Speaker 1: So those choices that we make moment to moment, day
Speaker 1: to day that create the movie of our own life.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the one you feed throughout time. Great thinkers
Speaker 2: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes
Speaker 2: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 2: think ring true, and yet for many of us, our
Speaker 2: thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 2: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 2: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 2: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 2: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 2: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 2: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 2: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf.
Speaker 3: We all know that good habits are ways that we
Speaker 3: bring what we value into the world, and we each
Speaker 3: have our own list of what matters to us. Maybe
Speaker 3: you want to feel more energetic, improve your relationships, have
Speaker 3: a tidy your home, cook more instead of eating out
Speaker 3: four nights a week. Whatever habit you want to build,
Speaker 3: it's entirely possible to make it happen. But if you
Speaker 3: feel under equipped and overwhelmed to make real sustainable change.
Speaker 3: You are not alone, and that's why I've made my
Speaker 3: free masterclass open to everyone and available to watch anytime now.
Speaker 3: It's called Habits that Stick, How to be remarkably consistent
Speaker 3: no matter what goal you set. You can grab it
Speaker 3: at oneufeed dot net slash habits. Again, it's free and
Speaker 3: you can watch it whenever it works for you. Go
Speaker 3: to one you feed dot net slash habits.
Speaker 2: We hope you'll enjoy this episode from the archive. Our
Speaker 2: guest on this episode is Howard Martin, who helped found Heartmath.
Speaker 2: Heart Math was created to help individuals, organizations, and the
Speaker 2: global community incorporate the Heart's intelligence into their day to
Speaker 2: day experience of life. They do this by connecting heart
Speaker 2: and science in ways that empower people to greatly reduce stress,
Speaker 2: build resilience, and unlock their natural intuitive guidance for making
Speaker 2: better choices. During his career with heart Math, Howard has
Speaker 2: delivered programs for fortune one hundred companies, government agencies, all
Speaker 2: four branches of the US military, and many school systems.
Speaker 2: He co authored the heart Math Solution and Heart Intelligence
Speaker 2: Connecting with the intuitive Guidance.
Speaker 1: Of the Heart.
Speaker 3: Hi Howard, welcome to the show. Oh Eric, thank you
Speaker 3: very much for having me excellent. Yeah, you were recommended.
Speaker 3: I think a couple different listeners have said that they
Speaker 3: thought the Heart Math group, which you're part of, would
Speaker 3: be a good guest for the show, so put you
Speaker 3: guys on the list, and as I started looking more
Speaker 3: into it, I thought, yeah, that would be an interesting conversation.
Speaker 3: So I'm looking forward to getting into some of the
Speaker 3: things that you guys do.
Speaker 1: Let's do it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But before we get into it, let's start like
Speaker 3: we always do with the parable. There's a grandfather who's
Speaker 3: talking with his grandson and he says, in life, there
Speaker 3: are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle.
Speaker 3: One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness
Speaker 3: and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,
Speaker 3: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And
Speaker 3: the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second,
Speaker 3: and he looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather,
Speaker 3: which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed.
Speaker 3: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 3: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 3: the work that you do.
Speaker 1: That's great nice parable. Well, I think, you know, obviously
Speaker 1: the parable speaks to polarity and to division, and we
Speaker 1: see a lot of that in the world today, that's
Speaker 1: for sure. We see, you know, polarization happening everywhere. It's
Speaker 1: as pandemic of the times, I think. And at the
Speaker 1: same time, I think that you know, those type of
Speaker 1: characterizations of good and bad and right and wrong are
Speaker 1: actually you know, beginning to move out in some ways,
Speaker 1: beginning to see things a little bit differently and a
Speaker 1: bit more openly, a bit more holistically in a sense.
Speaker 1: But what I've hear in that parable is that basically
Speaker 1: there are different sides to every one of us, and
Speaker 1: some of those sides relate to more of the qualities
Speaker 1: based on heart, you know, the type of work that
Speaker 1: I do, certainly the kindness, the care of the compassion,
Speaker 1: that aspect of humankind. And then they are the parts
Speaker 1: of us that aren't so glowing, you know, where we
Speaker 1: have the jealousies and the angers and the hates and
Speaker 1: the fears and the judgments and that part of ourselves.
