How Science backs The Joy of Living a Heart-Based Life with Rollin McCraty [Episode #773]

This week’s topic is: How Science backs The Joy of Living a Heart-Based Life with Rollin McCraty

I am so excited to have my very special guest, Rollin McCraty, who is director of research for the HeartMath Institute, and a co-author of the book, Heart Intelligence; Connecting with the Heart’s Intuitive Guidance for Effective Choices and Solutions. Listen in as Rollin shares what happens when you create heart coherence, the deep connection between breath and the heart, following your deeper intuition, and so much more.

[BULLETS]

• Your heart’s nervous system and how it links to your brain…
• By creating heart coherence you can create more emotional regulation…
• Working with the heart to relieve stress and mental discordance…
• The deep connection between breath and the heart…
• Rollin shares a HeartMath breathing technique to bring a certain level of coherence in…
• Tips on how to break the cycle of reliving trauma…
• Following your deeper intuition…

[FEATURED GUESTS]

About Rollin McCraty 

Rollin McCraty, Ph.D., director of research at the HeartMath Institute, is a professor at Florida Atlantic University, and a psychophysiologist whose interests include the physiology of emotion. One of his primary areas of focus is looking at how emotions influence cognitive processes, behavior, health and the global interconnectivity between people and Earth’s energetic systems. His research on heart rate variability and heart-rhythm coherence has gained international attention in the scientific community and is helping to change long-held perceptions about the heart’s role in health, behavior, performance and quality of life.

He is one of the primary creators of the Global Coherence Initiative and the principal designer of the Global Coherence Monitoring System and its international network of magnetic field sensor sites. He is a member of the American Autonomic Society, Pavlovian Society, National Association for Psychological Science, Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback and Society for Scientific Exploration.

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Rollin McCraty’s Interview

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Transcript:

Note: The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate. This is due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

Namaste loves and welcome back for our Monday interview show. I am so excited to share our very special guest today, our very special conversation with Rollin McCraty, who is a PhD scientist. He is the director of Research for the Heart Math Institute and the co-author of the book, heart Intelligence, Rollin and HeartMath are doing incredible work in the world. They are studying the intelligence of the heart and how heart coherence is linked to brain coherence in a world that is very linear and very focused on the brain. The work of heart math is to showing, yes, the brain is essential and important, but so is the heart. So they create different events, including the Global Coherence Initiative, to really facilitate more kindness, love, and compassion in the world with actual practical tools. They create programs for hospitals, universities, the US Navy and many other, uh, many other entities.

Fan of the Week

So we’re gonna get into today some of the specifics about this incredible potential energy and intelligence of working with the heart. And I think you’re gonna like it very much and find it quite interesting. But before we get into our show today, wanted to give a shout out to our fan of the week, Jennifer Luing. I hope I’m seeing that right, Jennifer. And she writes, I feel awakened. It’s called the Feel Good Podcast for a Weekend, for a Reason, every breath of Kimberly’s being is dedicated to spreading love and enlightenment. I listen to her podcast all day at work to keep me in a present uplifted state of mind. Her wealth of knowledge is intoxicating and finding Kimberly’s books and podcast have forever changed my life. Wow. Jennifer, thank you so much, my love for this powerful testimonial. Thank you so much for being part of the community. If you can see me right here, perched at the edge of the couch with both my hands and my heart, I really took that in. And so thank you so much, Jennifer. I send you so much love.

Please leave a review on iTunes and Subscribe

Please write to me, please send in questions. Please let me know how else I can continue to support your amazing, beautiful heart feeling very grateful for you right now, and for your chance, my love to also be shouted out as the fan of the week. Please leave us a review. It can be super simple, but in any case, it’s an amazing way to support the show. So thank you in advance, please share the show as well through a link or just a simple screenshot to anyone that you think would benefit, and please also subscribe to the show. That way you stay in the flow of information and inspiration.

Get Your Copy Of YOU ARE MORE

Remember that our latest book, baby You Are More More Than You Think You Are – Practical Enlightenment For Everyday Life, is just out in paper book. If you wanna pick up a lighter version, a lighter physical copy of this very practical useful guide for really connecting to your potential, to the abundance and creativity inside of you that you can bring out into the world to reshape your life. All right? All of that being said, I am so excited to share my conversation with the incredible brilliant Rollin McCraty.

Interview with Rollin McCraty

Kimberly: 01:14 Rollin, thank you so much for being here with me today. I am so excited to talk about heart math and all this groundbreaking, incredible wisdom you’re bringing forward in the world.

Rollin: 01:26 Thank you, Kimberly. It’s, um, awesome to be here. I really enjoyed now learning about your work and, uh, all your books and everything, so it’s great to meet you,

Kimberly: 01:34 <laugh>. Well, I started, I heard about heart math. I think it was, you know, three books ago, three or four books ago. There’s been a lot. Ro I was, I was working on a book with Deepak Chopra called Radical Beauty. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And it was about dropping in, it was, you know, about our cornerstones. It was about emotional intelligence and spiritual wellbeing, and of course physical wellbeing. And I came across some of your research really talking about heart intelligence and heart coherence. And I started to go down this rabbit hole. And I was really surprised at first, because usually when we talk about, or we, you know, we’re, we’re taught about emotional regulation. It’s always the head and the brain and very linear. But your research has shown something completely different.

