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.
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.
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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