(Un)learning The Heart Way ??

Friday practice #2 – Week 3/2024

This is #2 of my newly started practice of sharing and (un)learning, publicly.

Today’s reflections and shoutouts are meandering, like the stream and ever-changing nature of rivers, or blood vessels branching from the heart. This week has been tender so far, heartfelt. Serendipity x listening to what’s been emerging x having genuine conversations x observing my patterns x feeling the pain of facing wounds and fears x as well as following my subconscious and/or the algorithms to re-discover projects, podcasts, screenshots, songs, talks, and articles revolving around … matters of the heart ??. Showing once again, that ‘what is most personal is most universal’ as psychologist Carl Rogers said.

Now, I’m writing these lines sitting in Porto. After a grey rainy arrival, the sun is shining. I hear seagulls and the peaceful cacophony of a city in flow: street music, laughter, voices, clinging glasses, construction sounds, cars, cats, birds, life –?I love to be immersed in the sound of calm vitality. My mother and sister are visiting. They are visiting me in my newly chosen home, Portugal. We’re convening as mother, daughters, sisters, women, nurtures, and humans in re-connection, to spend our father's first birthday after his sudden death last May together. (We don't know, but it might have been his heart). I’ve been nervous, scared, and unsure about what kind of emotional waves and relationship dynamics to expect … with mixed feelings, afraid of opening up emotional scars and feeling the pain. So far, it’s peaceful. lively. I am grateful for the light moments we can share.

Expressing my fears (and tears) with friends before helped me to ground. Acknowledging not being ok and my emotionality, my vulnerability, ouch. A good practice in transforming fear into fuel and choosing to show up differently: choosing to be loving, to reach out, to lean in, and to leap forward. And to open up, supporting each other to embrace vulnerability as a strength, not a weakness. In my female lineage and family, we’ve learned to function well, to push through and harden up, to suppress emotions, and prove our worth through productivity and being perfect, feeling shame for being ourselves or making mistakes (for being human) – so quite some heavy lifting and many programs, beliefs, and patterns here to (un)learn and alchemize: Decades of accumulated trauma and wounds that linger underneath the complex grief and (bureaucratic, financial, emotional ...) stress that needs to be navigated after the loss of a parent. The way is through, so we can learn to dance with life and show up – when we can't control the outcome – in an authentic and regenerative way. In a powerful way that is being present “with a strong back, and open heart” –?a metaphor that burned itself in my mind and heart after reading Elizabeth Lesser ’s book CASSANDRA SPEAKS: When Women are Storytellers, the Human Story Changes. She explores how we can, together, transcend our own and societal narratives asking questions such as:

“What would it be like for humanity today if women had contributed to the theories and stories about what it meant to be a powerful person?” – Elizabeth Lesser

Love. Courage. Vulnerability. Heartfelt. Light-hearted. Heavy-hearted. Wholehearted. These are words that I’m more and more receiving and writing in messages on LinkedIn, in Emails, and via newsletters – this week eg. with Patricia Munro MA Máximo Plo Seco or Willow Berzin –?typically work-related platforms and channels where the head is traditionally used to “override” or “rule” the heart. I’m both puzzled and moved by this. By everyone who chooses to move beyond despair, fear, and separation towards re-connection. Committed to the journey that leads from the head to the heart.

Taking the “heart way” …

It’s hard.

It’s terrifying. {I feel it}

It’s liberating. {I feel it, too}

It’s worth it. {I hope so}

A friend recently asked me what my intentions are for 2024: This year I felt it very clearly –?courage, compassion, and creativity. (I drank the alliterations cool aid, just like my former mentor and inspiring creative leader Franz Blach ). Let’s start with the first C: Do you know the origin of the word courage?

cor = the Latin word for heart

c?ur

cora??o

corazón

courage

Brené Brown, a huge inspiration and brilliant researcher, storyteller, author, and public speaker on the themes of courage, shame, vulnerability, and worthiness (and how they are all interrelated), translates courage to “wholeheartedness”. In her famous TED talk on the power of vulnerability, she explains that courage originally meant “to speak one's mind by telling all one's heart”. To tell the story of who you are with your whole heart. So rather than going for the heroes' journeys, daring to take the heart journey (right, Pierre L. ?).

Facing what scares us most, ourselves. Together.

This week I was fascinated by this visual of a human heart, showing the arteries and veins that supply blood to the cardiac muscles: Isn’t the human heart fascinating? Isn't it fascinating how the arterial network looks like trees, roots, and branches? Isn't it fascinating, how we can see that humans are nature?

Heart ... Art ... Earth ????

I sent the screenshot to a very dear friend, who’s a cardiologist, literally a doctor of the heart, asking if our heart indeed looks like trees of life. And she replied with a photo of a postcard on her fridge and pure excitement, as she hadn't considered that non-cardiologists would share this fascination for the human heart, too:

The human heart. It's so beautiful. Yes, it's the same as roots, only in reverse, the vessels are there to supply nutrients/oxygen, meaning the small roots supply the last bit of tissue with what is needed. It is also called 'die letzte Wiese' [the last meadow] - where nothing else can go. Tree roots move to where they get their nutrients, so reverse, but so similar.

Another inspiration I re-discovered this week has been the Red Hand Files, as initiator and musician Nick Cave (yup, the one, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds) describes: a strange exercise in communal vulnerability and transparency, a life-changing, soul-enriching exercise in commonality and togetherness. I LOVED diving into the questions and answers – of our very human existence, asked and addressed with care, sensitivity, humor and humility, realness, and rawness. Questions and Answers about love, loss, grief, resilience, or more lightly about his 3 favorite words. You can submit a question, too.

So, that’s it for this week … I wish you a wonderful, connecting, heartfelt end of the week and weekend. And send you off with some tunes, on theme, of course.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UsYbProrac

Do you really wanna know about these lines on my face? Well, each and every one is testament to. All the mistakes I've had to make. To find Courage. It's a feeling like no other. Let me tell you, yeah. Courage. In harmony with something other than your ego. Courage. The sweet belief of knowing nothing comes for free. (Villagers: Courage)

Lots of love

??

This is the second share of a newly started weekly practice for personal, and collective, unfolding and (un)learning: Works/words/worlds in progress