As I woke up in the recovery room my eyes were drawn to the sutures and bandages that covered my wrist. “Radial approach,” I said to myself. The surreal acknowledgment of undergoing an angiogram became reality. It was hard to come to terms with the fact that I wasn’t the cardiology representative assisting with the procedures. I was a patient.
I had the experience of assisting cardiologists with technical questions on products, observed procedures, and created cost-saving plans for entire hospital systems.
I had the experience of being a holistic health coach. Knowing the right amount of sugar, fiber, and protein to have in one’s diet.
I had the experience of being a fitness professional. Teaching thousands of individuals proper body alignment, form, and technique.
Yet, here I lie in the Cardiac Catheterization recovery room.
My mind searched for answers.
How did I end up here?
What have I done to myself?
What is the Universe trying to tell me?
The research and stats on healthcare continue to show us that our society isn’t getting healthier. In 2016, the Congressional Budget Office reported health care spending made up 17.9% of our GDP with an average of $10,348 per year on health care. According to Statista, health care spending in 2018 is expected to increase to 18.2% of our GDP.
The top leading causes of death in the United States are still Heart Disease, Cancer, and chronic lower respiratory disease.
Why aren’t we healthier?
We have access to information on healthy eating, exercise, and stress reduction.
We challenge ourselves by completing a 10k, doing a yearly detox, and going on a Ketogenic diet.
We try Orange Theory, Cross Fit, and Kick-Boxing Classes.
We have gone on spiritual retreats, broke a sweat in hot yoga, and discovered our primal energy in kundalini classes.
Yet, stats don’t lie. Each of us has faced a health crisis in one form or another. Unfortunately, we trust a failed medical system that continues to mask the cause of our ailments, and ironically make us sicker.
What will it take for us to evolve and achieve harmony in health?
I asked the same question when I was lying in the cardiac catheterization recovery room. I was frustrated. I wiped out my 401K to pay medical bills, spent a fortune on supplements, and sought out every alternative treatment to get the healing I so desperately desired.
Knowing that I wasn’t alone, I was compelled to discover solutions, tools, and techniques to achieve optimal health and lower healthcare costs. The following tools and techniques are foundations to create a shift in wellbeing.
Heart Coherence
Dictionary definitions describe health as a condition of being balanced in body, mind, and spirit. When we are balanced we are coherent.
When are living in a state of chronic stress, like I was, we become imbalanced and feel our incoherent state is normal. According to Doc Childre and Howard Martin who wrote, The HeartMath Solution, we’re so familiar with the justified stress reactions that we move in and out of stressful, incoherent states without any awareness of their damaging effects.
The Institute of HeartMath discovered when the heart, mind, and emotions are in alignment we achieve heart coherence. Heart coherence is a state where we achieve optimal health and performance.
According to a white paper from the HeartMath Institute, Creating Coherent Sustainable Workplaces, when we shift into a coherent state, the heart and brain operate synergetically. We can learn how to prevent stress producing patterns, along with increasing our mental clarity and discernment capacity.
The HeartMath techniques, which are based on science, enables individuals to access heart coherence through the heart’s intuitive intelligence. According to research, when people hold genuine core heart feelings such as appreciate or compassion, it naturally increases heart coherence.
Support Your Chemistry for Healing
90% of doctor visits are stress related. Stress, whether it be physical, emotional, acute, chronic, or traumatic, affects the chemistry of our blood. Science has shown us that the chemistry of our blood affects the outcome of our genetics. Our blood chemistry and composition are controlled by the following and creates an environment which provides us with the best possible foundation for health.
Nutrition
Nutrition affects the quality of our blood. There are many thoughts on blood type nutrition. However, natural, non-processed nutrition which has a balanced amount of protein, fiber, fruits, vegetables, and iron, and encourages circulation, will help create an optimal foundation for our chemistry, which controls our cells.
Cellular Signals
According to Dr. Bruce Lipton, author of Biology of Belief, blood receives cellular signals, both internal and external, that control our chemistry and biology. Signals such as emotions, growth factors, and neuro-hormones, affect the way our body and blood receives information about our environment and gene activity.
Our perception, based beliefs, has the largest impact on our central nervous system and the communication to our cells. Therefore if we over-ride our cellular signals by changing our beliefs we can impact our health.
Navigate Your Energy
The entire universe is made up of energy. Even our perception of matter is energy. Everything is energy, and its effect on our cells is profound.
As I mentioned earlier, heart coherence affects our health and overall performance. This is because of the energetic field of the heart is the most powerful energy field produced by the body. In fact, science can measure this electromagnetic field from up to 10 feet away. This is why you can sense the energy of a room or pick up on the energy of the planet after a major catastrophe.
According to HeartMath each individuals thoughts, beliefs, and emotions emit and energetic field. These individual fields not only affect you, your health, and perspective on life, they affect your relationships and experiences. You are an energetic field.
When my health started to decline, it was clear that my emotions affected my energetic field. I was stressed, angry, and resentful. My central nervous system was fried and I was drunk with emotion. As a result, my immune system was low, I couldn’t sleep, and I ended up in the hospital.
Each of us embarks on a journey to be whole. And while this journey may be filled with challenges of health, wealth, and relationships we find our peace and balance through an intelligence that has been with us since birth.
As I discovered, health that transforms an individual starts with an understanding we have the power. The power of heart coherence, the power of a healthy environment, and the power of our own energetic field. Chaos will continue to be a variable of life. We can choose to fight it with reactionary blindness or open our eyes and realize our power.