Know Thyself - E112 - Kimberly Snyder: Re-Awakening The Lost Power of Our HEART to HEAL, Connect & Remember

Episode Date: September 3, 2024

Author and holistic-wellness expert Kimberly Snyder reveals the ancient teachings of the 5 hearts and how we can use this yogic science to awaken our true power. She explains the concept of heart coherence and why integrating the heart's intelligence with our mind is essential for personal growth and fulfillment.She guides us through the stages of heart awakening, defining each stage, and detailing the factors that contribute to our journey toward achieving the 'Clear Heart' stage. She explores how to transcend hustle culture and become magnetic to your dreams, cultivate authenticity, and foster true kindness. Additionally, she highlights the importance of healing relationships through heart-centered practices.Kimberly also leads us through a guided practice designed to awaken heart coherence, empowering you to connect deeply with your inner wisdom.André's Book Recommendations: https://www.knowthyself.one/books___________0:00 Intro 1:46 Defining Heart Coherence3:37 Going From Mind-Identification to the Heart7:19 Awakening the Heart's Intelligence12:57 Discovering the 5 Stages of Heart Awakening 17:08 1st Stage - the Dark Heart (Ignorance)22:18 2nd stage - the Propelled Heart (Seeking Truth)24:52 Becoming Magnetic to Your Dreams29:51 From Hustling to Equanimity 33:01 3rd Stage - Steady Heart (Coherence & Personal Power)38:45 Rewiring Your Brain and Awakening Coherence42:20 4th Stage - the Devoted Heart (Intuition Awakens)46:12 Authenticity & Cultivating True Kindness53:09 5th Stage - the Clear Heart (Oneness)57:22 Guided Practice for Awakening Heart Coherence1:08:39 Healing Relationships through Heart Work1:12:21 Fundamental Pillars of Physical Health1:19:26 Raising Collective Consciousness1:22:47 Conclusion___________Kimberly Snyder is a multiple time New York Times best-selling author, holistic wellness expert and nutritionist, international speaker and meditation teacher. She has authored seven previous books, including Radical Beauty, which she co-authored with Deepak Chopra, and You Are More Than You Think You Are: Practical Enlightenment for Everyday Life. She is also the founder of Solluna, a holistic lifestyle brand. Kimberly is the host of the top-rated Feel Good Podcast.Kimberly has worked with dozens of top celebrities to feel their best, including Drew Barrymore, Reese Witherspoon, and Channing Tatum, and is regularly featured on numerous national media outlets, including Good Morning America, the Today Show, the New York Times, Vogue, and the Wall Street Journal. Kimberly resides in Los Angeles and Hawaii with her husband and children.New Book "The Hidden Power of the Five Hearts": https://mysolluna.com/fiveheartsbook/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_kimberlysnyder/Solluna by Kimberly Snyder: https://mysolluna.com/___________Know ThyselfInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/Website: https://www.knowthyself.oneClips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ4wglCWTJeWQC0exBalgKgListen to all episodes on Audio: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4FSiemtvZrWesGtO2MqTZ4?si=d389c8dee8fa4026Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/know-thyself/id1633725927André DuqumInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/

There's this real practical power of awakening the heart. The numbers for anxiety and depression are skyrocketing. Anxiety is on the rise with so many people. That number's trending up. Somewhere along the way, we've just come to overvalue the mind and the brain, and we see the effects today. I think that's one of the reasons there's so much confusion and fear and low energy. When I came across this work around heart coherence, it changed everything.

At a certain point, we all get tired of suffering. In a certain point, we say, I got to change my life. Lightbulb after light bulb, Andre, was like, oh, my gosh, everybody needs to know about this. This is so powerful. It's like the solution is right here. The science actually corresponded to these five stages. So we can all tap in. And that's what's really exciting about this work as well.

So you ready? Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Know Thyself. Our guest today is a New York Times bestselling author, holistic wellness expert, and nutritionist. And this conversation in particular is going to be very focused around the power and the intelligence of our heart. We live in a time where we are very overly identified with the mind and our logic and planning our whole existence. And the more that we grow on our spiritual path, and as a human being, we start to unveil the power that lies within us. And so I'm really excited

to dive into that conversation today with Kimberly Snyder. Thanks for being here. Andre, it's so great to be here. Thank you so much. here we are the synchronicities that led up here yes you know it just feels really good and congrats on the release of your new book thank you so much how do you define the heart because i think especially like spiritual communities or personal development industries it's it can be this lofty term how do you define when we use the term the heart in this conversation yes thank you so much so andre when we're talking about the heart we're talking about of course the physical beating organ of the heart, but also the heart as more than a physical organ,

an energetic power place. We could say it's a gateway as it's been defined in ancient cultures and spiritual traditions around the world. I often think that people think of the heart sort of in this romantic or sentimental way. But the reason I am so excited to talk about heart intelligence is that there's this real practical power of awakening the heart in our lives. Scientifically, the heart is also a brain, which I didn't realize until a few years ago. It has 40,000 neurons. It actually sends more messages to the brain in our head than vice versa. So I got into this when I found a piece of research, when I was actually writing my last book a few years ago,

and it took me down this rabbit hole into the science. into the ancient teachings, which I think are so needed today. And as we'll get into through our conversation, the heart can elevate your health, can elevate your mental clarity, your hormones, your immunity. So much comes from the heart. But to be clear, we're talking about the physical heart and this energetic center,

which is more than just a physical organ as well. So we're referring to both the biological organ and then also the magnetic field that emanates from it, but then also like the, I guess, philosophical understanding of who we truly are in a way. That's right. So in the last, let's say 100 years or so, there's been so much emphasis on the brain, on thinking, right? I think, therefore, I am this idea of, you know, more planning, more rationalization. But if you step back before this more modern era, and we look back to the ancient Egyptians

who did not remove the heart when they made mummies, they believed it was necessary for the afterlife. If you look at the ancient Babylonians, the Greeks, if you look at all world religions, the sacred heart of Jesus Christ, the word Kalb mentioned 132 times in the Quran, the word for heart, Lev in the Torah, the Anahata chakra,

the Heart Sutra, and Buddhism. There's been this honoring of the heart as a very special place in the body that's believed to be a gateway to higher self, true self, the soul, however you like to conceive of it. So that's what's so exciting about this intersection where science comes in, and it's like, whoa, the heart forms in the fetus before the brain forms. All of us that are parents, you see that beating heart before the brain is even, you know, coming about.