Another dimension of intelligence

Rollin: 02:18 True. Uh, well, I wouldn’t say completely different. Let me start by saying yes, I’m not down on the brain. I,

Kimberly: 02:26 No, no, we’re not down on the brain. It’s all or nothing

Rollin: 02:28 <laugh>. Yeah, no, it’s an amazing organ and on all of its capacities and functions. And I want mine to work really well. Um, yes. You know, so what we are suggesting though is that there is another type or dimension of intelligence. And you know, I, this reminds me of, um, a doctor who was here for one of our training programs a while back, uh, pre covid when we used to do trainings in person here before we had to shift, uh, you know, the zoom world of certification trainings. Older doctor, he took me off to the side and he goes, well, I know there’s something deeper going on here, uh, than what you’re talking about in this training program. And, and, uh, said in one sentence, what is it, <laugh>? That kind of took me back a little bit. And I thought about it and I said, well, doctor, I don’t remember his name now, but think of it like this, mind is spirit is to heart. Like mind is to brain.

Kimberly: 03:21 Mm.

Rollin: 03:23 So that the, you know, what ARB research suggests, and this, this is not new, it’s been in many of these, say spiritual teachings and, uh, things for millennia actually, is that we really have two hearts. There’s the physical heart, right? And then in all the complex structures, it even has its own brain anatomically, but then there’s what we would call, uh, the energetic heart, or it’s been called the spiritual heart in, in those traditions. And that, that, think of it as that’s the bridge to our, our spirit or our larger self or higher self, whatever you want to call it. That is a real, I’m suggesting it’s very real. This is not a metaphor that that’s when we, even when we meditate, what are we trying to access? It’s that deeper part of ourselves, right? That that intuitive intelligence, that inner guidance system,

Kimberly: 04:08 The true self.

Rollin: 04:09 Yeah. And that, well, who are we really see, it’s at that other dimensional level of our beingness. It’s, this is, uh, it’s not separate from us. It is us. It’s part of us. It’s our, you know, as David Boh called it, our undivided wholeness mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, it’s just a part that in, in the 3D consciousness of the planet, we haven’t learned en massed anyway, how to access that larger part of ourself, uh, here in the density of Earth yet. So that’s really what heart math is about. It, it’s tools, practices, technologies that allow us to, uh, kind of thread that eye of the needle, if you will, through the energetic, to really bring the intuitive intelligence of our larger cell down into the mind brain, our day-to-day life. So we start making choices that are more aligned with our, our, our wholeness, what’s really best for us. And that really is what unfolds, who we really are in, what our true purpose in life is, um, as we to learn to align with that, that deeper part of ourselves.

Kimberly: 05:06 What’s great about your research, Roland, is it’s showing, you know, actual data so it doesn’t, you know, it’s not dismissed. It’s like, oh, that sounds really nice. Yeah. Where’s the scientific backing? Right? And one of the things you talk about in your book is that the heart has its own nervous system. Can you explain a little bit about that and how it links in with the overall nervous system and the one link to our brain?

Your heart’s nervous system and how it links to your brain

Rollin: 05:27 Yes, I certainly can. And that is largely based on the research and, and the work in the field called neuro cardiology. And they’re actually, these are research groups, very high-end, you know, scientists around the world now that are really looking at the anatomy and function of what’s technically called Kimberly, the intrinsic cardiac nervous system. Now, the nickname Heart, brain came from them, not me. Um, this, and these are pretty hardcore scientists, right? They have mapped out the anatomy to, to truly say that the heart has a, an independent functional brain. So this, these neural structures in the heart have, or basically the same neurons that we have in the brain. Wow. It’s, it’s been proven that they have short-term memory, long-term memory, neuroplasticity, neurogenesis, all of the functions, uh, that you would ascribe to a brain. Now, here’s the kicker that a lot of people, even in the, the sciences have forgotten, cuz this is what I’m about to say, has been known since the late 18 hundreds. And a lot of the original neural anatomy work is that the heart send far more information through the nervous system to the brain than the brain since to the heart.

Kimberly: 06:35 I know. It’s unbelievable. I read that in the book. I couldn’t believe what, what I was reading.

Rollin: 06:39 Yeah, that’s absolutely

Kimberly: 06:40 True. We’re not really taught that we, you know, that’s not general knowledge.

Rollin: 06:43 Well, that way it actually was until from the late, in fact, the, um, you, you probably know William James, that name, you know, the kind of the father of psychology. He was the one

Kimberly: 06:54 Of the, I think my, yeah. My, my my 1 0 1 psych class at Georgetown

Rollin: 06:58 Long ago. Well, well, his, his teaching and practices really dominated, um, psychological practices and the way people thought about the, the, uh, the emotions and the body and, and how it all was interconnected. Uh, and from the 1880s until the 1930s. So it’s, I say, this is forgotten information. This was well understood. And that’s when, this is a time period when the first hormone was being discovered, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And there are a lot of mis in hindsight, a lot of mistakes got made, a lot of assumptions. But this is the era when the pendulum swung to it’s all about the brain.

Kimberly: 07:32 Mm-hmm.

Rollin: 07:33 <affirmative>, you know, and, and metaphorically speaking, they really believed this for a while. That if you could cut the head off and you’ll give it the blood and the oxygen it needs, it would do just fine. Right?

Kimberly: 07:42 Right.

Rollin: 07:43 <laugh>, nobody believes that anymore. But that dominated psych Wow. For a long time, um, until really the 1970s, believe it or not. And, uh, so that some of the history here, and, and it was actually the discoveries of the heart that caused that pendulum to shift back to a more whole and balanced perspective. And it was researchers that are, became very famous by the end of their career, of course, were ridiculed when they first published their findings, that the, at at this time it was believed that the, the brain was controlled of everything, and the body just damped to its tune. Uh, right. And the autonomic nervous system, these nerve pathways between the brain and the body were just kind of dumb wires. Right. That, um, the, to the brain told the body what to do. Well, they started observing that the heart, in particular made its own choices. So like, like a brain could be signals, sending signals to the heart for heart rate to speed up, but it would slow down instead, <laugh> and vice versa. And they were actually writing in, in the writings of that era, these researchers were talking about the heart’s acting like it has a mind of its own.

Kimberly: 08:50 Wow.

