My heart, the weathervane, the messenger

My heart feels normal now. I am not having the dragged out feeling in my chest, body anymore. There have been times in the past 2 weeks where I do notice the little flutters now and then, and I can see that I am pushing myself, typically mentally or emotionally. It came up for me two days ago when out fishing with friends. After being on the boat for about 30 minutes that morning, I was nervous about how to relate to the two women I was with, the wind was picking up, and I was relating it to my exhausting ferry ride over to WA Island last Saturday, so I worried if I would be able to make it sitting on this boat, with my heart fluttering, some panic setting in. A few scenarios flashed through my mind, what to do if it gets worse kind of thing, until I became aware of what I was doing and stopped myself from "awfulizing" the situation. I relaxed into just being in the moment, being on the boat, soaking up the sun, knowing that it was only my focus on fear which was making me afraid. Later on, as we were boating along (and fast, Sally has a need for speed) and this time I was enjoying it, it dawned on me how much anxiety has been a constant in my life...little niggly doubts, worries, degrading self-talk, what-ifs, stuff like that. I was aware that, in the past, I would have these physical sensations of heart fluttering, tension, jaw clenching, vacant feeling in my chest coupled with the worrying. I hadn't been so aware of what was going on in my body, however, as I was paying sooo much attention to what was going on in my head....all the conditioned thought, worry were paramount. A sense of peace came over me.....I didn't need to focus on those thoughts anymore....something clicked.....my heart stopped fluttering.....I now know what peace within myself feels like. No amount of worrying will get me to a place of peace, it comes from letting go and going to my Nature. I am complete. My nature is that of peace.

There are a number of vehicles which help me to come to this realization over and over again....zen meditation, and German New Medicine. GNM has taught me that heart palpitations are due to overwhelm, manifest during healing phase, and that rationally looking at the experience I am having helps to clear up the conflict. Zen and meditation has given me the tools to look at and see these experiences as what the mind makes up, that ultimately they are not real, only the conditioning of the mind to react. To see that the emperor is not really wearing any clothes!

The mind's sole purpose in the lower vertebrates is to protect, assure survival, basically as an instinct. However, being vertebrates with a much greater grey matter development, with the ability to think and adjust our behaviors, override instincts, we develop this disconnect from what is truly dangerous. The self takes messages, and from conditioning by those around us, society, we learn to "over-react" and think that the message from the brain is true. When 99% of the time it is not really happening. We lose the ability to make the distinction between what truly is life-threatening and what is just the ego/mind being threatened of its existence. The ego is such a drama queen, a prima donna and a bully....it does not want to be told what to do, especially shushed and relegated to a lesser role. It thinks it is dominant, in charge and fully capable, when, in reality, it has NO POWER, only what we give it. It does feel like a death going through changes, because the ego does not want to die. Learning to see the ego for what it is dissolves the hold it has on us. Then, one can rely more and more on Awareness, which is the Still Small Voice, Instinct, Intuition, Higher Self, Buddha Nature.