What is the connection between your heart and intuition and how can it help me find or foster a great relationship?
There is a growing body of scientific evidence that is revealing to us mysteries about the energetic heart which we are only just starting to understand more fully. Below are just 4 facts about the heart which you may not have known:
FACT 1: Because of the biochemical and neurological complexity of the heart as well as its 40, order 000 neurons, ailment Dr J. Andrew Armour came up with the term ‘Heart Brain’ in 1991. Since then, unhealthy the heart has been referred to as the ‘little brain’. The heart’s nervous system gives it an enormous sensory capacity allowing the heart to act independently of the brain.
FACT 2: The neurology of the heart contains both long and short-term cellular memory.
FACT 3: The heart sends more electrical and sensory information to the brain than the brain sends to the heart (VERY important to keep in mind as you read further).
FACT 4: Your heart emits an energetic field that is electrically 100 times more powerful than the brain and magnetically 500 times more powerful than the brain. This emission can be felt by others and detected by measuring devices several feet away from the body.
This last fact about the heart is most interesting when it comes to intuition and relationships, especially the intimate kind. You would probably agree that intuition is pretty important when it comes to ‘following your heart’ and finding true lasting love. It is however a pretty broad term that gets thrown around a lot. So let’s get a little clearer on what intuition actually is. There are generally 3 different types of intuition that are referred to in the research literature and they are: Implicit knowledge or learning, energetic sensitivity and non-local intuition.
1) Implicit knowledge (or learning)
This is the type that is probably the most researched and written about in academic circles. It refers to information or knowledge that we’ve acquired in the past that we have either forgotten, or didn’t even know that we had learnt. Kind of like the powerful remembering of information that Bradley Cooper’s character ‘Eddie’ goes through in the 2011 film ‘Limitless’. This type of intuition is very ‘brain-based’ as it constantly looks for pattern matching in the immediate environment to solve problems based on information and memories from the past. This type of intuition is linked to expert knowledge or helps explain the kind of situation where a nurse walks into the ward of a patient and just knows that the patient is about to experience a complication and then does. Insights are often also attributed to this kind of intuition.
The problem with this type of intuition is that it’s based on past experiences that have been banked and stored in the brain, mostly unconsciously. Therefore, if our past references were not correct or are incomplete, then these types of ‘brain pattern-matching’ intuitions can often be wrong. An example of this could be if you’ve just started dating a person and you unconsciously (or even consciously) begin to notice little things they are saying or doing that a nasty ex-partner used to say or do, this could lead to an ‘intuition’ that this person ‘just isn’t right for you’, simply because of the pattern matching your brain is doing. This could leave you feeling a little ‘off’ about them, when in fact that person could actually be completely different to your ex and a perfect partner. This could explain some people saying things like, ‘my intuition always gets me into trouble’. Maybe this is because it is based more on ‘brain intuition’ than heart intuition.
2) Energetic Sensitivity
This refers to our ability to sense and respond to very subtle energies, signals and information in the immediate environment such as electromagnetic signals or biofields. Kind of like the way animals and even some people, are able to sense when an earthquake is coming by feeling the changes in the earth’s magnetic field in a particular location, just like John Travolta did in the 1996 movie ‘Phenomenon’. This type of intuition explains those moments when you feel like someone’s staring at you; and sure enough you turn around and see them gazing right at you. This type of intuition has also been used to explain why we are often able to feel ‘a vibe’ when we enter a room. The research is suggesting that this is the ability to detect changes in the magnetic field emanating from the other person’s heart which can be detected up to several feet away from the person. This is explained by the abilities of our nervous system to detect information from our environment.
There is actual evidence to suggest that your heart (not your brain) is actually able to predict future emotional events!
3) Non-local Intuition
This refers to knowledge, information or the ability to sense something that cannot be explained by past or forgotten knowledge or energetic signals coming from your immediate environment. Some examples of this include people suddenly feeling that something bad has happened to a loved one that is in a completely different location, kilometers away or even on the other side of the world. Another example might be a sensing of an impending situation that you somehow knew was coming. Like being on a push bike or in your car and slowing down in a place where you usually wouldn’t only to see there was someone walking around the corner, or a dog on the road or a policeman on the other side of a small hill.
Of course all three types of intuition are useful, but the one that is most powerful to understand and develop when it comes to finding, growing and maintaining heart-centered relationships, is the type of intuition that relates to the heart. You might be asking, ‘why is heart-centered intuition so important?’ What if I told you that there is actual evidence to suggest that your heart (not your brain) is actually able to predict future emotional events?
The Heart Math Institute, with whom I have completed some of my education and training, is at at the forefront of heart-based research. One such laboratory experiment involved hundreds of test subjects. They put everyone in front of a computer monitor while they were connected to a bunch of electrodes that were collecting bio information from their brains, hearts and skin. The aim was to detect and more fully understand the flow of information through the body in response to a specific stimulus. The study required the subject to look at the screen and then press a button. After seeing a blank screen for 6 seconds, the computer would randomly select and display for 3 seconds, one of two types of images from the International Affective Picture Set, a database of images specifically designed and selected to study emotional responses. One type were emotionally negative images like car crashes, badly hurt bodies, a snake attacking the screen, a person being held at knife point etc. The other images were emotionally positive images like a rabbit, beautiful nature shots, flowers etc. On analyzing the data collected by the heart, it clearly showed that the heart somehow knew what kind of picture was going to be shown next. The data indicated that while the subject was staring at the blank screen for 6 seconds prior to the randomly selected image being shown, the heart rate variability and heart rhythm significantly varied depending on whether the upcoming image was emotionally negative or positive. Another amazing finding was the fact that when tracking the exchange of neural information between the heart and brain, it was observed that the heart was responding to the stimulus BEFORE the brain and then delivering that information to the brain and not the other way around.
So what does this all mean?
This research suggests the amazing ability of the heart to detect and sense future information, specifically emotional information. This can be extremely useful when you start dating someone, or if you want to enhance and solidify a current relationship. Maybe the heart (not brain) has the ability to forewarn you about an upcoming date, or a particular person, situation or event. If so, the million dollar question is: ‘how do I develop this intuitive connection with my heart?’ This is definitely no small order. It often takes a little coaching and always requires some daily practice to deeply connect with the heart and its intuitive intelligence. The first step to get to where you want to be is to know where you’re at, CLICK HERE for my 4-minute quiz to determine your level of intuitive heart connection.
The post The Link between Your Heart, Intuition and Relationships appeared first on Datelicious.