Rollin: 08:51 And not only that, they were observing that to heart would make choices before the brain needed to do its next action to facilitate the brain, to be able to perform optimally what its next thing had to be.

Kimberly: 09:07 Wow.

Rollin: 09:08 This goes back to the seventies. And they, uh, they introduced two terms back then. Uh, I use ’em still, but, and that was, were cortical, you know, the top part of our brain, the yes part of our brain, we get paid to go to work for, right. Uh, facilitation and cortical inhibition. In other words, depending upon what messages the heart was sending to the brain, it would either facilitate brain function or inhibit it.

Kimberly: 09:34 Wow.

Rollin: 09:35 So anyway, those are terms we, I’ve carried forward and still use. So do you think you know a lot more about the mechanisms and understand all this now than they did back then?

Kimberly: 09:44 Do you think, you know, around that time, the 1930s is when this whole focus on the brain overthinking, you know, just being so linear or really came into play. Because if we read some of the ancient texts, even the Dowde Chun, it’s all about don’t think stop thinking. And when you first read it coming from our society, you’re like, what is Lazu talking about? How can I really function without thinking? And he’s really talking about experiencing being, you know, being in the moment, this intuition. And I think, um, you know, we’re, we’re, we’re made to believe so much that, you know, the brain is, is the rational the better part of us? And the, the heart is wild and has all these unbridled emotions. Right. But the heart math research is showing actually that through creating heart coherence, we can create more emotional regulation.

By creating heart coherence you can create more emotional regulation

Rollin: 10:32 Yeah, yeah. Sure. Well, before I go directly, what’s you’re bringing up, Kimberly, is a, is a, goes back to the Greece, the ancient Greece, this dichotomy between the rational parts of our brain and and emotions. Right. You know, and the emotions, the wild horses that had to be reigned in and all, all that. And that’s a debate that still goes on to some degree, believe it or not. But the, the neuroscience clearly shows that the centers in our brain, that process emotion are distinct and separate from the rational thinking part. Hmm. And it’s in truth, as we’re walking around, you know, navigating daily life, it’s emotions that happen much faster than thoughts. Hmm. Now, this is, we know this. Now, this is not a theory, this is fact. And a lot of the, the thinking that we think we have Right. Uh, is really trying to justify and sort through what we already felt.

Kimberly: 11:32 Yes. And validate.

Rollin: 11:34 Yeah. So the, the real answer is we have to integrate the two because they both have their own type of intelligence. Now, I know, I know you’ve done work and written about emotional intelligence, but at the core of that work, it really boils down to our capacity to self-regulate and control our impulses and be aware of our emotions and, and so on. So what, what I’m suggesting here is not that we just follow our emotions, cuz that that gets people in trouble as well. Or if we just follow our thoughts, you know, a lot of our rationality is what gets us in trouble a lot of times, you know, our unbridled ambitions and, uh, separations and, you know, all out for me, you know, that kind of thing. So I’m really talking about regulating both thoughts and emotions from a higher point of intelligence.

Kimberly: 12:23 Mm.

Rollin: 12:24 That can fi that really has the power to finally bring the emotions into management in for the good of our wholeness and others as well. Uh, and, and as, as our thoughts. I mean, if we look at the world today, it’s the looping worry, right? The mental fog, the tension and all the, the, the separation really, I would say separation is the primary issue we have on the planet right now. Yeah. Separation, both from our, our larger self, you know, our deeper intuitive guidance and from others and all the polarizations and stuff we’re seeing, which is really mind based. That’s that rational part of the brain, unchecked from the deeper, um, aspects of our, uh, of our deeper intelligence.

Kimberly: 13:06 That’s right. Ron. It’s like all this separation, this, these mind created divisions. And also there’s a lot of conversation around stress, of course. And mental health. And again, it’s brain, brain, brain. How can incorporating some of your work with the heart help some of this, you know, stress, this discordance mental, just all these mental, you know, mental Yeah. Ideas,

Working with the heart to relieve stress and mental discordance

Rollin: 13:28 <laugh>. Well, I, I would s well, frankly, I mean, we have a lot of training programs and the number one reason that they’re brought into organizations, whether that’s hospitals and healthcare, or corporations or military, we do a lot of work. In fact, I’m honored to say we developed the, uh, resilience program for the US Navy for their highest stress operation.

Kimberly: 13:47 Wow. Um,

Rollin: 13:49 Is, it’s, well, let me back up just to here and say, I’m, I’m gonna suggest something that might be a little radical and that that is that the largest source of stress that I, I think we have on the planet, no matter what culture, belief system you come from, is the separation between the mind and the deeper heart. Mm-hmm.

Kimberly: 14:11 <affirmative>,

Rollin: 14:12 You know, if you think, uh, I would invite, you know, your listeners, uh, to maybe think back over the past week even, um, it might even been today, if there was something we’d been asked to do or thought we wanted to do or should do Right. From our rational, you know, mental thing. But we just had that deeper feeling, that deeper inner sense that maybe that’s not the best choice.

Kimberly: 14:35 Yeah. <laugh>, I can think of some of

Rollin: 14:37 That. Right. And then usually if we, you know, hindsight’s 2020, we look back and, and we don’t follow that deeper, that real deeper intuitive sense, usually we kind of realize, ooh, should have followed

Kimberly: 14:51 Mm. The intuition.

Rollin: 14:53 Yeah. I mean, that’s more times than not it plays out that way is the stress, you know, is a safe word, but what stress always boils down to a feeling and an emotion.

Kimberly: 15:06 Yeah.

Rollin: 15:07 They used to, it’s interesting, the, you know, they, for many years, the, you know, to do the surveys and what’s the main source of stress or the stress or for people or the stress. And, you know, uh, whether in the United States or Europe, it almost always was time pressure.

