Wisdom of The Heart

Yesterday as I was working on our families fix & flip,

Sidenote: Spray foam insulation & spray in ceiling insulation do not make good companions.

As you can see in this picture, I accidentally tarred & feathered myself. 🙂

Soaking the foam in Vaseline, wrapping my arms in plastic wrap and shaving my arm hairs eventually did the trick, but in the future, I think I’ll just wear a long sleeve shirt with my gloves instead. 🙂

In any case, throughout the day I was listening to an audio book called Into The Magic Shop by a Neurosurgeon named Jim Doty.

Jim is the director of an organization called C-Care (Center for Compassionate & Altruistic Research), of which the Dali lama is a founding financial benefactor.

Jim also, at one point, built a 75 million dollar net worth (more on that in a bit….)

There was a point in the book where Jim was telling a story of a family that came into the hospital seeking urgent help.

The mother of the family was 8 months pregnant and having severe headaches.

When Jim looked at the brain scans he discovered the mother had a brain hemorrhage and was going to die.

The mom lost consciousness and Jim performed an emergency C section to save the baby.

When the operation was complete, one life was gone and another had entered the world.

Jim described the thoughts going through his mind as he prepared to walk out and tell the father that his children would never again be able to enjoy another peanut butter and jelly sandwich or a bedtime story from mom.

For some reason, when those words came into my mind, I cried.

Maybe the tears came because they had entered both my mind and my heart, at the same time.

I instantly realized how valuable simple things, like PB & J sandwiches and bedtime stories for kids are, especially to those who have forever lost those things,

…the things that so many of us take for granted.

My heart was touched and I scheduled a lunch appointment with Corene, my wife and mother to my children, because an overwhelming sense of gratitude wanted me to be with her.

Jim touched my heart through his story, and then my heart touched my wife’s through our lunch appointment.

I could tell she was grateful and happy to enjoy lunch with me, just as I was happy and grateful to enjoy lunch with her.

2 hearts came together for an hour in love & gratitude,  a simple moment that ended up being the highlight of my day.

At another point in the recounting of Jim’s life story, he talked about the night before he was to go off to college.

His bags were packed and he was sleeping.  Suddenly, there was an intense pounding on the front door.  Jim entered the room to see his mom crying.

His dad had come home drunk and belligerent and was  terrifying his mother in the process of trying to enter the home.

A fist breaks through the door the angry father begins taking aggressive steps toward the retreating mother who cowers back into a corner, afraid of what might happen.

Jim warns his father to stop several times and finally, after the warnings prove fruitless, steps between he and his mother, swings his fist and knocks his father to the ground.

The sight and smell of his father’s blood mixed with alcohol, permeates the scene.

The next morning, Jim goes off to college with his father’s blood still on his pants.

As I listened to this story while driving around in my car, I cried again.

Tears streamed down my face as I thought about this sad situation, realizing that so many people in the world probably have similar experiences that are probably far more common than we’d like to believe.

I don’t think it was my mind shedding tears, it seemed to be, my heart.

And that’s one of the main underlying points of this most fascinating book.

That we have both a brain and a heart, and that maybe, our hearts can speak to us in ways the brain can’t.

This book which seems to be a mix of spirituality, meditation, manifestation and rock hard neuro – science from an atheist brain surgeon is fascinating  on many levels,

…not the least of which are the scientific facts Jim shares that seem to support the theory that our hearts have much more wisdom than we give them credit for.

He says that it’s been scientifically proven that the heart sends more signals to the brain that vice versa.

He also asserts that authentic human connection, one with another in heart centered ways has been shown to reduce recovery time with illness and even exceeds the health value of exercise and body weight.

Another great point illustrated in the book is that before we set our minds to achieving goals in life, we should first open up our hearts because that which we say we want may not always be in alignment with the highest and best good of ourselves and others.

Jim illustrates this point with a personal story of how he built a 75 Million Dollar net worth, had the mansion on the beach with sport cars in the garage, and still found himself empty and unfulfilled.

He ends up losing the wealth, along with those he thought were his friends, only to find that in losing everything he thought he wanted, he discovers that which mattered most.

That which his heart could have lead him to in the beginning, if only he’d taken the time to open up to it earlier in his journey.

Plato said that all human behavior results from desire (the groin), knowledge (the head), and emotion (the heart).

I’ve said to myself on several occasions before that God gave me both a brain and a heart, and it makes sense to me that I should strive to use them both.

I have a quote hanging on a wall in my office that says…

My heart was touched hearing those 2 stories that pulled out so much compassion from my soul, and that was something special for me.

In world where we seek to be guided so much by intelligence, wit, and perfect public perceptions of our persona (ego)…

In a world where so many of us seem so concerned about making sure everyone sees us in just the right way, versus, seeing us for who we really are…

Maybe the wisdom of opening up our hearts, is just what we need.