When I ask you to think about your heart, you probably think about:
-your emotional feeling center
and
-The organ in your chest that pumps blood.
It’s easy to imagine this particular organ AND energy center.
IF we can accept that the Heart maintains two functions (one physiological and the other esoteric or existential),
THEN we should be able to accept that all the organs are similar.
They all have physical and spiritual responsibilities.
Chinese Medicine describes the Heart on deep levels, and it’s some of my favorite TCM theory. The eloquent and rich descriptions give personality to the Heart and highlight its importance, beyond what we commonly think of.
Here’s a good visual:
You can imagine your Heart like a clear, open bowl of water. When it’s calm and still, this bowl reflects everything around it with clarity. Your thoughts, emotions, and experiences are like images reflected on the surface.
But if the bowl is muddy or disturbed—too many ripples, clutter, or storms—those reflections get distorted. In Chinese medicine, this is seen as the Heart being "closed" or "obstructed".
The Heart receives your heavenly mandate and communicates your purpose into the world.
We all have a reason for being. There is something unique in each one of us, even if we deny its existence. The Heart is the conduit from Heaven (God, Creator, The Universe, The Holy Spirit…) to our physical bodies on Earth.
Therefore, we must protect our Heart and prevent it from being overburdened. When it’s overburdened with
-too much information
-overstimulation
-excessive work
-too much social activity…
The poor Heart gets exhausted and can no longer deliver our life’s purpose into the world.
Anxiety, insomnia, depression, and hyperactivity ensue.
(As I write this, I’m in a quiet room with no music or television, looking out my window, with only the sound of the keys and the pups breathing. My work improves when my Heart is peaceful and content. Because I want these newsletters to be heartfelt and worth reading, I follow the protocols to clear the space for my thoughts and feelings to flow more easily.)
Your Heart is your Wifi- it transmits and receives through connections
My friend, Dr. Pamela, describes your Heart as your Wifi. When you block the signals, you go offline, your systems don’t run effectively, and you crash. Everyone HATES problems with the Wifi, so imagine how that’s affecting YOUR LIFE when your Heart energy is blocked.
When Heart qi and blood can’t flow, you can’t transmit or receive very well. Then we get stuck uploading and downloading,
(and that hateful little circle spins around and around)
and we feel: stressed, stuck, frustrated, tied up, blocked, going in circles…
Most of us need to reset the Wifi - unplug it, let it rest, and reboot.
Social media- in its excessive use of everything- is overstimulating and burdensome to the heart. Doom scrolling is essentially scrambling your Heart frequencies and disturbing your connection to Heaven.
Taking a digital detox does wonders and allows the heart to begin emitting its own energy again.
The Heart is responsible for clear communication, and your tongue is the sprout of the Heart.
In today’s world of slang and acronyms, IYKYK, clear communication is becoming a lost art. Good communication relies on clarity and specificity, and precision in your words allows others to understand you fully.
Expression is a gift we must use accordingly; we risk losing it if we don’t.
To express yourself well, you must clear the domain of the Heart so it can receive its messages from Heaven as well as send that intention out into the world.
Working with people all these years has allowed me to see how difficult it can be to express oneself, especially pertaining to physical sensations, feelings and emotions, or sincere wants and desires.
For instance, the inability to get a full sentence out without a bunch of “likes” and “ya knows,” is muddled Heart energy. The communication is disturbed by overstimulation, confusion, and/or a lack of confidence.
Or when people repeat “I don’t know,” it clearly illustrates their lack of clarity of THEMSELVES. If you never take the time you evaluate yourself, purpose, and desires, then you won’t know how to answer when asked.
Slowing down, breathing, and concentrating on clarity will retrain a muffled Heart to speak clearly.
Intentional connection to The Source builds confidence and clarity flows like water.
And just so you know, all issues of the tongue belong to the Heart system, too.
To sleep well, you must have clear and receptive Heart energy. AND, clear and receptive heart energy is dependent on getting good sleep.
When you lie down to sleep at night, your blood travels into the liver for storage and repair, taking your Shen, or Heart-Mind, with it. Healthy blood will tuck in and allow restful, deep sleep. If the blood, the liver, or the Heart is blocked, then the process is also blocked.
A tell-tale sign of blocked or injured Heart energy is a red tip at the point of the tongue. If you ask anyone with a red tip of the tongue about their sleep, they very likely say it’s not good, and they probably also feel anxious or agitated.
When the Heart is blocked, the blood is, too, and then it can’t retire to the Liver as it should. As always, the systems rely on each other for support, and it’s our job to keep the systems nourished and running smoothly.
So, when you’re feeling lost, unmotivated, detached, or lacking purpose, look to the Heart.
It longs for connection, and peace, and opportunities to connect with the natural world.
The Heart emits its signals when harmonized with the frequencies of the natural world. Bright lights, non-stop NEWS, and rapidly changing tiny screens mess it up, and mess you up in turn.
You need quiet, soft light, deep breaths, and a great view of the horizon to reset your Heart energy. You need belly laughs, honest conversations, and time alone to dream and wonder.
We make our world complex. Try making it simple and see how your spirit, purpose, and self-connection soar.
Join me for the webinar and let’s go even deeper.
With love,
Dr. Erin