Speaker 1: And what the parable is saying is that the one
Speaker 1: that wins is the one we feed. So if we
Speaker 1: want to live our life, you know, in judgment, if
Speaker 1: we want to live our life in an unappreciative state,
Speaker 1: if we want to live through that lens, then we're
Speaker 1: going to create a life that looks like that. That's
Speaker 1: what's going to win, and that's what our life's going
Speaker 1: to be, and we're going to experience the life that
Speaker 1: doesn't have as much quality or fulfillment in it as
Speaker 1: we deserve and we really can have. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: if moment to moment, day to day, we make the
Speaker 1: effort to generate more of the type of inner attitudes
Speaker 1: that regenerate us, like care and compassion and kindness and
Speaker 1: appreciation and love, we're going to create a different picture
Speaker 1: of our life. We're going to create a different life
Speaker 1: that one that to me offers a heck of a
Speaker 1: lot more fulfillment. And so it becomes a matter of
Speaker 1: the choices that we make moment to moment, day to
Speaker 1: day on which way we go, and that varies for
Speaker 1: each and every one of us. I can have lots
Speaker 1: of wonderful high aspirations in my day and leave the
Speaker 1: house in the morning and a loving, caring state, and
Speaker 1: I can get an email that upsets me right in
Speaker 1: that moment. What choice am I going to make? Am
Speaker 1: I going to be angry about the email? Am I
Speaker 1: going to lash out with a response? Or am I
Speaker 1: going to be more balanced than neutral about it? Am
Speaker 1: I going to pause? Am I going to consider some things?
Speaker 1: Am I going to assess it from a different perspective?
Speaker 1: And it's those little choices that I think are represented
Speaker 1: by the term it's the one we feed. It's those
Speaker 1: choices that we make moment to moment, day to day
Speaker 1: that create the movie of our own life.
Speaker 3: So your organization is called heart Mass is it the
Speaker 3: heart Math Institute?
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Heart Math Institute is our nonprofit. It's the
Speaker 1: original organization. That nonprofit evolved into a for profit company, Heartmoth, LLC,
Speaker 1: which is the larger entity today. But heart Math is
Speaker 1: what people know in the world. They don't really separate
Speaker 1: us out as a institute or a for profit. They
Speaker 1: know heart Math and heart Math is really an institution
Speaker 1: in a sense that is a very large footprint in
Speaker 1: the world today.
Speaker 3: Well, let's talk about at the heart of heart Math
Speaker 3: pun intended. There, you guys talk about the idea of
Speaker 3: heart intelligence. So why don't we start off by having
Speaker 3: you explain what heart intelligence means.
Speaker 1: Well, a long long time ago, before there ever was
Speaker 1: a heartmath, there was an expiration of trying to be
Speaker 1: better people. Doc Childrey, Heart Math Founder, myself and many
Speaker 1: others all involved in a personal growth process that led
Speaker 1: us to looking at heart. I mean, if you look
Speaker 1: at a lot of the personal growth processes, teaching, spiritual teachings, philosophies,
Speaker 1: they all talk about heart in very different and unusual
Speaker 1: way then the way it's often characterized in modern society.
Speaker 1: We took a deep look at that to see if
Speaker 1: there was something there or not. And what we found
Speaker 1: was is that within every single one of us, there
Speaker 1: is this intelligence that canon does lift us beyond our problems,
Speaker 1: even in the midst of the chaos and confusion that
Speaker 1: we often experience. It's been talked about in all those
Speaker 1: philosophies and religious teachings for thousands of years and what
Speaker 1: is called as heart. So what we did is we
Speaker 1: began to look at heart and how we could take
Speaker 1: heart from the respected confines of spirituality, religion, philosophy and
Speaker 1: then put it into daily living where it was needed
Speaker 1: the most. That transfer of the qualities of heart in
Speaker 1: a very practical, bottom line, empirical way into how we
Speaker 1: lived our lives. And so that's where the term heartmath
Speaker 1: even came from. People have an understanding what heart means
Speaker 1: to them, and then it needs a groundedness, It needs
Speaker 1: to be taken into something that's very practical and useful.
Speaker 1: So that's where heart math came from. So we have
Speaker 1: this intelligence that we've been exploring for a long time.
Speaker 1: Now it's more important than these times, I believe eric
Speaker 1: than ever before. And we found that it's intuitive in nature.
Speaker 1: It's the type of intelligence that's super high speed that
Speaker 1: allows us to go more to direct knowingness and bypass
Speaker 1: some of the logical linear processes that we often need
Speaker 1: to use to reach understanding. It's an intelligence that really
Speaker 1: exists at the very core of who we are, a
Speaker 1: true authentic self. When we're in touch with that intelligence,
Speaker 1: that's when we have the ability to move beyond our mediocrity,
Speaker 1: to do things that surprise ourselves, to accomplish things, or
Speaker 1: to make changes in ourselves that we go, well, do
Speaker 1: we really do that? That has a lot to do
Speaker 1: with being in touch with that core of ourselves and
Speaker 1: the intelligence of the heart to me. It's also the
Speaker 1: source of self security. It's a place that we look
Speaker 1: to when we are confronted with challenges that we simply
Speaker 1: can't figure out. When there's nowhere else to go, when
Speaker 1: we can't come up with a solution to a dawning
Speaker 1: problem or challenge, or something that's very, very differenticult, we
Speaker 1: will look within one way or another, whether it's someone
Speaker 1: who prays or somebody who meditates, or simply taking a
Speaker 1: walk in the woods or driving off into the car
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night. We pull deeper inside
Speaker 1: ourselves looking for something, and when we do, we often
Speaker 1: find a sense of self security and comfort. The problem
Speaker 1: doesn't go away, but we feel something inside ourselves that
Speaker 1: gives us a sense that somehow this will work out,
Speaker 1: or that we will overcome what's in front of us.
