Alberto and How Stories Warm the Heart
October 21, 2009
Today I shared a story from my life , one that I use story to warm the heart and change perception.
I told the Story about how Alberto and I joke about getting married. I want to be sure that you know that I am not truly desperate enough to run off to Morocco to marry Alberto! I love Alberto but we are not desperate. We are simply using our story to make lightness out of being single at fifty.
On of the ways that I use story is the ability to step into another world and change how you feel and act. This story allows us to create a different reality. Instead of feeling sad or alone, we have a story together in which we feel loved and cared for.
It is a wonderful story that we have used for many years. We laugh about it every time we speak. Sometimes I’m laughing so hard that I feel like my sides will split. This story is like nourishing good food that keeps our hearts happy and healthy.
I got alot of comments today about the story. There were quite a few belly laughs, a few were wondering if I was truly getting married. And my favorite result was that Alberto’s elderly parents laughed like little children. They have known me since I was twenty-five and they know how much I care for Alberto. Alberto has featured in several of my stories because he is a symbol of philos for me,which is defined as ‘brotherly love’ but it is much more than that.
Now for those of you that were really thinking I might be heading off to Morocco to marry - don’t worry. I was frivolous in my youth but I’m not heading in that direction currently. I will let you know when that wonderful day does arrive.
In the meantime I hope this story has shown how stories can help you live happy and healthy inside of realities that warm the heart.
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Featured Story: Courage is in the Heart
October 18, 2009
Courage: from Anglo-French, coer heart. A quality of mind or spirit (heart) that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, without fear.
I had done a five day intensive retreat with twenty-five, Youth at Risk on the coast of England. The course had been an amazing experience for everyone and I had been invited back to England to give a one-day seminar on how to deal with difficult emotions, particularly anger.
Many of the youth had “anger issues,” a term I particularly dislike because it labels people in a negative direction and segments anger out of our everyday world. In reality anger is a powerful force that when used for good, can move mountains.
Working with these youth was a unique challenge for me. Their emotions were high on the scale of being out of control. My job was not to contain, suppress or make these emotions wrong, but to teach them how to channel them through the heart. No easy task.
But I came prepared with my Heartmath presentation which would show their real-time heart rhythms on a large screen . According to the Institute of Heartmath in California, the rhythm of our heart shows all of our physical and emotional stresses. Heartmath has innovated a technique that shifts the heart rhythm from stressed to ‘coherent’. The coherent wave of the heart is where we feel balanced, centered, strong, energized, loving and kind.
The youth, though normally distracted, were immediately intrigued by the presentation. They seemed mesmerized by the giant heart rhythms moving on the screen. I asked who wanted to volunteer to demonstrate working with their heart rhythm and right away Ronnie shot up his hand.
“Oh no, not him,” I thought to myself. Ronnie was the most difficult kid of the group. During the five day intensive he had been obstinate and angry. He insisted on doing everything his way and breaking the rules over and over again.
He was the one kid out of all of them, who didn’t seem to soften, even after the numerous breakthroughs that had helped everyone else. Ronnie would have been my last choice for a demonstration subject. But turning down a kid like this wouldn’t send a good message, so I invited him up front.
Ronnie was tough and I was pretty sure that they only reason he wanted to come up front was because he wanted to show off in front of everyone or prove my theory wrong. Neither of these options felt great to me.
I taught Ronnie to breathe into his heart area and generate a loving feeling towards someone or something. I was pretty sure that he was either making fun of me internally or resisting everything I was saying, but I kept on. I encouraged Ronnie to focus on someone that he loved or cared about.
He was quiet for about 4 minutes which was the longest I had ever heard him silent. As he focused, the group watched his heart rhythms change in real-time on the screen. They were changing from irregular and jagged to smooth and rounded waves, all signs that the technique was working. But I was still not convinced that any of this would make any difference with angry Ronnie.
After we finished the demo, I had asked him to sit back down with the group. But to my surprise, he didn’t want to. He wanted to continue to sit by the heart monitor. I thought that was odd, but rather than choosing to enforce my rule, I let him stay. I continued on with the demo’s for another half hour or so and then finished my presentation.