The first organ to form in the fetus too. This incredible intelligence that's coming from right here. And so as you and I were speaking a little bit of, bit before the show, it's like a critical time for us to wake up this intelligence, which has definitely dramatically changed my life. And I've been in wellness now for, you know, 13, going on 14 years. There's just so much practical benefits to awakening the heart brain and the heart center across our lives. Why do you think we've become so overly identified with logic and the intellect? So, you know, what's interesting today,

Andre, is that there's so much, there's billions of dollars in wellness, right? And then there's still sky, like the numbers for anxiety and depression are skyrocketing, the numbers for autoimmune disease and just all these stress-related disorders is through the roof. So somewhere along the way, we came to really value the brain and the thinking and the planning and the overthinking. So what's amazing about this work is that we're not saying. that the brain isn't important. The science of heart coherence is actually harnessing the heart brain with the brain up here in your nervous system.

So you start to feel more in flow and more in harmony. For whatever reason, as societies become more modern and fast-paced, we've just come to overvalue the mind and the brain. And we see the effects today. I think that's one of the reasons there's so much confusion and fear. and low energy. And so I'm really passionate about this work because it's like the solution is right here. It's right in our hearts. We just have to learn how to unlock the heart brain through really simple but powerful practices that are based in science and ancient teachings. And it makes a huge

difference. I've been bringing this to my clients. I've seen the huge difference in my life. So it's really exciting. There's a whole different way of living without changing the outer circumstances in your life, but that it tends to shift and change as we change from inside. I love that. I really feel, I mean, we just live in an education system that is brought up to really value IQ and that sort of intelligence through the intellect, which is so valuable. And I love how you're just inviting to come back into the unification between both to find that heart, brain, coherence, and harmony. And your life will exponentially get better by doing so. A lot of people are familiar with IQ, less, but more and more are becoming familiar with EQ.

and emotional intelligence. I would just love for you to speak to what is the heart's intelligence when we say that. What is that? So the heart's intelligence is this, so first of all, when we go into this, which we can maybe do a practice later on, Andre,

it's this feeling of expansion. So again, there's 40,000 neurons in the heart. And when we start, the heart is also the main biological oscillator in the body, meaning it sets the rhythms. So all of us know that experience of being caught in a whirlwind of thought. thoughts and we keep thinking the same thing and maybe we fixate the amygdala, the part of our brain

that stores emotional memories, attaches significance. So suddenly, you know, someone pushes in front of us in line at the coffee shop and we get really angry because it reminds us of something from our childhood or way we were treated by a caregiver. When we go into the heart, it's this profound shift in perceptions, right? This is what the science shows. So the book is called The in power the five hearts because there's five heart stages. There's five different realities. There's five different levels of awakening. So heart intelligence is when we start to change our perceptions. It's like zooming out. You start to see more. So spiritually, this means as the heart awakens, your third eye can start to awaken, meaning you see yourself more clearly. You can see

through to what another person really is on the inside or what they're trying to say, not so literal, like the mind and the ego, heart intelligence gives you emotional intelligence, which ironically, we put so much emphasis on IQ, but all the research shows, starting from David Goldman's book in 1990, that emotional intelligence is more equated with success in the workplace. It's more equated with actual financial material success. So as you start to awaken, again, this heart brain, You start to step into a different type of perception and you can see more. You can find a way to peace and unity. There's more creativity.

There's more ability to forge bridges. I've seen this in my own workplace. You can communicate more clearly. You can understand what to say. And it gives you this slowing down. So you're not as reactive. One of the parts about heart coherence is that you are able to harm and respond more and flow and pivot versus constantly going into that reactivity or that

agitated thing to say, which blocks your abundance. It blocks your success. So heart intelligence is just a very, it's just a much more expansive, abundant place that you can start to be moment to moment. I really feel that the more we quiet the mind, the more that our sensitivity of our gut and our intelligence of the body and the heart start to come online, that makes perfect sense, the more successful you'll be in the world because you're more aware and sensitive to the stimulus that's coming in the conversations and how people are truly feeling versus what they're saying. Yes. And I think living from that place of sensitivity where you actually harness it and you're not, you know, where a lot of people who are overly depressed or stress maybe are bogged

down by their emotional state, you can harness your sensitivity in a way that it's, you know, think is truly liberating. And you start to, again, like you said, zoom out and perceive the grander whole of what's happening in different dynamics. So I've always been a fan of Eckhart Tolly, right, who's always saying, go beyond thinking, go beyond thinking. So I would read his books and I'd listen to some of his talks. I'd say, oh, that sounds so good. But then when I would try to do it, I think for most of us, we're in the thoughts, right? Or we hear this idea of like, be mindful, be aware, be present. there's truth in that, but actually living it and embodying it is another thing. So when I can, and I've been meditating now for over, you know, 15 years, when I came across

this work around heart coherence, it changed everything because we're going to a different place to find the solution than where the challenges. In this case, the challenges the thoughts, the overthinking mind, the reactions, the wounds, which bring the past into this present moment. So when we come down into our hearts and we start to turn on heart coherence again, really simple but powerful ways, we change how we perceive things. When we change how we perceive things, we change our thoughts. That's why the subtitle of the book is empower your thoughts. Instead of taking you so personally or like you did this to me, like the egoic, I'll get you back or this sucks or whatever resistances we have, which take us down the stress response pathway, we change our thoughts, which changes our feelings and a emotions and then ultimately the actions we take and ultimately our lives. So this is what's so powerful, Andre, is the heart gives us this stable, anchor, steady heart, this different place where we can really start to change our patterns and change our lives. It's amazing. It comes from

inside. I've always talked about beauty from the inside out. Health from the inside out vitality from the inside out. But this really starts to change. Like we said, emotional intelligence. It starts to change your ability to attract opportunities to you, to create better work outcomes, to attract more love, healthier relationships. It's really powerful. There's so many implications. And as we dive deeper into heartbrain coherence of the implications of this, I want to start to slaying the framework and the foundation for the five hearts, which I would love to hear how you got inspired from Sri Yik Deswar, because it's also another synchronicity as I was reading the holy science. as you reached out and then your book is largely inspired by his teachings as well there.