Kimberly: 15:22 Ah,

Rollin: 15:23 Right. You know, time that the, the questions are worded this way. It’s defined the feeling that we never have enough time, or the feeling that everything’s taking too long. It’s the emotion though, right?

Kimberly: 15:34 Yes. It’s true. For,

Rollin: 15:36 That’s actually changed in some of the more recent surveys to be dealing with difficult people

Kimberly: 15:41 Really.

Rollin: 15:41 Yeah. As being one of, again, that shows that separation and that polarization, this being reflected. But stress is, uh, it’s the frustrations, the anger, the anxiety, the fe inner tensions. We feel that we, we label and call it stress, right? The feelings of overwhelm. So the what, what what I’m talking about here and what HeartMath all about. By, by taking a, a approach of entering through the heart and getting the heart rhythms into what we call a coherent state, that sends a very different signal to the brain.

Kimberly: 16:15 Mm.

Rollin: 16:16 So it’s another doorway in, and that, that literally is calming the nervous system. It’s bringing, uh, neural structures into sync in a measurable way that the brain interprets as, oh, everything’s okay.

Kimberly: 16:30 Wait, RO can I ask you a question? When you, when we’re talking about that, we’re often taught, okay, you get agitated or stress comes in, take some deep breaths. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, focus on your breath, calm your body and calm your thoughts in your mind. How is what you’re suggesting with hard work? And again, in the heart intelligence, there are different activities and different, um, yeah. Which brings us to another question which we can talk about afterwards. Are these self-created states? How is it different going into your heart? Like you’ve mentioned this term, enter the heart versus just let me relax my breath.

The deep connection between breath and the heart

Rollin: 17:04 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Well, there’s a deep connection between breath and the heart.

Kimberly: 17:09 Hmm.

Rollin: 17:10 In fact, this is the mechanism I’ll share with you why breathing techniques work. Hmm. And breathing techniques are taught everywhere. Everywhere from lamaze glasses to, uh, relaxation yoga, meditation, also to scuba dives on the military to shoot better. Right. Um, Olympics sports, I mean, you name it, there are, I won’t get into the, all the anatomical details, but there are are neurons in the lungs that fire, when we breathe in, they increase their firing rate and relax their firing rate when we breathe out. So those neural connections connect to the heart and up to the brain. So what we can best by looking at the rhythms of the heart that can tell exactly what somebody’s breathing rhythm is and how deep their breathing. Hmm. So our breathing rhythm modulates the rhythm of the heart. Got

Kimberly: 17:56 It.

Rollin: 17:57 So it’s Right. So when we choose Right, we, that’s something we can consciously change. That that’s normally an automatic thing. Right? I can choose to breathe a little slower and deeper. Right. Which is what we naturally do when we’re feeling calm and relaxed or just feeling safe. So we, when we breathe at that slower, deeper rhythm, it’s changing the rhythms of the heart, which is changing that ascending information going to the, the Amy in the different centers and the brain involved in emotional experience.

Kimberly: 18:23 Wow. Wow. Wait, well, can we take it one step further? And again, there’s so many incredible tools on heart math. We will link to the site directly in our show notes and also the heart intelligence book. But one of the things that I loved about the work was this idea of self-generating or self-creating emotions. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right? So, kind of felt like for me, visualizing almost, and I know there’s some research around that. They used it with athletes and different things kind of visualizing the best outcome. So can you talk a a little bit about this practice? And you’ve been able to measure it scientifically? Rolin bringing it here changes the signal to the brain.

Rollin shares a HeartMath breathing technique to bring a certain level of coherence in

Rollin: 18:56 Yeah. Right. Yeah. So breathing, you know, we started there. So

Kimberly: 18:59 Yeah, start there.

Rollin: 19:00 The first step in, in most of the heart math techniques, uh, not all but most is we call heart focused breathing. Mm. But our focus of attention right in the center of the chest, you know, and pretend we’re breathing through that part of the body, cuz I just explained our breathing rhythm affects the rhythm of the heart. Okay. So that starts, that takes the intensity out. Calms the nervous system, just the breathing parts. There’s a lot of benefit just from there. However, if it was, uh, let’s say that, um, you were feeling anxiety or maybe a little angry at someone, right? Uh, breathing will take the intensity out. That’s ki grandma’s wisdom, right? I mean, yes. Um, it really is. But if it was just about breathing, we would not be in the, the world would not be in the state it’s in.

Kimberly: 19:43 That’s right. <laugh>. <laugh>. Exactly. I could teach my six-year-old to do that. You still tan Trump, so,

Rollin: 19:48 Yeah. But it does take the intensity out. It does. If we can remember to do it right? Yes. And it does start, bring a certain level of coherence in. But that’s just level one. There’s a whole other, other systems. The hormonal system, for example, and especially our energetic system, that’s a whole other topic. Um, which is really what runs the show, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> body is, we have to make shifts there too. Uh, so breathing can help you get, start the process of getting literally more in sync, right? The neurons, the heart and the brain, the activity. But then we need to shift our emotional state again, stress being about emotions. And this can be something really simple. Uh, we, we call it, you know, just activate a regenerative feeling such as somebody, a feeling you have for somebody you care for. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> or a feeling of appreciation or gratitude. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, and that, and then that’s really hard for a lot of people when they first start the work.

Kimberly: 20:43 Well, even feeling wrong. Some people are like, I don’t know if I’m doing it right.

Rollin: 20:47 <laugh>. Yeah. Well, that, that’s keeping you stuck in the head. That’s

Kimberly: 20:51 Right.

Rollin: 20:52 So it might be some, some techniques, some simple hints to, to help make that shift is well, remember that feeling you have if you’re a pet owner when you come home and your cat jumps in your lap, or your dog greets you with wagging tails and can’t wait to see you, that feeling you have, what’s that feel like? Just breathe that feeling.