At the end of the day, I asked for any of the kids to stand up and share what they had gotten from the presentation. Ronnie jumped up immediately. He practically shouted, “I realized that I really do love my parents.” Apparently Ronnie had focused on them during his session. “and for the first time in my life I feel that something might actually help me with my anger.”
I was blown away and I started to tear up. I had known the power of the heart in my own life but had never experienced it in someone who was as hardened and angry as Ronnie. I never saw Ronnie again but his story has stayed with me. The image of him sitting by the heart monitor, gives me great hope for the youth of the world.
What Ronnie showed me is that underneath of the pain and hardness of anger is the tender vulnerability of deep caring. When we get hurt sometimes we come to believe that ‘love hurts’ but it is actually in the restoration of our caring, that we regain strength. Thank you Ronnie wherever you are for being a leader in the power of the heart. I hope to see you again someday.
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The True Power of Vulnerability
October 14, 2009
Telling stories raw and real requires an open and vulnerable heart. That is not an easy thing especially in a culture that tells us we must be strong and where vulnerability is often seen more as a weakness than as a strength.
Years ago when I was doing Heartwork training in business settings. The men would almost always say to me, “I can’t use my more tender feelings because then I’ll lose my edge.” What they meant was that they believed that if they accessed any of the ’softer’ feelings of the heart, than they would lose their masculine strength.
I was reminded of this the other day when I was having a very frustrating conversation with my colleague Jim. He is a great guy in every way but as he says himself, sometimes he’s thinking from ‘his man place’ and I feel like he can’t hear what I’m saying at all.
I was trying to tell him that telling these stories raw and real is very difficult. Even though I have been doing it for years, I am currently diving into stories that are harder to tell and I’m finding myself very challenged. I want to run away and hide in a cave rather than tell these more vulnerable stories! 
Jim was not getting my point. He kept trying to tell me that everyone loves hearing these kinds of stories. I assured him that they do not. He said that people love to hear how you’ve overcome a challenge. I agree. But what if you haven’t overcome the challenge? What if you never overcome it?
Let me give you the example of a client of mine whom I love. I have worked with her for many years through the ups and downs of her life. She has two wonderful children, one of whom has had a serious medical problem since birth.
Recently she was giving a talk at a conference and she was nervous about telling her stories. Her stories are very raw, real and personal to her. They are stories in which she she has struggled but not necessarily overcome. One of the biggest differences between stories of true vulnerability is that we don’t necessarily come out looking like a hero or heroine. This is what I realized after my conversation with Jim.
It is one thing to tell those stories in which we look big and strong. In our heroic culture, we are completely revered for that. But how about the stories in which we feel pitiful, small and woefully human? Are we able to tell these stories unadorned and still stand up tall?
Are we able to tell stories in which we don’t have all the answers, don’t have it all figured out and don’t have the solution? What about the tragedies that make absolutely no sense to us? Must we gussy up these stories just so they are fit to tell?
I encouraged my client to tell her stories raw and real and to put her focus on making a connection with the audience, rather than looking good. She liked that idea. She is a very genuine and loving person and she wanted to connect with people. It also took the pressure off of her to perform. She realized that she could just tell the stories from her own real human heart.
She came back today and reported great success. People really connected to her stories and she felt natural and comfortable telling them. “Annie,” she said, “I realize that I just need to keep opening up and sharing vulnerably.” That’s the key.
Our stories are our stories. The are precious, raw and real, just like our own human hearts.
And by the way, the men that I trained in Heartwork, always got a dose of the science of the heart. What they learned is that there is a whole body of scientific evidence that shows that the power of strength in the human body is generated from the qualities of love and care in the heart.
And my buddy Jim? He’ll get what I’m saying. He always does. As a matter of fact, I hear the phone ringing right now, that’s probably him….
So today dare to tell your story unadorned and trust the power of vulnerability to create true strength and connection.
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My Story Raw & Real, Part 1
September 8, 2009
I’ve been holding back. I’ve been holding back that I’m really hurting, in pain and having a hard time. It’s not like me to be fake, but I’ve been struggling to open up and be raw and real about my life. But I must.
I must because there is nothing more important than having an open heart and that includes admitting when life is painful.