And so anything about how that came to be. And then let's start with the first stage. Yes. So I was writing my last book, as I mentioned, and I came across a piece of research that really blew me away. It was talking about the resonance of the heart field being 100 times stronger than the brain and that it's measurable and all this amazing information about the heart. So I started going down the rabbit hole from the science perspective. I've always incorporated quite a bit of science in my books.

And then fast forward to I actually contacted the Heart Math Institute, who was doing a lot of this research, and we connected, we did a podcast exchange. We ended up doing a study together, research study on heart coherence with some of the tools in the book. So that was happening. And parallel to that, I have always been a student of Paramahansa Yoga Nanda's, who I've been practicing Korea yoga now for about 15 years. His guru, Yoga Nanda, for anyone who's not familiar, brought yoga to the West. And his guru, Swami Shuryuk Teshawar, wrote one book called The Holy Science. And, you know, it's like at the same time, I can't explain it exactly, Andre, but I started getting drawn. into this book. And I was, you know, going and down the science pathway and all that. But there was a period, and it would have been about almost three years ago where I was sitting in my hammock in Hawaii, where we have a little farm.

And I was reading that book over and over again, like any spare moment I had. And I have young kids, but I was up in the middle of the night. I wake up at three in the morning. And I was just really trying to absorb what he was saying. He was a very, he was said to be a very stern yogi. He read an ashram, but it was also said that he had the love of a thousand mothers. And so in this book, he writes about these five stages that we all go through to awaken the heart, these five stages of human heart awakening. And that was the part of the book that really got my interest. So I was reading about it from this Vedic standpoint, Chwameh Shriq Deshwar, was a Vedic scholar and a mystic. And he was a had a deep understanding these really ancient teachings. And the book is written in Shloka format, similarly to the Bhagavah Gita and these ancient texts. And as I was going into the science, this light bulb went off in my head, which was that the science actually corresponded to these five

stages. And again, that's what we're seeing more and more with modern science, whether it's, you know, studying the benefits of ashriganda or turmeric or these ancient practices like, you know, acupuncture, there's this lining up. So these five stages of the human heart, we can go through them, but it starts with the dark heart. Scientifically, this is a state of incoherence when the heart and brain aren't communicating all the way to the fifth stage, which is the clear heart, which is known in science as heart brain harmony. So I was just light bulb after light bulb, and I was like, oh my gosh, everybody needs to know about this. This is so powerful. This is inside of us, right? And this isn't buying a fancy biohacking device.

or having to eat, you know, a bunch of specific foods. There's this power center that, you know, he talks about in the book, there's these dark ages. We could argue now that most of society is in the dark heart where there's a lot of ego. There's, you know, and I get goosebumps thinking about there's just a lot of fear. There's separation. People are harming other groups of people. So we awaken the heart. This could not be possible, right?

So we're at this critical time where, as Shwamy Shri Dishwar says, this was written, the text, we can start to awaken into a different age, the more of us individually, that awaken our hearts. Amazing. So the first stage is the state of ignorance, essentially darkness, where you're clouded over, you're veiled through Maya. You don't experience the truth of who you are, and that manifests in the various different actions, the people that you hang around, the food that you eat, so many different

things externally and internally. And I think that so many of us have experienced this in our own personal journey, whether it's the drinking days in college or whatever it might be where we didn't know what we didn't know, you know, we were in this unconscious incompetence. And so from going from there to the propelled heart, anything you want to share about your own personal journey going from that, and then also for people that are listening that, you know, I feel like most people that listen to this podcast have clearer hearts, I would think, that are tapping into these conversations. But I also do feel that we're at kind of different places within different areas of our life.

Exactly. So to be clear, these five heart stages, which are dark, propelled, steady, devoted, and clear are stages that we can flow in and out of, right? So we may feel really steady in ourselves. But then we get a flash of, you know, something comes up. We get a flash of fear. Maybe we see something about the election or the news or, you know, something going on across the world or something going on in our families or just anything. I still get dark hard moments. I think most, all of us. really do until we get to, you know, really high stage of enlightenment and, you know, the journey continues for all of us. So it's not that, oh, I never experienced that again. That's why the book is set up to read each chapter and each heart stage, to understand what to do to get out faster. So what I've experienced is you get out faster and faster into the higher heart stages, and you also don't get triggered as often because awareness grows through the teachings and through the practices. What happens is your coherence capacity grows, so you just become more resilient, right? But in a day, you could experience any one of the heart stages, although you tend to

inhabit one stage primarily. Now, you know, the steady heart is a really big shift. The devoted heart, which we'll get into, is a really big shift. The clear heart stage is like, you know, the highest, but even the highest, we can experience in flashes or moments like you're washing the dishes and you're kind of out of time and space and you're just feeling this lightness without thoughts or you're looking into your child's eyes or your dog's eyes right so it's not inaccessible but what we do with this work is that we tend to inhabit one stage more and more um so back to the dark heart it's i want to say as you know as lost as you may feel we go through these periods sometimes which can feel really dark and dark not isn't bad or evil dark like the lights aren't turned out

lack of light. Can't see, right? It's like if I try to walk across this room and we turn off these lights, I might trip, I might hit my head on the, you know, on the, on the wall over there. And so you end up hurting yourself. And you can often hurt other people unknowingly or unconsciously. So without being able to see ourselves clearly, we can say harsh things. We can tell ourselves that we're not good enough. There's a lot of fear, a lot of confusion, a lot of low energy. From an Ari-Vedic standpoint, we could say there's a lot of tamasic energy, this slothfulness, and we don't feel our purpose, right? There's just like a lot of low energy. What it would say in the Vedic text, what Shami Shri Yicheshwar says, is it's also an awakening point because when you do, at a certain