Speaker 1: And that's the intelligence of the heart. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of the hero within within all of us. And I think, Eric,
Speaker 1: one of the things that I've learned in all these
Speaker 1: years of exploring heart is that when it comes right
Speaker 1: down to it, my heart and the intelligence of my
Speaker 1: heart is really my own best friend, and it's the
Speaker 1: most reliable guide I have to making decisions that I
Speaker 1: need to make in life, whether they be big decisions
Speaker 1: or little decisions. So that's a picture of what we
Speaker 1: call hard intelligence. It's both mental, emotional, and spiritual. It's
Speaker 1: and even physical aspect of who we are. And developing
Speaker 1: heart intelligence really is one of the initiatives of our town,
Speaker 1: one of the most important things that I believe we
Speaker 1: can do excellent.
Speaker 3: So you guys, you know, you had this intuition that
Speaker 3: the heart was important, and then you started turning to
Speaker 3: some research, and one of the areas that you spent
Speaker 3: a lot of time on research is around the area
Speaker 3: of heart rate variability. Can we talk about what that is?
Speaker 3: And strangely, we want more variability than less, which sounds counterintuitive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let me put it back at it just a
Speaker 1: little bit if I may, and say that, Yeah, we
Speaker 1: had an understanding of heart in ourselves when we started
Speaker 1: Horror Math, and we wanted to create a system that
Speaker 1: could be shared with the world, that could bring more
Speaker 1: heart in a very practical, non sentimental, non sweet, soft
Speaker 1: and fluffy way into modern life. Now, to do that,
Speaker 1: we knew we had to have a bridge between the
Speaker 1: sort of philosophical heart and the practical heart. We chose
Speaker 1: science to be that bridge. And the reason we chose
Speaker 1: science is because of how much weight it carries in
Speaker 1: our society. When something has proven scientifically, it becomes empirical,
Speaker 1: and once it becomes empirical, then the power of belief
Speaker 1: in it increases. So we began research early on when
Speaker 1: we started heartmath now twenty five years ago, and we
Speaker 1: were looking at the physical heart. We wanted to know
Speaker 1: if the physical heart was more than just a blood pump.
Speaker 1: And what we found was amazing. We found through our
Speaker 1: research and through research scattered throughout the research literature, that
Speaker 1: the heart was actually a very important and powerful information
Speaker 1: processing center in our bodies. It wasn't just slavishly pumping blood.
Speaker 1: It was sending information to the brain and throughout the
Speaker 1: rest of the body. Now, our researchers put together this
Speaker 1: story which has really changed the view of the physical
Speaker 1: heart of how we understand the physical heart not just
Speaker 1: the blood pump, but rather an information processing center. It
Speaker 1: communicates this information in four different ways through a neurological communication,
Speaker 1: a nervous system that exists within the heart itself that
Speaker 1: communicates with the brain. It communicates through something called the
Speaker 1: blood pressure wave, which is the wave of energy created
Speaker 1: by the squeezing of the heart muscle that pumps the blood,
Speaker 1: and that blood pressure wave influences all kinds of body functions,
Speaker 1: including electrical activity in the brain. We also found eric
Speaker 1: that in nineteen eighty three. This is one of these
Speaker 1: examples of who knew this was in the research literature,
Speaker 1: but who knew about it? But in nineteen eighty three
Speaker 1: the heart was actually reclassified as being part of our
Speaker 1: hormonal system because it produced a number of very important
Speaker 1: and powerful hormones. The fourth way is an energetic communication.
Speaker 1: The heart is an electrical organ. It produces by far
Speaker 1: the strongest source of bioelectricity in our bodies, so strong
Speaker 1: in fact, that it creates an electromagnetic field that surrounds
Speaker 1: each and every one of us in three hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty degrees. And that electromagnetic field produced by the heart
Speaker 1: can be measured outside the skin, and it actually stends
Speaker 1: beyond our skin about three to four feed out into space.