Kimberly: 21:11 Hmm.

Rollin: 21:12 Or it could be that place in nature that you love to go, whether it’s walking in the forest or at the ocean, um, whatever that is. What’s that? What’s it feel like when you’re there? Not so much trying to visualize being there. Well, that’s okay too. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But, but, but really breathe that feeling now that that starts energizing other, other systems in the brain and body to come into to coherence and synchronization.

Kimberly: 21:36 Mm.

Rollin: 21:37 And that especially appreciation and compassion. These are higher types of emotions. They’re also opening that in channel to our intuitive heart. That energetic heart. So now we’re able to access more of our, our deeper into in, uh, innate, uh, w um, intuition, really. That’s really, but the type of intuition that’s really coming from our larger self.

Kimberly: 21:58 Can you see that rolin? Can you actually see parts of the brain, different parts of the brain light up with intuition when we are coming from this more expanded place?

Rollin: 22:06 Um, well, I will, I would say we can see it in, uh, what’s called, nobody will know what I’m talking about here, but what’s called heartbeat evoke potentials. Now this is a, a, um, kind of a high level technique we use here in the lab to trace the flow of information going up through the nerves from the heart to the brain, and how it travels to the different parts of the brain. Hmm. Both in location and in time. And so yes, you can clearly see that. Now, I’ll tell you just briefly, I won’t go into all the, the gory scientific details, but we, so many people talk that have learned heart math and start practicing the, the coherence techniques and the self-regulation techniques talk about how their intuitions on steroids, it is just dramatically changed. And then second thing they say is in synchronicities, which were cause of intuition. Right? So we, um, this is going back to the nineties, embarked on a few year study of in, of measuring electrophysiological intuition and specifically non-local, what I call non-local intuition. There’s three, three types of intuitions of maybe another time we can get into those, but

Kimberly: 23:11 Oh yes. I love this. Um,

Rollin: 23:13 <laugh>. Oh, that’s in the book. Yeah. Well,

Kimberly: 23:15 You do another, we do another show on intuition cuz it’s so useful for people. Wrong.

Rollin: 23:19 Oh, I’m sure I’d be happy to Kimberly. But, but what long story short, and these are rigorous studies, we’re measuring people’s brainwaves and their electrocardiograms and skin conductions and all bunch of other stuff. But what we found was that the heart is the first system to get the information about a future event sends a measurably different neural signal to the brain all before the future event happens. Right. Informing the brain and then a body response. So that’s where you feel it, right? Like the gut feeling, but it’s really heart, brain, then body. And if you’re paying attention, then you, you have the, the feeling of it. Yes. Over there on the back of the neck. So, um, the way I got that published, by the way, this is in the late nineties in, you know, a peer reviewed scientific journal. Right. Um, as to I use the language that the heart, uh, appears to have access to a field with information outside the boundaries of typical time and space.

Kimberly: 24:16 <laugh>, I love how it’s

Rollin: 24:17 Worked. Right. Perfectly acceptable language in that era, right? Yes. Uh, for scientific journals. Cuz things like this had already been an experimentally proven right. Non locality and this kind of stuff. But it wasn’t supposed to happen at hot wet organs at that time. Only subatomic. That’s changed since then. And um, so what am I really seeing though? I was just kind of my coded way of saying it. The heart has access to a field of information, you know, our spirit, our larger self. Yes. It’s really what that is like, which is the central teaching of every great religion on the planet, you know, at the heart of the access point to, uh,

Kimberly: 24:52 Right. The, yeah. The, the heart chakra. And you know, my last book Roland was called, you are More Than You Think You Are, it was about Yogananda’s teachings about the True Self. Are you familiar with Yogananda? I am

Rollin: 25:03 Indeed. Yeah. It was, his book was influential on me back in the nine, early 1970s actually.

Kimberly: 25:09 Yes. Yes. And he’s, you know, he’s talking about this idea that we think we’re, what we see in the mirror and all these senses and things. And back to the, I, you know, back to what we were saying, the, the society is so brain dominated today mm-hmm. <affirmative>, everything’s so lineated and quantitative that we, we close ourselves off from this power, this intuition, this creativity, this incredible piece. When I’m doing the hard math practices, Ron, I feel like I’m going, um, like I, it’s hard to explain like I’m dipping down. Right. I’m getting out of the head. I’m kind of going into a deeper place, <laugh>. Yeah.

Rollin: 25:45 Right. Well you are, you are.

Kimberly: 25:47 Yeah. And you know what, it is wrong. I can speak from, from personal experience, it kind of just like we were talking about separation and holding onto these little annoyances, it just kind of melts into this field of does any of this stuff really matter? Right. You know, and like, what does matter? Is this love

Rollin: 26:04 Mm-hmm.

Kimberly: 26:04 <affirmative> this connection.

Rollin: 26:07 Yeah, indeed. Yeah. And bring

Kimberly: 26:09 Light. Yeah. Yes, yes. So to, so today, Rolon, we talked about stress a little bit, but, you know, I forget who said this quote. You can’t solve a problem with the same, um, like in the same system where the problem was created or

Rollin: 26:21 Something. Same, same level of Einstein. Same level.

Kimberly: 26:23 Yes. Okay. I thank you, <laugh>. Yeah. So today again, there’s, there’s so much, um, you know, there’s so many issues. I think with forgiveness, holding on separation, like we said, the mental stress, mental health, how can some of these heart math techniques, it’s, it’s coming at it from a different system. Let’s say someone’s angry about something, they’re going to talk therapy for 25 years. They’re still reliving this trauma. They’re still angry at their mother, their father from something from the childhood. How can we break out of these cycles?