point, we all get tired of suffering. At a certain point, we say, I got to change my life. So the dark heart is a way to grow. Contrast. It shows us that there is a way. we have to get out. And what's amazing about this heartwork is as dark as we feel, your heart energy, your heart intelligence can always be awakened. It's always inside of you. So in this chapter, we explore very preliminary practices, like even just starting to focus on your heart, right? There's research from the American Journal of Cardiology, published research that shows right now, Andre, you and me talking and anyone listening, as you're listening, just to shift some of your awareness to your heart. You can even touch your heart. I teach this to my kids. Touch your heart

or focus part of your attention on your heart. This alone starts to rewire your nervous system. This alone starts to sync up those 40,000 neurons, these neural pathways between your heart and your brain. So little by little, we start to do these practices. You start to, it's like turning on different lights so you can start to move through the darkness into the next heart stage. Or again, when it occurs in the middle of the night, sometimes I'm like, oh my gosh, you know, the fear comes up. There's things in our consciousness. And so you start to do these practices and come into that heart, come out of the darkness, out of the thoughts more and more. Amazing. So that, yeah, those moments where we fall back into those times of unconsciousness,

then provide us the contrast of experience where we may feel tired of being tired. And we start to go on the journey of the propelled heart. And so what is that? Yeah. So the propelled heart when you think about propelled right there's motion there's action so shwamy shriq dasha teaches us that there's seeking energy we're seeking truth we're trying to seek finding out what life is all about why am i here what you know what's how do i feel worthy where how do i feel validated yeah we've become like ignited ignited so there's so much more energy than the dark heart but andre there's also a lot of restlessness right so we see a lot of this play out in the world we see it on social media, you know, look at me, ego, right? How do I look like to other people? There's this

can go into obsession and the imbalance of I need my body to look better and better. I need more and more followers. I need to make more money. I need to check the things off the list. There's a lot of planning because the mind likes plans. You know, I'm supposed to be married and have three kids by the time I'm 35. I'm supposed to be at a certain point in my career. Just to buy a house by this point. So there's a lot of stress that can accrue at this stage. There can be a lot of burnout, insomnia, anxiety, always feeling on and never feeling content. So scientifically, the dark heart is incoherence, right? If we were to look at HRV patterns, it would be very inconsistent. In the propelled heart, there's more energy. There's just a bit more coherence. But because of all

these reasons because there's often that burnout and that always on that grinding we deplete ourselves there's inflammation there's you know gut issues there's a lot of depleted energy and there's very little peace so if we look at society individually and collectively we can see that there's a lot of dark heart and propelled heart energy playing out in the collective so there's still a lot of suffering and there isn't real enjoyment of life for many yeah i also feel like when I reflect back on periods where I was in that energy and times where I slip back into that kind of energy, I just look at the difference between how the mind tries to plan and organize to achieve things versus the heart can tap into a feeling and receive and receive things.

And I feel like as you start to awaken to more of your true nature and you start to tap into the intelligence of your heart, you start to find regulation in your nervous system at a baseline level, like you start to find more ease in your system. there is a whole different place from which you're manifesting your reality in terms of your career, success, your finances, your relationship, everything. And I would just love for you to speak to that, how the more we tap into the heart and as we go kind of up through these stages of, you know, stages of consciousness essentially, the place in which we attract things, people, places and opportunities, radically changes. So it's funny, like when you go on a hike, right, Andre, at least imagine any of us going to hike or a walk, you can only see what you can only see what you can.

can see. Right. So at the bottom of the hike, you see the parking lot or you see kind of like the little shrubs I'm thinking about in California where we live. And then as you start to go along the walk, the view changes, right? This is sort of like I think about the awakening of the heart and the five heart stages. Your perceptions of life radically change. So it's like you're living in a different reality. And so because you're in a different reality, because you are different, you also start to change your life. So I'll give you a more concrete example. When I think about the periods, when I was in the dark heart, I think about how hard life seemed. And the only little lift I could get would be, you know, I used to drink quite heavily and had these partying times. I also think about the

relationships that I was in. Because there was so much fear, I chose really nice, but really safe guys that loved me a lot more than I loved them because there was a fear of abandonment. from my childhood. So I didn't want to be, you know, abandoned. So the fear predominated. So that's what I was creating in my life. And it was also just, you could just see there was limitations in my work and what I was creating. And then when a lot of my life, to be honest, was in the propelled heart, you know, perfectionism, always needing to be number one in the class and always needing to get more and more in the planning and everything. And then it's like there's so little piece at this stage for most of us, it's like these little ups and downs, the dopamine

rush. It's like, oh, look how many people loved this post or this thing did really well, but then there's the big downs. We let the ups in, we let the downs in, like, oh, like this didn't do as well as I wanted, or, you know, this person didn't ask me out a second date on, you know, whatever Bumble or whatever dating app you're on. And so the relationships I chose in that stage were fitting into the plan like my ex, right? We knew the same people. We went to the same event. I was like all so, you know, fun and fancy. It just kind of fit in. But there wasn't that deep connection. There was this still trying to fill. There wasn't that fulfillment, right? And so we see it in our lives play out. And so as we start to go into the steady heart and beyond, your life really does

radically change in a way that you can't see yet from the earlier fields. Another thing I think maybe we might mention before we go into the other heart fields is the heart field. Can I show you here in the book? We still have the galley here. So this was one of the first ways I started to learn about the power of the heart. And, you know, for anyone's struggling, I start to realize. Put it on screen. Yeah. There is. Even right now when we're sitting, there's a tourist field coming out of the heart, and it's going beyond our skin where we think we end, eight to ten feet, and it's going out and around, and it's a hundred times stronger than the brain. So it's really amazing about this heart awakening work.

We talk about coherence. It means your personal field becomes more harmonious and strong. This literally means, Andre, from a scientific perspective, that you become more magnetic. So it means people start to come to you. Like, hey, you know, what are you up to? You're just, I don't know, how can I help you? I want to be part of what you're doing. You know, just things naturally start to come. More coincidence, synchronicities.