Speaker 1: The frequency in that field are constantly changing, and they're
Speaker 1: changing because of what we are feeling emotionally. If we're
Speaker 1: feeling angry, it produces a very incoherent field. If we're
Speaker 1: feeling loving, it produces a very coherent field, so we're literally,
Speaker 1: in a sense, broadcasting our emotions through this electromagnetic field.
Speaker 1: Now that's a backdrop to your question about heart rate variability.
Speaker 1: We needed a way to measure the quality of this
Speaker 1: heart brain body communication. We call heart rate variability analysis.
Speaker 1: And here's what that is. It's not just a measurement
Speaker 1: of heart rate like say a fitness monitor. It's really
Speaker 1: measuring the timing that takes place between heart beats. You know,
Speaker 1: the heart builds up and then it pumps, and then
Speaker 1: it reloads again, and then it pumps and then reloads
Speaker 1: again and pumps. Well, the timing between one pump and
Speaker 1: another pump could be something like point three two six,
Speaker 1: seconds between the next two could be something late point five,
Speaker 1: four to eight, So it's varying all the time. So
Speaker 1: heart rate variability ends up being a great measurement of
Speaker 1: the quality of heart brain body communication. It's also a
Speaker 1: very important measurement of the autonomic nervous system, and it's
Speaker 1: also used to measure things like cardiovascular health and aging.
Speaker 1: So we do want a light of variability. When we're
Speaker 1: first born, we have the most variability we ever have.
Speaker 1: In other words, we want the heart to have a
Speaker 1: wide range of speeds that can operate in We want
Speaker 1: it to have an sense of flexibility. We actually begin
Speaker 1: to lose variability the older that we get. We don't
Speaker 1: have as much when we're older as we do when
Speaker 1: we're younger. So we look at heart rate variability and
Speaker 1: we can analyze heart rate variability patterns and we can
Speaker 1: see clearly the quality of this heart brain body communication.
Speaker 1: So it's an amazing science and it's given us a
Speaker 1: window of view into so many things, including our emotional states.
Speaker 1: It's really cool.
Speaker 3: You guys talk about within the heart rate variability, but
Speaker 3: in general, this idea of coherence. Walk me through coherence, okay.
Speaker 1: Coherence is a highly ordered state, both psychologically and physiologically.
Speaker 1: It is a high performance state. It is not a
Speaker 1: sleepy time state. It's a very aware, engaged state. We
Speaker 1: arrive at coherence in a variety of ways. We can
Speaker 1: be petting our dog and enjoying the love from the dog,
Speaker 1: and be more coherent being with their child, being with
Speaker 1: their grandchild, doing something we love to do, being in nature,
Speaker 1: or when we do meditative practicing. Physiologically, all the major's
Speaker 1: body systems begin to synchronize to the rhythmic beating pattern
Speaker 1: of the heart. Those systems would be things like brain function, digestion, respiration,
Speaker 1: immune system response, hormonal response. All those systems sink up,
Speaker 1: and when that happens, we end up in a very healthy,
Speaker 1: high performance state. Now this is useful. I'll give you
Speaker 1: one example. One of the areas in which we've done
Speaker 1: a lot of training is athletics. We've trained professional golfers,
Speaker 1: Olympic gymnasts, swimmers, lots of different people, NFL kickers, baseball players,
Speaker 1: basketball players, all training coherence. Now why would they want
Speaker 1: to be in trained in something related to heart, Well,
Speaker 1: it's because in that physiological state of high coherence, things
Speaker 1: like reaction speed times improve, visual field improves. The athlete
Speaker 1: is operating at a more efficient level. And that's your
Speaker 1: physiological explanation of high coherence. The psychological one is this
Speaker 1: coherence is triggered by feeling a sustained positive emotion. When
Speaker 1: we're feeling that love we feel when we're there a
Speaker 1: child or a grandkid. That engender's coherence. When we're showing
Speaker 1: appreciation rather than frustration, we're going to be more coherent.
Speaker 1: Once we're in that coherent state, Once we have it triggered.
Speaker 1: Then what's really happening is that those type of emotions
Speaker 1: become more readily available, they begin to flow more so
Speaker 1: we end up feeling better at an emotional level. So
Speaker 1: coherence is both a highly efficient and effective physiological state
Speaker 1: triggered by and accompanied by a very healthy, productive, and
Speaker 1: positive emotional state.
Speaker 3: So is it a chicken or egg or both? You know,
Speaker 3: do you have positive emotions which puts you into coherence
Speaker 3: or do you go into coherence which produces positive emotions.
Speaker 1: That's a really great question, Eric, a hard one to answer.