Tips on how to break the cycle of reliving trauma

Rollin: 26:55 Yeah. Well, that’s exactly right. Break out of them. We have to interrupt the old patterns. And I can go, I could do a whole show on what we call baselines and how we get stuck in, in the, I’ll just call ’em 3D patterns and, and how the brain works there. Ultimately I would say we have to open the heart and get a rise above that. And it, remember I was talking about earlier, it takes another level of intelligence to finally bring the, the emotions and thoughts into management. I’ll just very briefly again, there’s uh, what inspired, actually we have a, a trauma program, certification program for trauma-informed care that’s really popular. And what inspired it was a, a heart math trainer who, um, true humanitarian, he opened three camps in Lebanon to deal with, uh, Syrian refugees. This is after he’d already done some other trauma work in Syria.

27:46 Uh, not Syria, but, uh, uh, it doesn’t matter. And the work he was doing blew us away. Hmm. He had three programs he created based all on HeartMath and Har Coherent. One was for the children in these camps, uh, cuz imagine these refugee camps. Uh, the stuff that, he sent me some pictures of things that I would never wanna show people that what these children were had come from and living in, I mean, just heartwrenching and stuff, you know, usually it’s just the mother and, and the, the, the younger children who who’ve fled, you know. And, uh, a lot of times they’ve lost the, the, the male figure and, and the, the family. And he has dated that data on over 900 children that he had worked with a very brief intervention based on our program for young children actually, um, called Heart Smarts at that time. And the main symptom that the children showed have in, in the, his refugee camps was bedwetting. And that’s how the stress manifested. Hmm. And within, usually within three weeks, and I won’t get the numbers exactly right, but something like 80% out of these hundreds of kids, those symptoms had resolved within three weeks.

Kimberly: 28:56 Wow.

Rollin: 28:57 And some of the photos, he would send a before and after of just these beautiful young girls, for example, with dirt on their face. And, and that it just, this glow their hand on their heart and it’s just glow. You could just see it in the photos, you know, the, the before and after, uh, photos. And then he also had a program working with the mothers to help them and helps facilitate that. And then a program, a, a deeper program for, uh, torture, um, survivors of torture.

Kimberly: 29:25 Wow.

Rollin: 29:26 And in all cases, the, the speed by which he was getting red revolution of, of, I mean, I’m serious trauma when in torture victims, it’s a little bit different than the, some of the traumas we, you know, experience here. Although those can be pretty still pretty, but a matter, again, a matter of weeks people back to normal health.

Kimberly: 29:45 Wow.

Rollin: 29:46 And he, he, he incredible. Yeah. I spent a lot of time with him after this. And, uh, and some of it’s counterintuitive what he was doing. He, he basically said, he, his words, they said, there is no rebel, there is no resolution of deep trauma without reopening the heart.

Kimberly: 30:03 Wow.

Rollin: 30:06 And that’s what he, he what his program was all focused on, and the, the, the, not only the success but how fast it worked was just blew us away. And that’s what inspired us to create the, our, the, the program was on his work.

Kimberly: 30:19 That’s incredible. Ron. You know, and you, you hear about like going through these difficult times. I remember a few years ago when I lost my mom, and if it’s in the head, it’s like, I don’t understand this, this isn’t fair. Why should this happen? It’s like the thoughts, you can’t reconcile the thoughts. We don’t know everything. We don’t have access. But the heart forgives. The heart is bigger. The heart absorbs. Yeah.

Rollin: 30:44 Well, the heart’s intelligent.

Kimberly: 30:47 Yes.

Rollin: 30:47 It’s, you know, a lot of people, you know, have this idea of the heart being this mushy Valentine’s Day thing. That’s really not the heart I’m talking about. Um, and it’s a source of deeper intelligence. And a lot of times the, the heart’s about business, it’s about you finally gotta make some changes and bring, you know, the mind under control into alignment with, with the higher principles.

Kimberly: 31:08 Yeah.

Rollin: 31:09 And sometimes we have to make choices. The brain really doesn’t, or the mind really doesn’t wanna make. Right.

Kimberly: 31:15 And and part of the work is being able to understand. I think this is a chapter Deborah Rosman wrote in the book. She talks about, it’s sometimes it takes practice to understand when the heart is speaking to you and guiding you versus the head. Yeah. Can you talk about that a little bit wrong? Because sometimes I talk about intuition and people are like, I don’t know.

Following your deeper intuition

Rollin: 31:32 Yeah. Well, well, and frankly it does take some practice.

Kimberly: 31:35 Yeah.

Rollin: 31:36 And I, I can certainly tell stories what I thought I was following my deeper intuition and no, it was the sneaky, um, mind in there wanting to get its way. Um, you know, one of the, the founder doc children of, of Harel, he whipped out a lion, I don’t know, I haven’t forgotten it quite a while ago, but we’re talking about the, mine doesn’t wanna lose customers. So it gets pretty sneaky about, you know, getting its way and you know, cuz that’s why we’re locked in 3D for so long. But it, but it feels different when you, you start really getting onto the difference. And, and, um, usually the hard intuition’s gonna be more inclusive. It’s gonna have a, an answer. It’s usually more out of the box. Um, but at the same time, I don’t wanna make it sound like it’s always this great big, you know, new light bulb kind of thing.

32:23 A lot of times we, one of our techniques called freeze frame is really about a technique of how, how to access the heart’s deeper intuition. And we, you know, it’s amazing. We do it in these training programs and, and in five minutes we’ve got people, uh, getting insights to, to real world problems that really in their face, in their life. That is the answer of what, of their next forward movement. I won’t say everybody every time, but an amazing ratio. And I’ve, I’ve learned, especially if I’m working in law enforcement or first responder communities after that exercise, you know, rather than saying, well, how many got an insight? Um, this, you know, closed arms, nobody says anything. Right. You know, and these male dominated. But if I ask it, well, how many of you got a got a, um, an inter prompting or an insight that was something you already had been hearing from your deeper wisdom, uh, before and just didn’t wanna do it about everybody raises their hand.