Synchronicities. I talk about the, you know, when I was in a clear heart moment in the book, I talk about how I ran into Deepak Chopra on the street after he had reviewed one of my books, but I had never met him in person. And from that one meeting, we met for coffee. We decided to write a book together, which later became a New York Times bestseller. these are things that the mind can't plan. Energy doesn't lie. So when you're in the dark heart and the propelled heart and you're just feeling like you're hustling all the time and that you can't quite get to that

success that you want. You're not meeting the right partner. You really want a family. You really want love. You start to work on this incredible heart resonance, it's intelligence inside of you. And then all of a sudden, things start to shift and change on the outside. And this has been my personal experience. This has been the experience of all the people I've been bringing this to. It's so amazing, Andre, because, again, the perception from the dark and the propelled heart is like, got to work harder, more, you know, self-help books, more motivational talks, like just more stuff versus, oh, there's this energy that I can start to work with inside of me. I love the Taoist saying, the master does nothing yet leaves nothing undone. And it's one of my favorite texts. Yeah. And it's, it's really arriving at that

as you start to race through these different stages. You do experience more coincidence, synchronicity, bumping into people on the street, and you go from the logical intellectual planning of your whole life to really allowing yourself to be surprised by something greater than you could dream of. And that's a really beautiful place to be. Because your perceptions change as your heart awakens,

your thoughts change. And that also means incredible creativity and incredible, this creative power awakens, which leads you to inspired action. So it's not that you sit back and you're like, oh, my heart's awakened, everything's going to come to me. What it does mean is that you start to do things in a very different way. You don't have to go about the same arduous uphill.

Like the mind is very step by step. I have to do this. Then I'm going to be promoted to this stage. Or I have to go on 50 dates statistically before I meet my partner, whatever it is. The heart is nonlinear and dynamic. There is a force that comes through. So the other thing, Andre, in our culture, in the Western world in general, there's this idea of like, you know, this is where a lot of the, you know, motivational thinking talks and programs comes from, which can be helpful for some people.

But it's often like, I have to awaken, you know, me. Like, you know, the movies like the diehard movies, it's like, I have the power. I woke up. Like, I can save the planet or like, I can save the building. It's like me, my power, whereas the awakening heart starts to realize more and more, the clear heart, that there's a power moving through me, right? The Tao is like allowing this force to move through you. So it's non-specific and it's not personal. There's more ego in it.

Like, oh, I'm so awakened. I'm so enlightened. Me, me, me. Versus we're all in this. This is moving through me. That heart field I showed you, it's like, oh, I'm tapping into a different. energy field. So it's not like, oh, I'm the source of these miracles and synchronicities. It's that we're operating at a different frequency where things like that tend to happen for anyone who chooses

to operate at that frequency. So we can all tap in. And that's what's really exciting about this work as well. Incredible. So I think a lot of us in this propelled stage, like I think so many of us can relate to this hustle, improvement oriented kind of outlook and mindset on the world. And then you start to come into more of this like equanimity and cultivate into the steady heart. I think it's so so interesting how you share that the more that we tap into our heart, the stronger our heart in our troyal field that it produces literally gets and the emit the light that is emitted from it is actually stronger, both literally, physically, scientifically, and metaphorically, we become a bigger magnet for these things to come into our life and draw them in.

and then we start to come to this place where our relationship with the desire, I feel like, changes in the steady heart. And so I would love for you to share more about the stage three, the third heart. And also what happens in this shift between propelled and steady is that there is an enormous reduction in stress. So I want to point that out really practically because stress depletes our bodies. Displeat, you know, stress is, you know, probably the biggest killer of our day. It means to inflammation and all these different illnesses. So in the propelled heart, there's that constant, like you were saying under, like, like friction, resistance, upset when things don't go exactly our way.

In microways, like, oh, I didn't get a lot of comments on my post to macro ways. Like, oh, my gosh, I didn't get that job. I was so set on getting or this one project didn't work out or whatever it is. There's all these upsets and resistances. So I love how the science shows as well because it's such a big thing for most of us. Doing these heart practices, which we could share about in just a moment, in just a month of doing them, the research based on the book, there was a 23% reduction in cortisol and a 100% increase in DHA. So cortisol is a stress hormone. It does everything from makes our belly fat get bigger to create wrinkles in our skin to inflammation.

DHEA is vitality. DHA is precursor hormone. It's for fertility and energy and reducing fatigue. So we're talking about this measurable heart field. We're also talking about inside of you. Your hormones are changing from awakening your heart. I mean, it's amazing. Inflammation is going down. These incredible biological changes are coming, which practically speaking, more focus, more clarity, better sleep, just more enjoyment in your day-to-day life. This continues as we go into stage three, which in the book is called Steady Heart and also from a scientific perspective is coherence is starting to really take hold. It means like your heart and brains is starting to sink up. So there's less of this going in different pathways. I'd love to read you this quote, Andre, which is one of my favorite ones in the book. Sri Hedeshwar teaches that the core essentials of life are sat existence, which we all have. Everyone listening to this or watching this, you and I, cheat consciousness and nanda bliss. These three are the real necessities of the human heart and have nothing to do with anything outside of himself.

So think about that for a minute. Feel that that propelled heart is like, I need this. I need you to like me. I need you to think I'm important. I need you to validate me. I need you to like me on social media or in life. I need you to love me. I need you.

I need this. I need to have a certain kind of house. I need to get that watch. I need. When you get to this place in heart, coherence and there's this sinking up inside of you and energetically and spiritually your heart starts to awaken, you realize one of the most powerful principles, the most powerful qualities, is self-reliance. My older son's name is Emerson. He's named after Ralph Waldo Emerson,

who wrote the essay, self-reliance, this idea that we are self-sustaining, unique, incredibly powerful beings. So what happens in the steady heart is not only just co-reliance, coherence grow. Not only does your health grow, success grows and also true connection. When we need people to like us, there's attachment and this weighs down our energy. There's this friction. There's this up and down. There's chaos. There's stress. Connection means, I'm good, but I would love to share this with you. I would love to share life with you. I would love to deepen our friendship. I'd love to be in a relationship with you without the neediness. So you know what, Andre, people lean into that. People want to be part of your work project.

