How to Better Understand What Is in Your Heart

Did you know you have more than one heart?

How is your heart? I hope it is healthy. As a survivor of four widowmaker heart attacks in one day, I hope you do whatever is necessary to maintain your heart health.

What about your other heart? The one that is central to your emotions and will. The very core of who you are. How in tune are you with this innermost part of your being?

Do you give it much thought? Most do not. Neglecting this heart can create huge problems at work, at home, in your health, and in many other areas of life.

Your Two Hearts

You can eat right, workout, take supplements, have regular checkups, and do everything necessary to maintain a healthy physical heart. What can you do to take care of your other heart? The one that includes your emotions?

Volumes of studies exist showing the connection between emotional health and the health of the physical heart. In a nutshell, a healthy mental and emotional state provides tremendous benefits to your physical heart and overall health.

Let’s do a little “heart” checkup. Three things easy to identify in your innermost being are the way you think either positively or negatively, the amount of anxiety you carry, and your state of cheerfulness or depression. It only makes sense that these influence your physical health. Beyond your health, they affect your state of being and your quality of life. What is the state of each in your life?

Let’s look at one aspect of the heart you can go to work on that will affect almost everything else — emotions.

According to the Oxford Dictionary, two definitions of emotions include:

· a natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one’s circumstances, mood, or relationships with others.

· instinctive or intuitive feeling as distinguished from reasoning or knowledge.

Emotional Intelligence

There has been a great deal of research for decades on how emotions influence our lives. One field you may be familiar with is emotional intelligence. While this is not meant to be an exhaustive article on emotional intelligence, I hope to pique your interest to investigate it further.

As defined by the Lynn Leadership Group, under which I was certified as a trainer, emotional intelligence consists primarily of five areas:

· self-awareness and self-control

· empathy

· social expertness

· personal influence

· mastery of purpose and vision

Simply put, a large part of emotional intelligence is increasing self-awareness while being able to better control yourself, as well as how you interact with others.

Yet, despite all the knowledge and information available on the subject, most people remain unaware of how their emotions influence every part of their lives, how they affect the lives of others, and how they affect their health.

Becoming aware that emotions impact your life is one thing, but what do you do with that knowledge? First off, I suggest you read up on emotional intelligence. Vast resources are available online, and many companies and coaches specialize in it.

Making it Practical

For now, what you can do is begin working on identifying your emotions and what triggers them when your behavior goes awry. This is the first area of self-awareness and self-control. Apply this not only to yourself but in your relationship with others, and you will take the first step toward understanding and overcoming yourself, as well as improving your relationships.

A simple example is to find something or someone that makes you worry. When worry becomes excessive it leads to anxiety. Anxiety not only stresses the heart of your inner being but also stresses your cardiovascular system.

It is easy to monitor the physical effects if you wear one of the new pieces of technology in the form of a watch which monitors your heart rate, stress level, and/or blood pressure. With such a device you can see the effect real-time.

The first step is to find what it is that triggers you. What is happening when you start worrying? Let’s say it is a person’s voice for example. Every time you hear this person speak it makes you anxious. While you can work on why the voice triggers you, the most important thing at this point is to notice what it is that is triggering you.

When you identify the trigger, in this instance the sound of their voice, you have taken the first step of becoming self-aware. Once you become aware you can begin to work on controlling your emotions. As you work on your emotions pay attention to what is happening with that person and other people around you. This will raise your awareness of others, another critical part of emotional intelligence.

In this example, you can see that by noticing the trigger, you can go to work on it, begin working on controlling your emotions, reducing your level of stress, and the effect you have on others. This can lead you to behavioral change, which is what good coaching is all about. You can do this on your own, but I always find it better to work with someone to obtain quicker and lasting results.

Conclusion

While the example I provided is somewhat simplistic, I hope you begin to see the value in gaining a better understanding of your emotions.

To become more emotionally intelligent can greatly enhance your life and the life of those around you. It is a well-known fact that it can propel you to the top of your profession too. And that is saying nothing of the health benefits to your physical heart and health.

I leave you with this beautiful quote from Hellen Keller, which I hope resonates as strongly with you as it does with me.

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.” ― Helen Keller

I challenge you to take some time to study the subject of emotional intelligence. Read some of the many books about emotional intelligence or check out the voluminous resources available online and on YouTube.

The time you invest in learning about emotional intelligence will change both your physical and your metaphysical hearts and can put your entire life on a new course!

Bill Abbate Leadership Writer and Editor in ILLUMINATION.

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