Kimberly: 33:17 Hmm.

Rollin: 33:17 Right. So it, it’s, it’s always there. It’s just, you know, the, the, um, we just have to kind of shut the mind up long enough to listen.

Kimberly: 33:28 <laugh>. Well, you, you know, Roland, would you say, and you know, it’s kind of general terms in spiritual terms when we talk about the true self and the ego mm-hmm. <affirmative>, could we say the, the seed of the true self, it’s this emanation from the heart and in many ways the tricky mind, the tricky brain is

What is the seed of the True Self?

Rollin: 33:44 Yeah. Well that’s exactly what I’m saying. Okay.

Kimberly: 33:47 Good. <laugh>. Cause that’s how I’m interpreting it. Like always telling us this, that separation fear, there’s a threat. You should be more, you’re not doing enough head, head, head.

Rollin: 33:57 Yeah. No, it, the, the, it’s really the, the unbridled mind without the balance and wisdom of the, the deeper heart intelligence, that is the biggest source of stress. That’s what I’ve been saying. And what, what tends to get us in trouble

Kimberly: 34:09 With this term ego.

Rollin: 34:11 Well, I I’m not down on the ego.

Kimberly: 34:13 I, no, we’re not down on it. But sometimes it gets outta control role. You know, it’s when we

Rollin: 34:17 Well, well, exactly. That’s exactly right. That’s, but I don’t wanna, I’m not, I’m not an ego basher. No. But I am all about bringing the ego into alignment. Cause we need an ego and we need that. What we tend to think of the ego, it’s in our and our personality structures. It’s just really about bringing it into alignment with that deeper, uh, our deeper wisdom of our own, of our own higher self.

Kimberly: 34:36 Hmm. Mm-hmm. So rolin, let’s talk about something practical for our community. We have a lot of women, we have a lot of questions about just not feeling good enough. Yeah. And you know, we’re in this world of a lot of TikTok and Instagram and comparison. It’s always like, I’m not doing enough. I’m not pretty enough. I’m not skinny enough. Right. And it’s head and inte. Can you share with us how the intelligence of the heart can really help us get through these challenges that create so much suffering in the modern world?

Rollin: 35:06 Yeah. I mean, great question. And it’s, I’m just gonna be the same answer.

Kimberly: 35:11 I know, but it’s, but this is what, what people need to hear ro because, um, because the truth is there is a solution out. Uh, you know, it’s like people are always trying to get more stuff, buy more product, shine up the outside, and then it’s, you get there and then it’s never enough. Yeah. Right. Back to what Einstein’s quote, we’re not gonna solve the problem for

Rollin: 35:27 Exactly.

Kimberly: 35:28 Level of consciousness.

Rollin: 35:30 No. It, it’s, you know, from my, I mean I certainly appreciate beauty and, um, I, from my perspective, both men and women, uh, beauty is from the inside out.

Kimberly: 35:42 Yes.

Rollin: 35:44 It has everything to do with, you know, we haven’t gotten into this yet, but, but we really do have an energetic field that we can measure External Yes. Body. And you

Kimberly: 35:53 Talked about that yet. Yeah.

Rollin: 35:54 <laugh>, I know how that carries information. And that has so much to do with, with our interactions. There really is this energetic communication that’s going on. And I’m getting totally off topic by answering your question here, but it’s the, you know, the, this would get into another maybe, um, interview we can do sometime. But, uh, we’re talking about baselines, but so much of, of our beliefs and uh, way the which a directly affects how we perceive ourselves and the world has to come with basically our programming of how we’re brought up, the ads we’re seeing on tv mm-hmm. <affirmative>, our peers and so on. It, it creates a, a basically an implicit subconscious programming that, um, so self comparisons, comparison with others, it’s all nonsense. Yeah. Really. But it, but it, it’s easy to say but not so easy to reset that system and that that is gonna be, again, and my answer’s gonna be when once we align with who we really are, that deeper part of our own intuitive intelligence that starts bringing into clarity who we really are.

Kimberly: 36:59 Yes.

Rollin: 37:01 Uh, you know, whatever our body type is and what, you know, our hair color is and what we look like. And that has so much to do with what we bring to the world and especially energetically and, uh, what, what we’re feeding our field. So it’s, you know, it’s, I said it’s the same answer. It’s really opening the heart and learning to a lie. Cuz when we connect with that deeper part of our, of our undivided self that is connecting with who we really are. Yes. And, and really it starts to unfold in segments our, our true purpose, you know, of why we’re here this time around on the planet. That’s right. And what our personal mission is and what, uh, who we’re supposed to meet and align with.

Kimberly: 37:42 You know, it’s when, when the Lord told Moses I am that I am, you know, this deep confidence. It’s not, oh, I’m not confident just because I have, I’m having a great hair day or I lost five pounds, but I’m this living, breathing unique manifestation of spirit.

Rollin: 37:57 Exactly. Good.

Kimberly: 37:58 I’m unapologetically, I’m here.

Rollin: 38:00 Yeah. You know, along with that comes a self-confidence. And I would say it’s the confidence to, to really know, not just say it, but to really know that we can handle whatever comes our way. Whatever we draw from life Hmm. That we can handle, um, we’re gonna have to do it anyway. Right?

Kimberly: 38:19 Yes. And that was one of the things I wrote in my notes. Um, the heart math techniques really helpful for fear and overwhelm. Right. This resilience that’s so important to get through life when we drop into this deeper place and and really help to create that coherence and regulation, it allows us to go forward and actually get through these really challenging times.