People feel that different energetic shift. And it changes outcomes. It changes our health. It changes our thoughts, our clarity, and personal power really grows. It really feels that success born out of ego will always fall down and cause suffering. But success born out of you being an expression of who you truly are and what you're here to share will only bring more life. We'll only bring more love into the world. And that doesn't mean everything is going to always be puppies and rainbows.

you know but there there will be a deeper acknowledgement of the intelligence that is moving through life and that there is a grander plan than we can conceptually ever understand and we start to like stop labeling and judging whatever happens in our reality as good or good or bad when it comes right but we start to see this continual unfolding and this play of life and i love the referring to shriyak to swera's understanding of satchitinanda and how these truth, consciousness, and bliss, or existence being truth, consciousness, and bliss, are all things that our heart ultimately longs for and are all things that are ultimately self-sourced internally,

which means that we don't have to go get a PhD somewhere. We don't have to find the right personality or relationship or the right career path. These things will be beautiful, I think, fragrances from our being or things that we attract and magnetize from our heart. but they are all qualities that we can source from within, which is just a really freeing, liberating understanding. It's liberating and it's so practical.

Because like I said, many of us hear these things like, you know, just be yourself, you know, love yourself, you're worthy in yourself. Like you don't need all this stuff. But it's really hard when we're operating from such a mind-centric place because the amygdala keeps going off all the time, remembering like when we wanted to be loved as a child, and we didn't get that love. And so we're chasing it our whole lives or whatever wound, something happened in school. So we're sort of recreating this over and over again. So neuroplasticity doesn't just refer to the rewiring of your brain. Neuroplasticity, very importantly, with this heart coherence work, means you're rewiring these heart-brain connections. So this is why people can start. to blast through old patterns in a relatively short amount of time versus years of talk therapy, right? And I'm not saying talk therapy can't be important. But there's a, again, we're going

back to this different reality, this different perception, these shifts. So the study that we did with the Heart Math Institute was our heart-aligned meditation study, which is a less than eight-minute meditation, which is introduced in the dark heart chapter, but it's meant to be practiced. Long-term, It's relatively short, and it uses these heart coherence tools as well as some of the ancient teachings from Yogananda and Sri Yuchashwar. And what we found in this study in four weeks, all we did was give people this meditation track. And we said, hey, practice this four to five times a week.

We brought them in and we measured their HRV patterns with really sensitive, professional M-Wave pro equipment. So not like aura rings, but things that were much more moment-to-moment sensitive. And then we brought them back after 30 days. In four weeks, just by going in, Andre, there was a on average 29% increase in coherence. That's massive. That means almost a third more clarity, hormonal balance, better gut health, focus, lighter thoughts, emotional intelligence. I often say to Dr. McCready, the scientist, I say, what if we did this for two months?

What if we kept going in the research? It just shows how powerful we can start to rewire so that we can actually live these principles that we've heard, you know, to be self-reliant, to not to drop attachments. It's one thing to say them, but to actually experience it and embody it is a whole other thing. It's the best ride to be on to see what becomes unlocked as you start to like sit with yourself and do these practices.

Yes. Whether it's crea yoga or simpler practices of just shifting your focus and feeling and attention into your heart and your breath, you start to tap into these states of consciousness, which eventually can be this stage of consciousness in which you inhabit and being more into like the devoted heart, which is where we're going next. Yes, and I'd love to do a practice with you after these hearts, Andre,

because it's, so yes, there's different practices and some meditations are more disassociative, right? They're for relaxing. Let me imagine I'm at a happy waterfall, different from where the body is. But what we're doing with heart coherence is very specific, and we're activating the heart in a very specific way and it's also the center of our power because so much of this is being really present, not in the reactions of the past, not up in the mind thinking while I'm talking to

you, not really listening. It's right here. And so it's such a specific, simple. This is what blue is so simple but powerful. So we'll go there. But yes, the devotional heart is a very state of high heart awakening. And what's amazing about the science is this is where intuition starts to really turn on. So as we go up, emotional intelligence starts to really come and play.

We're not the same reactions. We're actually able to intuit our own feelings and emotions and create self-awareness, self-awareness of how best to communicate, to express our needs, but still keep healthy boundaries and to not be overly emotional. That's the other thing about the hearts. And people think, oh, these big emotions, like anger, resentment, jealousy, and these are not of the heart. These are actually of the erratic ego, which isn't yet harnessed to the heart.

So the devotional heart is where coherence gets really high. And we can see this in measurable ways, the heart field, which is measurable by sensitive, scientific equipment known as magnetometers, which measure magnetic fields. we start to see a real strengthening in your heart field as well. So this is where one of the practices in this chapter is a six-part practice to deeply forgive. Because it's like you take out the surface thorns and some of the reactivity, but there are deeper blocks which can hold us back. And from a mental place, maybe you can never let that go. Maybe even forgiving yourself for things you've done or other people in your life.

But from the heart, from this place of coherence, you can start to create these really big shifts, which add up to huge vibrational shifts. It's like unlocking more and more of the rocks that are damming up the river, right? We're just taking things out more and more. This is where your intuition really grows. So I'm actually teaching a master class to Entrepreneur magazine on the science of the devotional heart and intuition from a very practical business standpoint. because our creativity and our ability to feel beyond, yes, look at this chart or like pro-con lists, very rational, there's this gut feeling, this heart-gut feeling, right? The gut is actually the third brain. So there's practices in the book as well that align the heart and the gut so that we can have this real clarity of deeper knowing what's right for us. So this is where we become more devoted to not just anchored to the inner heart and to the inner world and to the heart, which is the steady heart, but we become more devoted, meaning devoted to peace, devoted to love and care and compassion and these heart-based qualities.

These become the most important thing. It's not just checking things off. It's not just rushing through our day or like, hey, look at the end result. but how much are we really enjoying our days, our moments, our relationships, right? So, and then the ironic thing is because there's so much coherence at the devoted heart stage, we tend to really create so much more abundance and success on the outside world. It feels like that commitment or devotion to becoming an integrated and embodied human being, you start to see less of a difference between your internal thoughts and the actions in the world.

like the thought of harming another versus physically acting that out. Like both of them have significant weight in terms of how it affects you and how you feel. The resonance of that is in the world. There's that quote in the Bible, I believe in Gospel of Mark where Jesus says, those who have feelings of lust have committed already committed adultery in their heart. That's it. It's like bringing the inner world and outer world kind of into one in that place of embodiment and devotion. to really being these virtues that you say externally you want to, you know, imbi, but really doing it.