Speaker 1: It all happens pretty quick, doesn't it, you know, certainly,
Speaker 1: you know, when we're measuring coherence, it requires the individual
Speaker 1: to make an effort to activate a positive emotion. And
Speaker 1: sometimes there'll be suggestions like just feel appreciation for the
Speaker 1: good things in your life, or can you feel the
Speaker 1: care and love you have for someone or something in
Speaker 1: your life. So there's a there's a self initiated effort made,
Speaker 1: and then once it's triggered. You know, that's the chicken
Speaker 1: and the egg thing, you know, And it's true of
Speaker 1: all emotions. Really, we have emotional choices, We can choose emotions.
Speaker 1: Yet we also are triggered by life's events, and we
Speaker 1: feel emotions as we are triggered. So it's a back
Speaker 1: and forth process. The best way to deal with it. It
Speaker 1: is recognized that whether it's chicken or egg, that we
Speaker 1: can create more coherence in our lives by actively activating
Speaker 1: more heart related emotions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm distracted by chicken and egg. I saw a
Speaker 3: completely inappropriate cartoon the other day that I seem to
Speaker 3: be unable to not say. And it's got a chicken
Speaker 3: laye in bed and on the edge of the bed,
Speaker 3: sitting there looking very despairing is the egg? And the
Speaker 3: chicken says, well, it only took me about twenty five
Speaker 3: seconds to answer that question. Oh my god, I know inappropriate.
Speaker 3: I couldn't help it, though. It's a funny one. So
Speaker 3: when you talk about coherence and heart rate variability, you're
Speaker 3: actually measuring this. We're not where you have tools that
Speaker 3: you use to measure how our heart rate variability looks,
Speaker 3: how much in this coherence state we are correct?
Speaker 1: Yeah, we took it even further than that we have.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's research equipment and things that we use
Speaker 1: for research studies, but we took that same technology down
Speaker 1: to something that anybody can use. We turn it into
Speaker 1: consumer related product. Yep. We have the Interbalance Trainer, which
Speaker 1: is an app that it runs on iOS devices. You
Speaker 1: download it from the Apple Store for free. Then you
Speaker 1: buy a sensor either from US or off of Amazon
Speaker 1: for the Interbalanced Trainer, and you plug it into your
Speaker 1: iPhone or your ip ad, and now you've got the
Speaker 1: ability to look at your heart rate variability. On the app,
Speaker 1: you can measure it for the degree of coherence, and
Speaker 1: it teaches you how to increase your coherence. So the
Speaker 1: app is a training tool that allows a person to
Speaker 1: learn how to increase their level of coherence. Now we
Speaker 1: have that version, We have a desktop version for people
Speaker 1: that want to use it on their computers. We have
Speaker 1: a handheld device called m Wave two that people use
Speaker 1: that don't have iOS devices. And there have been hundreds
Speaker 1: and hundreds of thousands of these souls all around the world.
Speaker 1: They're being used everywhere, and they're being used because people
Speaker 1: want help with things. They want to learn how to
Speaker 1: better manage their emotions, they want to sleep better, they
Speaker 1: want to perform better, they want to have better relationships.
Speaker 1: Heart rate variability learning to increase your coherence learning to
Speaker 1: use technology like this can benefit you in all of
Speaker 1: those ways in more and so they're used in everything
Speaker 1: from academic institutions to business people, to ordinary folks on
Speaker 1: trying to get a handle on life, to people involved
Speaker 1: in spiritual proceeds. There's a lot of applications for it.
Speaker 1: So I think it's one of the coolest things we
Speaker 1: did is we were able to take something that was
Speaker 1: looked at the only scientific terms and turn it into
Speaker 1: something that we can all use, and turn technology into
Speaker 1: something that doesn't take away anything from us, that actually
Speaker 1: helps us and improves us as human beings.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very interesting those tools. I haven't had a
Speaker 3: chance to use them yet, but I'm definitely interested. So
Speaker 3: let's talk about how we move ourselves to coherence, because
Speaker 3: that's a big part of what you guys do. You've
Speaker 3: certainly done this research. You're explaining the importance of the heart,
Speaker 3: the way these things work. You've given tools to measure
Speaker 3: and monitor it. But what are some techniques that we
Speaker 3: could talk about here that people can use to move
Speaker 3: themselves towards coherence or to get better heart rate variability?
Speaker 1: Now, I'm glad you asked that question because sometimes people
Speaker 1: sort of stop at the heart mass science and technology,
Speaker 1: and that's only a small part of what we do.