Rollin: 38:40 Yeah. Yeah. And, and certainly that what I’m, you know, learning to, to get, uh, connected with our own deeper intelligence and hard intelligence is not gonna necessarily magically change the outside world, but it’s certainly and dramatically can change how we’re perceiving it and our ability to flow through day-to-day life with more grace and ease. And I, and I say that, I don’t say that casually cuz I get how tough it is for a lot of people right now on, on the planet. Uh, but there still is ways that we can deal with whether it’s we’re dealing with loss or a lot of the, the many challenges people have from a, a place of an inner security that, that we’re gonna get through it, that let, lets us know that and but also bring in more of the intuitive intelligence of the choices to make mm-hmm. <affirmative> get through the challenges that we have.

Kimberly: 39:27 Exactly.

Rollin: 39:28 That’s really what it’s about. Parma is very practical. It’s about navigating day-to-day life.

Kimberly: 39:33 It is practical because I think when you get overwhelmed, it feels constricted and rigid. And then the heart intelligence is, I think I wrote this down the, um, where you wrote about in the book the cortical facilitation. There’s a better range, wider range of better choices. Yeah,

Rollin: 39:48 Exactly.

Kimberly: 39:48 Opens up Yeah. Yeah, yeah. The practicality. Well, Ron, I could literally talk to you all day. I look forward to having you back on because we didn’t even talk about the electromagnetic frequency and many other things. But your work is so amazing Ro and tell us how we can learn more about heart math and the techniques.

Rollin: 40:07 Heart math.org.

Kimberly: 40:08 There you go.

Rollin: 40:09 We have a lot of resources, free resources on our website. And if I, if it’s okay, I would love to invite people to an event we’ve got coming up actually a week from today.

Kimberly: 40:18 Yes. Tell us about starts

Rollin: 40:19 Next Friday. Yeah, it’s, uh, we, we didn’t get into this at all, but one of our projects is called the Global Coherence Initiative. And this is really where we’re looking at coherence at a global scale and measuring the inter, literally measuring the rhythms of frequencies of earth’s magnetic frequencies and how we are inter relating and feeding the information back and forth between the, the global field. And so this is the, our, our only event, uh, of the year, uh, this year’s, uh, event is called Unleashing the Power of Collective Heart Intention.

Kimberly: 40:50 Amazing.

Rollin: 40:51 And manifesting a new era of care, compassion, and a cooperative world.

Kimberly: 40:55 Wow.

Rollin: 40:55 And it’s a three day, half day, three day event from, uh, nine to one 30 on, uh, uh, Pacific Time and starts next, uh, 9:00 AM next Friday, a week from today. And we’ve got an amazing lineup of speakers in addition to myself. The first day is Science Day. Uh, so we’ve got, uh, one of my kind of heroes as well. Urban Laslow, I’m sure you know Urban’s work and Yes. Just, uh, being nominated twice for Nobel Peace Prizes and I think he’s written 26 books, you know.

Kimberly: 41:25 Wow.

Rollin: 41:27 And, uh, very forward thinking systems theorist and, and myself and, and, uh, one of, uh, our, our scientist, um, we’re talking about a new project that we’ve inherited that’s really exciting. The Global Consciousness Project 2.0, uh, on that first day. And then we’ve got, uh, Lin Twist, you probably know when this works. She’s one of the speakers on the second day and, and, um, uh, a senator, uh, Patricia Pel, who’s a state senator from Illinois. Uh, how he’s bringing this work into government. Uh,

Kimberly: 41:57 Wow.

Rollin: 41:58 That kind of thing. Um, and, uh, anyway, just a whole bunch of neat speakers like that. Uh, we’ll go some incredible, and of course, Debbie, Deborah Rosman, Howard Martin will be, be speaking and, and, uh, so, and this is our one event that that really, um, helps support the nonprofit that, the specifically the global, uh, coherence initiative work and the, the global scale work we’re doing.

Kimberly: 42:19 Amazing. The event sounds amazing. Ra And I’ll definitely be, I’ll be participating. I’ll be there every day and we’ll link to it. We’ll link to it, everyone in the show notes so that you can, you know, go through the link and sign up and be part of this amazing event. Yeah. And everything that you guys put out is fascinating. The hard intelligence book came to me on Friday and by I think Saturday morning before my kids were awake, I was done. Like I couldn’t

Rollin: 42:45 Wow.

Kimberly: 42:45 That. All the videos on your website, everything is so just like you said, practical, useful, and important for today. So count on me, we’re all to be a hundred <laugh> a hundred million ties behind you as your big supporter. And, um, thank you again so much for this incredible conversation and sharing your wisdom about the heart and heart intelligence and coherence.

Rollin: 43:07 It’s been my, my honor actually, um, to speak to you and your, and your audience and uh, I hope we can do it again sometime. We got a lot of topics we only didn’t even touch on yet. Oh,

Kimberly: 43:17 We got a lot here. Thank you so much again, Rolin.

Rollin: 43:20 All right. You have a great rest of your day.

Kimberly: 43:22 You too.

I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Roland as much as I completely and thoroughly enjoyed speaking with this kind, brilliant man, this who has such a expansive vision for the world and what’s possible through love, compassion, unity, and kindness. So please be sure to head over to heartmath.org to check out their incredible events and training programs, and definitely check out the Heart Intelligence book.

We will link to all of this in the show notes as well as other shows. I think you would enjoy articles, meditations, recipes, and so on. Thank you again so much for being part of the community. It means the world, and I am always here listening, so you can always submit questions or reach out to me on social media or leave a comment on, um, one of the articles or blogs I write on the website. There’s many ways to connect and just know that I am here listening and I’m here to support always. So we’ll be back here Thursday for our next q and a show. Till then, have a wonderful week. Take great care of your precious self and see you back here soon. With much love and much gratitude. Namaste.

The post How Science backs The Joy of Living a Heart-Based Life with Rollin McCraty [Episode #773] appeared first on Solluna by Kimberly Snyder.