Well, when you're talking about it's so powerful, under this is authenticity, which is one of the most attractive qualities. Propeled Heart is like, I'm going to be this way on the podcast or I'm going to show this on social media. But what's really happening behind closed doors or to the people you're closest with, right? Or there's just kind of this up down. I'm on or I'm off. And it's not that it's wrong or bad. It's just that we can continue to awaken that coherence, which feels so good to you also, to be really like open as the sun.

This is just who I am seven days a week. There's so much energy. There's so much flow. We start to let go of the small thoughts. Like the things that would take so much time and attention, it's like, boom, the heart can just awaken the truth of who we are. And by the way, who we really are, this energy inside, I believe we, we are kindness and love and connection. It's just that these layers have built up. Wounds, ego, identifications, the masks trying to be this or that for other people. So as you said,

the devoted heart stage is just this moment to moment living from the heart. The peace that passeth all understanding, really living these principles of these amazing avatars and gurus do unto others as you would have done to you. And there's the part in the devoted heart that's called never miss an opportunity to serve. This becomes like, I'm good. Like, how can I really serve? And not just in a formal sense like, you know, hey, I'm going to spend the weekend at the soup kitchen or I'm going to go on a trip to build houses in, you know, the Appalachian Trail or whatever. That's great too.

But never miss an opportunity to serve means moment to moment. When you start living from your heart, it becomes what is the really good? kind thing to say or hey I'm on my this Zoom and I notice my coworker is having a really hard time. How can I be supportive? Or just at the supermarket. Like I'm going to be extra kind to this checkout person or I can smile at this person to be like, hey, we're in this together or you make room with your yoga mat for someone coming in late. Never miss an opportunity to serve means moment to moment, Andre.

This is what heart-based living is. This isn't just like, here, I'm on. them off. How are we energetically, vibrational? How do we awake it and live from our hearts more and more every present moment? And it just starts with like, again, if we feel really far away from that right now, we're from dark heart moments, we've all been there. It just starts with these tools and these practices, these really powerful, evidence-based, and it just starts to awaken. It's like lighting that fire and then it just starts to you know ram dos uses this term and be here now or he's like burn it it just burns everything away until all that's left is the true self it just burns away

all this ego until suddenly you're like holy crap i feel really differently right now because you're seeing things differently and then suddenly that other person who used to annoy you so much or you had so many problems with you're like eh they're probably struggling or going through a big challenge right now, and you just see them differently. I love that quote in your book, Gandhi said, to a pure heart, all hearts are pure. And I think how we perceive others and even the challenges that come in our life, we see them as opportunities to go on that path of purification and choose, do we want to be in that moment and choose to serve in that moment? I find it just really fascinating. The energy that opens up as our identity shifts

and who we perceive ourself as expands. And we go from this identification with our name in this certain time and space in this role to experiencing other as self and that starts to expand more and more. And you stop wasting so much energy recording things on a personal basis. Yes.

Like becoming an integrated human... Yes. When you really embody that integrity and you find that place that's indivisible within you, I find you don't have to worry about covering your tracks or what you said or didn't say. Everything's an expression of who you truly are, what you truly value, and therefore you need to record or use your memory to store things that are really just ephemeral and not really important to who you are or what you want to bring in the world.

And so much energy opens up, which you start to see people that are really devotional in Bhakti yoga or any different field, whether they're, you know, say they're religious or not, have this glow about them. They start to shine. They're vibrant. You know, I see it in you. I see it. And a lot of the people that I'm close with as well that start to find that

devotional place to life is just so beautiful to see the vibrancy that comes from it. And it's powerful. There's a story in the book about an interview with Mother Teresa where, first of all, when we look at the work of Mother Teresa today and, you know, those of us that have been to India and all around Calcutta and Bombay, like all these different cities, how much lasting impact her work has had and there's still these amazing centers in the House of the Dying and all these places that have continued, right? Have you seen the recent documentary that they did on her?

I didn't. Oh my God, you would love it. It's called No Greater Love. It's very moving. I highly recommend people check it out. Oh, amazing. That's great. I will definitely check it.

I went on a deep dive with her too, reading a lot of books, but I haven't seen the documentary. But this interview, she was coming back, I think she was in Stockholm, coming back from India to Rome or vice versa. And this reporter said, Mother, you're 70 now. After so much effort, you know, the world's going to go back to how it was after you pass. Why all the effort? And she turned to him and she said, I never wanted to change the world. All I wanted to do was reflect God's love, be a drop of God's love. Does that seem like a small thing to you?

And yet the power, right? So she embodied the devoted heart, just moment to moment, her kindness, her presence, her love, her genuine compassion and care just started to propel into this magnetism. People came to support her work. It created all these things. Think about what you would do for love, right? And think about in the practical sense, even at the workplace, if you have a business or you have a company or you're on a team, think about when you treat people with kindness and dignity and love and respect, they want to help.

They go over and aboard on that project. there's a mistake, they'll come back and correct it. If you're trying to push, if you're trying to force, the very propelled heart energy, like this needs to be done. The harshness comes in, a sharpness in your voice. And, you know, we don't need the science to tell us that we don't get the same results. So there's incredible practical power. Life works better when you're in your heart intelligence.

And the more you awaken your heart, there's just better outcomes, more success. So this is leading us to the place where ancient traditions have spoken. too for millennia about coming to the clear heart where you have that experience of your interconnectedness and oneness throughout all your interactions throughout your relationship with reality and so yeah I would love for you to share your experience experiences of the clear heart what that is and I think it's an empowering reference point for people that haven't experienced moments of it to know that it's possible yes exactly it is possible and even if you you haven't defined it the clear heart, we've all had these flashes or these moments. So again, so much of the hidden

power of the five hearts is allowing you to train yourself to be in these stages more and more because our coherence builds and it really does. You know, Yoga Nanda was such a big proponent of the science of yoga, meaning it's not just random, it's not just for a couple people. But the more you do these practices, it actually does create very reliable results. So when you do these practices and I'm dying to show you one at a moment, you will experience it in your body. And there's a rewiring happening. So you can start to come into the clear heart moments, more and more of the devotional heart. So you know, you were talking about the Tao, Andre, which I love so much. And it's about this emptiness, emptiness of identifications, emptiness of ideas.

of opinions. And it's not emptiness as a nothingness, but everythingness, allness. So the clear heart means this, it's not that you're better than anyone else. It means that you're more transparent. Transparent. The ego has dropped away. So what comes through is the light, the light of spirit, the light of the universal heart. You think about that image of the sacred heart of Jesus Christ. this flaming, like incredible energy can now come through you as a vessel. So, as I mentioned before, you hear about the difference between the Western stories and some of the Eastern stories like the Ramayana, when Hanuman awakens, for instance. And he feels like the king of the wind sings to him, the Hanuman Chalisa, his father.

