Healing the heart of attack

Written into this comment thread (Dr Malcolm Kendrick - and commenters - on and around what causes heart disease).


What rises of itself when stress falls away (as result of no longer being given focus), is a quality of being, that carries within itself what no external substitution can provide. But which now it is the freedom to live and give out from a true appreciation.

A quality of wholeness that cannot be grasped in possession or controlled under definition, but we get in our own way.

I sense that the heart is truly responsive to all that is within us  - as a whole. Literally. And not a pump that pushes everything around. But control freaks 'see' themselves in everything - and hence never run out of things to manage. (And I address that term to the chatter-blind mind in us all).

Religion as a word is devalued, just as all words have been devalued by misuse. If we use something to mask or hide in, we are no longer using it as a point of re-cognition or re-membering the living. Love of truth finds seeks to find, and by releasing from what is unfounded, grows appreciation within the true. Science and Religion (Spirituality) are equal paths and Art is the interplay of both in one purpose. Fear of truth seeks everywhere else, indefinitely, and with much ado, seeming to find but only finding more cause to seek in more ways that serve 'seek and do not find'. Like 'War on Cancer'. Or on anything else.

Throwing out the 'baby' of being with the 'bathwater' of religious cultural tradition, is 'death by association' through rejecting forms that trigger conditioned reactions. But at some point, awareness of this device reveals to a new vision, that the 'way home' from a conditioned 'identity' trap, (or unresolved self-conflict), is the willingness to look at what our mind ruled out in haste, without the means to know its own choice - because it worked for what was needed at the time it was needed.

Does it matter what particular 'paths' work for us, or is what matters the qualities we bring into our relationships? The fact that we can pass off as what we are not, or accept what we WANT to be true at expense of looking or listening, is part of being identified in masking of image and form instead of discerning true qualities. What seems like a study under experts may be a ruse by which to degrade the lives of millions with toxic waste - willingly ingested in place of real food.

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In meeting deeper conflicted stresses in which 'self and its world break down' or are found no longer workable, (strain), I have learned not to dwell or invest in 'my story', but rather to stay open to a wider perspective, for my need is to attend presently and listen within, to release the habits of dependency on what does not and cannot work, and to naturally embrace more consciously aligned choices. In my case I had no attraction to any kind of pharma or other drugs because of not wanting to further mask over or interfere with what is really going on. (truth or self-honesty). So I live with and through what life unfolds as a willingness of discovery and acceptance. I see that fearing negative outcomes works a self-fulfilling prophecy, so I don't live as if to avert or escape them - but for what I can and do appreciate. The 'what' of it is my responsibility - that is - the result of choices I am making, knowingly or as old learned habit.

I too have 'cut the rope' of one I loved so dear. She was and therefore is, a true blessing in my life that became a deeply cutting gift to live on as the 'surviving' of. There is a phrase, 'storing up treasures in Heaven', that may seem trite, but every loving thought and act is witness to true, and the 'heaven' of a truly embracing 'self (and other) acceptance' waits on willingness, not on time, or death or some 'other' moment. This is to say that our thinking can and will block our true appreciation if we are drifting under it rather than discerning its nature.

"I hate myself and want to die" is a corollary of the failure of; "I want it THUS!" - though of course the breaking or sense being denied may express as "NOT THIS!" or "NO!" I see variations of this 'energetic'  through the generations, and running beneath what we take to be our lives.

Waking and healing; I think it takes whatever it takes - no point in 'measuring or comparing' what we want to be free of. Perhaps the gift is in recognising within myself - what I had seen and loved in her, and accepting or letting in these qualities as welcome and true. She was my first born child and brought the light of heaven to my sense of inadequate resource and fear of unworthiness of honouring a sacred trust. Life is challenging, transformative and at times extremely demanding of focus. Life is guiding, supporting and embracing of all that I am - but only through my willingness to let into.


I was raised without religion by parents who wanted to bury and escape anything not modern. A New World of Scientific Progress emerging from the post war austerity. In a sense I came in by the 'back door' of wordless 'territory' of overwhelming experience (Long before Ellie left) - but never into any organised institution. I 'sense' this territory in all for whom 'reality' breaks - but not as a call to 'save' anyone - but rather as a sense of companioning in shared purpose. Waking and healing.

Those whose world has yet to open where they do not expect, must live what seems self-evidently real to them until discover what they do not expect. Some releasing is incremental and ongoing and some can be shocking and sudden. I say 'releasing' because I have no desire to hold onto and build upon pain and loss - but in its timing I did need to honour everything I felt before I was ready and willing to move on. In that sense the cutting away was the healing - and apart from chain smoking and yet breathing, it did not occur to me to not live the feelings. In truth I felt my life depended on honouring them - but not indulging them. As I see it, compassion heals, and sympathy damns - but one doesn't have to meet the demands of others.

Where the hammer blow falls - more will strike. Heart failure could quite evidently occur though wearing down under strain - so I notice that kind of thinking that thinks itself 'my life' - and don't indulge it or feed it. But abide through its moment to focus willingly in what moves and lives me now.

I only offer this as an example of a non medical response to fear, pain, loss, isolation, and any thought/feeling of unworthiness. But it happened I chose or accepted to be so, but not as something to live up to and 'become'.