Speaker 1: As I mentioned earlier in our conversation, we were trying
Speaker 1: to create a system that people could use anywhere in life,
Speaker 1: in all societal segments to help add more heart to
Speaker 1: everything that they do. So to support that, we developed
Speaker 1: tools and techniques. You find them in our training programs
Speaker 1: in our books. As you know, I think you've read
Speaker 1: both the books that I've co authored and their tools
Speaker 1: and techniques in those books, things like quick coherence, a
Speaker 1: very simple three step process that people can use any time,
Speaker 1: anywhere to sort of reboot their system and reconnect with
Speaker 1: their hearts intelligence. We have a technique called the freeze
Speaker 1: frame technique, very powerful technique for accessing more intuition use
Speaker 1: for making decisions clarity about anything we need to gain
Speaker 1: more understanding about from an intuitive perspective. We have communication tools,
Speaker 1: We have project planning tools like heart mapping, heart hologramming.
Speaker 1: All these are a skill set that people can learn
Speaker 1: through basically heart math courses that allow them to really
Speaker 1: cultivate their hearts intelligence and then apply it in different
Speaker 1: aspects of their life. That's why we have different tools
Speaker 1: for different applications, so they can be used in different ways.
Speaker 1: You can add heart to everything that you do.
Speaker 3: So can you walk us through one of those techniques,
Speaker 3: like maybe the heart lock or the freeze frame about
Speaker 3: how people do that, so we give listeners something they
Speaker 3: can do now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd be glad to I didn't know that was
Speaker 1: appropriate to what we want to do on our conversation today,
Speaker 1: but I'd be happy to do that. Excellent. The best
Speaker 1: one to do on a program like this is to
Speaker 1: use the quick coherence technique. Okay. It's a technique that
Speaker 1: is a high utility value, meaning you can do it anytime, anywhere,
Speaker 1: and it's going to put you in touch with your
Speaker 1: heart's intelligence. It's going to improve your heart rate variability,
Speaker 1: and it's going to create more coherence in your system.
Speaker 1: So it's great for like rebooting your system, especially after
Speaker 1: you feel stressed. It's great for giving yourself a boost
Speaker 1: of energy when you feel a little bit tired, a
Speaker 1: little bit you know down. To be honest with you,
Speaker 1: it's a little late for me right now, and I
Speaker 1: did that technique before we started our show. It just
Speaker 1: sort of just get back to a certain solid place
Speaker 1: in myself. Before you know, went public here, so let
Speaker 1: me take everybody through it. It's a simple three step process.
Speaker 1: You can do the technique with your eyes open or
Speaker 1: your eyes closed, so either way's fine. But the first
Speaker 1: step is called heart focus, and I like everyone right
Speaker 1: now to focus your tension right in the area in
Speaker 1: the center of your chest, the area of your heart.
Speaker 1: Just feel your tension go right there. If you want to,
Speaker 1: you can put your hand there, but just feel the
Speaker 1: energy coming from up in the head, up in the
Speaker 1: brain of the mind. Feel it like taking an elevator,
Speaker 1: maybe like down into the area of the heart in
Speaker 1: the center of your chest. A step two, it's called
Speaker 1: heart focus breathing. I'd like you to breathe naturally and normally,
Speaker 1: but go ahead and breathe deeper than you normally would,
Speaker 1: nice deep breaths. And as you breathe, I want you
Speaker 1: to imagine that your breath is flowing in and out
Speaker 1: right through the area of the heart, the center of
Speaker 1: your chest, right where you have your attention deep breaths.
Speaker 1: Imagine your breath is going in and out through the
Speaker 1: center of your chest. What's happening right now in your
Speaker 1: body is your autonomic nervous system is synchronizing, hormones are
Speaker 1: being released into your body that are regenerated to you,
Speaker 1: and signals are beginning to change between heart and brain
Speaker 1: and the rest of the body. But now let's take
Speaker 1: it to the third and most important step. It's called
Speaker 1: heart feeling. Continue with your heart focused breathing, and now
Speaker 1: I like you to feel a positive heart related emotion.
Speaker 1: Make it a gentle process. Don't force anything easy does it.
Speaker 1: General process, Maybe appreciate something, Appreciate some of the good
Speaker 1: things that are taking place in your life right now
Speaker 1: or again, maybe feel the care and love you have
Speaker 1: for someone. Could be a person, your spouse, significant other, child,
Speaker 1: a grandchild, great friend, mentor could be your pet, your
Speaker 1: dog or your cat, someone or something that you love
Speaker 1: and appreciate and care for. And just feel that feeling
Speaker 1: as you do your hard focused breathing. As you're doing
Speaker 1: this step, heart brain communication is improving dramatically, Signals going
Speaker 1: from the heart back to the brain or opening up
Speaker 1: higher perceptual centers in your brain. Hormones that regenerate you,
Speaker 1: like oxytocin DHA or being released into your body. This
Speaker 1: is healthy for your nervous system and for your physical
Speaker 1: heart it's adding regeneration to your system, and it's patterning
Speaker 1: you in a way to allow you to feel positive
Speaker 1: emotions more easily in the future. So the three steps
Speaker 1: to do this are simply heart focus, heart focus, breathing,
Speaker 1: and then activating a heart feeling, and there you have
Speaker 1: quick coherence, a technique you can do easily anytime, anywhere,
Speaker 1: in between meetings, driving in your car, before an important
Speaker 1: phone call. High utility value for a technique like this
Speaker 1: with big benefit.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it takes a while to learn a technique like
Speaker 3: this and to have it start to generate the results
Speaker 3: you want. You guys actually say in the book, sometimes
Speaker 3: we give up too quickly on the things that would
Speaker 3: benefit us the most.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we have to take a very practical
Speaker 1: approach to this. There are no quick fixes these days.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think there are faster fixes, but they're
Speaker 1: no just ones that are instantaneous. And I think you know,
Speaker 1: especially in the when you're help trying to help people
Speaker 1: improve themselves, you have to be realistic and practical bad things.