As Joanna Macy says, the heart that breaks open, holds the whole world. I aspire to that so it’s time to admit the truth.
So what happened is that I had this wonderful new relationship and it ended. I had really high hopes for this one. We were really right for each other in many ways. We were writing a series of love stories together and I believed every word that he said and every word that he wrote. The sad part is that his words were true.
Just because someone leaves doesn’t mean they are a fake. People try to convince me to be angry or this or that, but I can’t. It’s not his fault. Blame does not take me to a higher spiritual plane. It keeps me stuck on a level that I don’t want to live on.
I LOVED him and that is that. Get it? I loved. I loved despite my fears, my vulnerabilities, my trepidation and my past. I opened myself to love despite how terrified I was for something like this to happen.
And that’s the irony. Because this has happened to me so often, I actually tried to avoid it. The lesson is that you cannot. You cannot avoid pain without avoiding life itself. It doesn’t work.
It’s like the time I went on the flying trapeze. I was terrified and even though I had a rope holding my body, that didn’t seem to register to my mind at all. It was the same thing here. I was terrified to enter a relationship again because I’ve had so many end. Every one that I’ve had hope for has ended up in tatters.
Did I want that to happen again? Absolutely not! But what was I going to do? Live in a shoebox and never come out? NO. You can’t avoid life.
I am committed to loving despite the many obstacles. One might think I should give up. But I won’t. I’m committed to living a bigger love than most people even think possible. Let me tell you why most people never get to that wide open love land. Because it hurts when you open your heart that wide and then suddenly you’re left out all alone in the field.
But honestly I don’t believe that life is worth living without this kind of open hearted love. It does hurt, I can’t lie about that, but I don’t regret what I did. I loved him and that will remain registered somewhere inside of him forever. Maybe on his death bed he’ll suddenly smile and remember that he was cared for after all. It’s worth the pain. I can’t believe I’m saying that, but it is.
I need to be gutsy, have courage and dare to tell the truth. Here is my first step. It took me a whole week to write about this openly, but that’s ok. It was hard to admit the truth. I wanted to be all put back together nice and neat in only a few days, but I’m not. Today I wept for an hour while my friend Leslie body hugged me, made me tea and handed me tissues. I needed that.
I have needed all of the love and care that my friends have given me. My buddy Jim called from church the other day in response to my S.O.S. He said he could feel it at a distance. He called again tonight and made me laugh. He told me to write these stories, “Annie Hart Raw & Real” and to allow myself to grieve and get out and dance - get it out of my body. He was right. My friends know what I need.
My friend L.T was the one who encouraged me to write. He who most struggles with admitting his own emotions, told me that I should be naked and raw. I knew that coming from him it was like the word of God itself, so I got off the phone and started writing.
He said to me, “Annie nothing has changed about you. You are still the same Annie that you were a week ago and if you were to be given the choice, you would love again.”
He’s right. I would. That’s just who I am. I live for love and I stand for love. Even when it hurts.
Other friends have really been there for me to. Without them, I’d be a puddle on the floor. I feel really loved and cared for even though I’m hurting. I am really blessed and thank god for my friends.
So thank you to Leslie, Loren, Mary Ellen, Eva, Doug, Angela, Jim, Pam and my family. You have been the difference in this situation. You didn’t judge me in another failed attempt at human love on planet earth.
So here’s what I am going to do. I am going to turn this pain into something beautiful and life-giving. I will do that by writing openly and sharing it with the world. I am always there for others to listen to their stories. My clients and friends pour out their pain and I never judge them. So why am I judging myself and holding my own back? Because being raw and exposed feels scary. But nonetheless, I’m revealing myself now. I must.
Because if you think that I am all perfect and put together like a perfect china cup, then you will never be able to admit your own pain and thus never heal. I can’t do that to you. So I must start with being real myself.
This is my fi
rst in a series of stories, dedicated to all who dare to love on planet earth despite the numerous obstacles.
I am going to keep my heart open despite the pain. So here is Story #1 of “Annie Hart Raw and Real”. Let me know what you think. And feel free to share your heart. I promise to hold it gently.
Yours in story,
Annie
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