Shai Tubali - Unlocking the 7 Secret Powers of the Heart: A Practical Guide to Living in Trust and Love

Introduction: Meet Your Heart

The myth of the fragile heart

At first glance, the title of this book might seem rather contradictory. Heart and powers? Generally, the word power makes us think of energies such as ambition, control, discipline, determination, and stamina. It seems odd, and even somewhat unreasonable, to associate power with love, tenderness, and vulnerability. When we look within ourselves for sources of power and qualities such as fearlessness and resilience, our heart is not the first or most immediate place that comes to mind. Indeed, the mindthe seat of our mental and logical reasoningtells us that relying on the hearts energies might make us weaker, unable to cope, and far too delicate to resist pressures and protect ourselves. We would end up utterly fragile in a violent and unrestrained world and vulnerable to abuse or exploitation.

But is it true? This small book carries a strong message: the heart is your greatest source of power. In fact, when you search for a sense of self-worth, confidence, and determination in your so-called tough areas of willpower and ambition, you lose touch with the one resource that could provide you with immense fortitude. All the qualities and strengths we associate with individual power exist in abundance within your heart.

You probably found this book after being guided by intuitionthe hearts capacity to recognize in a nonmental and nonlogical way what is true and what is not true. This intuition has gradually moved you away from the conventional sources of individual power: uncompromising ambition and competitiveness, coercion, discipline, and desire. However, renouncing the usual energies of power does not mean you should turn to the other extreme of weakness.

Instead, you can tap into a lesser known power resource that always feels right. Indirectly, almost all human beings recognize to some extent the power of the heart. Books and films in our popular culture are packed with inspiring stories and mythologies of what people were capable of doing in the name of love and the infinite energies that could motivate men and women when they believed in something with all their heart.

This type of power is literally right under your nose. Though your mind does not trust it, it can confidently and successfully replace the mind as a source of power and, when followed all the way, it proves much more resilient and unshakable. The minds main strategy is that in order to feel strong, you should toughen your heart, pick up your spear, shield, and helmet, and go out into battle with the world. It guides you to be cautious, but it guides you in this way only because it knows very little of the heart, its true essence, functions, and capacities.

What is the heart?

The way our Western culture approaches the heart is surprisingly dual in nature and contradictory. On the one hand, the general scientific and rational view perceives the heart as a mere physical organ. Indeed, while it is evident that our physical heart contains a complex intrinsic nervous system comprising multiple ganglia (clusters of neurons) that network with each other, we have no accepted indication that this enables the heart to have a mind of its own [1]. On the other hand, all cultures throughout human history, including our science-oriented one, have numerous references to the heart as an active element within us that triggers a huge range of states of consciousness, emotions, traits, and expressions. The heart seems to star in our idioms: novels, TV shows, and pop songs alike present characters who express their hearts longings and disappointments. More importantly, whether we consider ourselves rational or emotional, we all know, through our direct experience, what itfeels like to have our heart broken.

A mere metaphor? If true, it is definitely a most persistent one. However, if we listen to our heart, deep down, beneath the layers of skepticism and rationalism, we know it exists.

The heart is where the core or the center of your beingyour innermostdwells. When you know your heart, you know your innermost. When your heart is closed, you are out of touch with your core, or you do not allow others to get to know it. Intuitively, we all recognize that; after all, this is the hearts literal meaning. Thats why when you get to the heart of the matter, you have tapped into its central or essential issue. As our innermost, the heart is the deepest place from which we choose and act. It is the center that defines our values and sense of meaning in life. We admire famous figures for heroically following their heart, for acting only according to their deepest calling despite everything they have been told. Clearly, the heart is associated with our authenticity, our capacity to listen to the voice of our true self, just as yet another common phrase advises us to doto listen to our heart. We recognize that the heart is wise. It has its own intelligence, which it speaks in its own language. It is a source of wisdom that connects us directly with what is true in us. For this reason, if there is an internal realm that could serve as the abode of our soul, it is without doubt our heart.

Even though our mind clearly has many vital functions, it is in this sense only the hearts servant. When we appoint the mind master of our being, we become confused, perplexed, and tense. Trying to use your head, as many suggest we do when in states of confusion, often leads to a deeper inner turmoil. In the absence of the heart as the one true master of our inner world, the mind loses its balance. You ask it to do things it cannot do. For example, your mind has no idea what the meaning of your life is. Interestingly, neither has the heart any idea. Knowing for the heart is not like knowing how to prepare financial reports, or how to com-pose an argument in a convincing mannerits knowing is more like feeling. It feels what really matters in life because it is connected to lifes deeper sense. Through this feeling it orients itself in important choices and decisions.

Your heart is a source of many vital qualities that the mind could never cultivate: humbleness and courage, intimacy and goodness, acceptance and appreciation, faith and generosity, purity and devotion, compassion and sacrifice. When the heart gets in touch with expressions of such qualities, it awakens our dormant innermost and even moves us to tears. Only the heart can appreciate these qualities. It finds in them extraordinary beauty and value, whereas for the mind they are irrelevant and useless. In addition to its function as the center of our meaning, knowing, and choosing, the heart is of course our emotional center, through which we come into contact with and relate to ourselves and others. Emotions are the hearts tool of communication and through them it weaves relationships, the flow of give-and-receive between ourselves and the world around us.

By guiding our being toward its core meaning and knowing, our heart is where we choose to whom and to what we should devote our attention, dedication, and passion. This is the deeper meaning of setting your heart on something. When we devote our fullest attentionwhen we dedicate ourselves from the innermost with all our heartwe are filled with a profound sense of meaning. In Hebrew, attention is literally translated as putting your heart into somethinga clue to the fact that wherever your heart is, this is also where your actual reality is found.