Speaker 1: If you make too many promises, then there's disappointment. People
Speaker 1: do give up too quickly on things. You have to
Speaker 1: give give anything you try whether it's heart, math or
Speaker 1: something else, a little time for it to mature. It
Speaker 1: takes at least, you know, three weeks of practicing something
Speaker 1: is to create behavior change. That's something that resoarchers have
Speaker 1: looked at. But you can create new baselines in yourself
Speaker 1: easier than you might think. It just takes being genuine
Speaker 1: about doing it. It takes you know, being real about
Speaker 1: it. It takes putting heart into it. To put it in
Speaker 1: my terms, it takes adding heart to what you're trying
Speaker 1: to do and trying to accomplish. But if you give
Speaker 1: it a little time, and you exercise some patience, and
Speaker 1: you stay consistent with your practice, and you're going to
Speaker 1: see a result. But I love the fact that I
Speaker 1: think probably you're quoting some of Doc Shoulday's work in
Speaker 1: our books. The doc always puts it in that context.
Speaker 1: He never wants to over promising. Every wants it to
Speaker 1: sound like it's just a big, quick fixed thing that
Speaker 1: you do this little technique and suddenly all your problems
Speaker 1: go away. It's really about learning to be more maturely
Speaker 1: self managed as we play the game of life.
Speaker 3: I couldn't agree more. I mean, I think that's a
Speaker 3: big part of what the show is about and talks
Speaker 3: about is that you know there are no no magic bullets.
Speaker 3: Dramatic change is possible, but it takes effort and it
Speaker 3: takes time. So one of the things I'd like to
Speaker 3: turn towards now is you guys talk a lot about
Speaker 3: following your heart, paying attention to what your heart says,
Speaker 3: and there's a lot of quotes in popular culture around
Speaker 3: the same thing. But I thought you guys said something
Speaker 3: was really useful and important, and I'd like you to
Speaker 3: elaborate on it a little bit more. It can be
Speaker 3: challenging to distinguish the guidance of our heart from the
Speaker 3: mental and emotional beliefs that often shape our thoughts. You
Speaker 3: may have found, as I did years ago, that following
Speaker 3: what you thought was your heart got you into trouble.
Speaker 3: So how do we start to tell that difference, because
Speaker 3: that one is certainly challenging.
Speaker 1: Well, the first thing is is to understand it's going
Speaker 1: to be a feeling more than it's going to be thoughts.
Speaker 1: It's a sensing that you have inside. In order to
Speaker 1: look and find with the signals. To notice those signals,
Speaker 1: it requires slowing down sort of the vibratory rate of
Speaker 1: the mind and emotions a little bit. It's the little
Speaker 1: pauses that we make, blowing things down just a little.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean just going into some passive totally lay
Speaker 1: down on the ground kind of state, but it's slowing
Speaker 1: down inside. It's finding a state of ease inside yourself,
Speaker 1: a feeling of the ease and flow inside. And as
Speaker 1: you do that, you can do it while you're active,
Speaker 1: but as you do that, you begin to pick up
Speaker 1: different signals, and there are more feelings than they are thoughts.
Speaker 1: You feel like you should be doing this, or you
Speaker 1: feel like you shouldn't be doing that. You get these
Speaker 1: sensings and you begin to experiment a little bit with it.
Speaker 1: And I know that. You know a lot of people
Speaker 1: think they follow their heart and then got them into
Speaker 1: trouble and got them hurt and all that. Well, to me,
Speaker 1: they followed a part of their heart. They followed the
Speaker 1: one that still had all the attachments to outcome, still
Speaker 1: had all the expectations associated with it. They put their
Speaker 1: heart into that with a bunch of expectations, and the
Speaker 1: expectations weren't met, and suddenly they were disappointed, and they
Speaker 1: blame it on heart. But deeper down inside, at that
Speaker 1: true heart, the deeper heard intelligence. There's a guidance system
Speaker 1: that doesn't have as much attachment to outcome. It doesn't
Speaker 1: have as much of that over emotional investment in things.
Speaker 1: It has a more discerning quality to it. Again, it's
Speaker 1: more mature, and that discerning quality never lets you down.
Speaker 1: It never leads you astray. It may take you to
Speaker 1: places that you don't like at the time, but as
Speaker 1: you continue to follow that, you'll find that over time
Speaker 1: things work out better than you could possibly have imagined.
Speaker 1: If I may, can I share a little story about that, Eric, Sure, absolutely, Okay,
Speaker 1: So I'll make it as brief as I can. Early
Speaker 1: in my life I had a completely different career role.
Speaker 1: I was a rock musician. I was a drummer. I
Speaker 1: started when I was nine years old. By the time
Speaker 1: I was in my early twenties, I was playing with
Speaker 1: people who had records out. It's all I ever thought
Speaker 1: I wanted to do. My entire identity was wrapped up
Speaker 1: in it. I also had an interest in my personal growth,
Speaker 1: and over a period of many years, as my awareness
Speaker 1: began to increase, I began to have less I guess
Speaker 1: you could call it attachment to or less joy coming
Speaker 1: from that world of being in the music business. Yet
Speaker 1: I was so attached to it it was hard to
Speaker 1: get out of it. You just couldn't walk away from that.
Speaker 1: You're all, my identity was involved in it. Everything was there.
Speaker 1: I had never done anything else with my life other
Speaker 1: than that, really, so it's hard to walk away. But
Speaker 1: my heart kept speaking, and I kept ignoring it, but
Speaker 1: it kept speaking. It finally led me to a place
Speaker 1: where there was a major decision I had to make
Speaker 1: to go one way or another with my life and
Speaker 1: my career and my music career. And I made a
Speaker 1: choice to leave music, and I had no other options.
Speaker 1: I jumped off the cliff. I just knew that now
Speaker 1: I had to do something different with my life. I
Speaker 1: did it, and about a month after I did it,
Speaker 1: I was broke. I was living in a mobile home
Speaker 1: in eastern North Carolina with no job, and the job
Speaker 1: that I finally got was working for minimum wage in
Speaker 1: a mall. And at that time of my life, I
Speaker 1: was saying to myself, I will never follow my heart
Speaker 1: again as long as I live for the rest of
Speaker 1: my life. There amazing how do you go from that
Speaker 1: to this period of a couple of months.
Speaker 3: You know. There you go.
Speaker 1: From those two worlds, I will never do this again. Today,
Speaker 1: I when I look back at that, I go, wow,
Speaker 1: that was a super good choice and intelligent choice for me,
Speaker 1: because look at what I have today. I'll always love music,
Speaker 1: but I don't think it would have ever fulfilled me
Speaker 1: the way that what I do today has. Today, I'm
Speaker 1: a part of an organization that's amazing. I have the
Speaker 1: ability to be an author, to be a speaker, to
Speaker 1: be a contributor to this. My life feels aligned with
Speaker 1: my mission. I feel like I'm helping people, so fulfilled
Speaker 1: that I'm doing something good in the world, and all
Speaker 1: of that adds up to a very fulfilling and and
Speaker 1: rich life. I don't know that I would have had
Speaker 1: that had I stayed in music. I seriously doubt that
Speaker 1: I would. But sometimes you have to take those chances.
Speaker 1: You have to follow what you really believe your heart saying.
Speaker 1: You have to try it and go for it. And
Speaker 1: if it doesn't rewards you right away, please don't turn around.
Speaker 1: Look at the heart as the bad guy in this
Speaker 1: the one that led you astray. Give it time, let
Speaker 1: it play out over time. That's my story. And that's
Speaker 1: what I've learned. You know, one of the many things
Speaker 1: I've learned about horrd intelligence all these years is that
Speaker 1: you have to give it time and let it play out.
Speaker 1: But I've never seen my heart let me down in
Speaker 1: any decision I've ever made that really came from that
Speaker 1: deeper place with inside myself. Excellent.
Speaker 3: That's a great story, and I think that is a
Speaker 3: great point for us to go ahead and wrap up
Speaker 3: the interview. Thank you so much, Howard for coming on
Speaker 3: the show. I really enjoyed our conversation and I enjoyed
Speaker 3: learning more about heart math.
Speaker 1: Eric. Thank you very much for having me, and thanks
Speaker 1: everyone for taking your time and to listen to this
Speaker 1: and I hope you've benefited in some way from it. Excellent.
Speaker 3: Take care, Bye, Okay bye.
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