And he's like, this power, I'm not just this monkey. So basically he lights his tail on fire and burns up the palace and is able to rescue Sita, a very abbreviated version of the story. But it's not that he's saying, I have the power. He's saying, a power is moving through me. It's moving through me. So the clear heart is not slipping back into ego and saying, I'm so powerful.

I'm so enlightened. There's this really important quality that also accompanies heart awakening, and that is humility. Because we realize all hearts are equal. We are all equal. Like I said, it's just that as we awaken, we become more and more transparent to this light. But what accompanies this is great synchronicities and the seeming miraculous. The world, everything is a miracle in a sense.

But also miracle can be defined as things that go beyond what the linear mind could conceive of as possible or rational, these quantum leaps that can happen. So what I've seen in my work and bringing this work to clients is people, that were really angry, suddenly feeling so much more calm and peace in their daily lives. I've had clients for 15 years struggling with food cravings and weight. Now we're in the age of OZemphic, but still from within them being able to go past over-relying on food, because now they're actually getting to the root of these energetic, you know, energies moving through them and their emotions. I've seen incredible quantum leaps from this place.

We just become more and more clear. So we're stepping into a different reality, a different energetic field. That spiritual magnetism continues to grow from there on out. All right, do you want to share with us? I know you're excited. You're itching. Well, you know what this is?

This is experiential, right? Yeah, it helps grounded in. I want everyone to know that this is like, this isn't just a book like, oh, it sounds great. this is to be experienced. And yeah, let's go right in, Andre. This is on page 29, which is the HRV pattern of someone in anger, which is chaotic and disordered.

When we go into appreciation, as you can see, there's these smooth sign waves, and it's very harmonious. It's sort of like imagine when you're at a lake, and it's like lapping really softly, and there's this gentleness and there's this harmony to it. This is where the psychological becomes the physiological. This is where we're not just writing a gratitude list because someone said it's a nice thing to do. We're not really in it when we're in the heart-based emotions. There's an

energy that changes our organ functionality and changes our nervous system and it changes our heart in our brains and our biarrhythms and our energetic fields and our perceptions and our thoughts. And so this is where the power comes from really embodying it. And the reason in the heart aligned meditation, which we'll do in a moment together, abbreviated version, we did appreciation and we measured appreciation, is that it is the easiest heart-based emotion to self-generate. When we're in a dark heart period, it can be quite challenging to suddenly feel peace or love, right? We're having a really hard day. But, even if we're having a hard day, we can recall someone or something that makes us feel appreciation.

It could be our dog, or we could think about a beautiful sunset or something to change our state. So this is the science that went into this practice. So you ready? Yes. Okay. I've been practicing my whole life at this moment. Here we are. And so we're going to do an abbreviated version.

I'll say the full tracks with the coherence building music are on the website, my saluna.com slash five hearts book. They're free and available to everyone to access. I just want to get this out into the world. But we'll do an abbreviated version now together just to see how powerful this is and simple. So go ahead and close your eyes unless you're listening to this while you're driving or walking. You can also do it with your eyes open, but for deeper coherence, can come back to it when you can actually come to a seat and close your eyes.

So straight away, you're going to put your awareness and your attention on your heart. And if you feel a bit disconnected from your heart or it feels natural to you, you can actually place one or both hands on your heart, your physical, your energetic heart, right in the center of your chest. And again, this alone, starting to go into this practice alone from the American Journal of Cardiology shows that we start to rewire our nervous system. Start to awaken the heart just by paying attention to it. And now keeping your awareness on your heart, we're going to take a few deep breaths,

imagining that you're breathing in and out of your heart like a giant long. So we're going to breathe in and out to start for a count of five. Nice and simple and slow. So we'll inhale for one, two, three, four, five. And exhale out for one, two, three, four, five. And one more time, just like that, inhaling into your heart for one, two, three, four, five. five and exhaling out for one two three four five and now we're going to drop the counting just continuing to breathe focusing on your heart in and out nice and slowly and now as we continue

to focus on the heart I'd like you to recall someone or something that makes you feel appreciation. So appreciation is a mix of gratitude and awe and approval. And it could be your loved one or just a beautiful moment in nature or your pet, whatever it is. And whatever makes you recall that energy, once it's there, once you could feel, appreciation, which can feel expansive. For me, it feels a little bit tingly, warm. You're going to drop the visual and you're just going to focus on this feeling of appreciation in your heart for just a few moments. And if you happen to drop out of it, just come back. You can use your recall. Come back into appreciation in your heart. We're going to sustain it for just a few more

moments. Take another deep breath in and out of the heart and take a moment to thank your heart for its amazing wisdom and anything else that spontaneously arises that you want to be appreciative and grateful for. And then when you're ready, you can start to open your eyes. So in the meditation, and the guided meditation, we sustain that appreciation state for two minutes. And that was shown to be where the coherence capacity builds over time, like in the study where people went up 29%. But even if you do it for a few seconds, Andre, do you feel the difference? Even in the beginning, if it's just a flash, it's like hard, your mind keeps going.

we're going down. It gets easier as we continue to do the coherence-focused breathing, and there's a lot more detail in the book. But it's a state change. It's not, oh, stop thinking. You're actually physiological changing these neural networks. So what I always recommend to people is to try to do the meditation in the morning because then you go into the day with a different vision

and a different way of seeing things. And the other thing I forgot to say about the clear heart is that when your heart awakens, the self-reliance, which keeps building and building, we know we keep saying you can self-generate these emotions and feelings. And you said earlier, Andre, your relationship with the desired object changes. You realize these feelings, bliss, love, expansion, peace, peace, they become more non-specific. So that's one of the characteristics.

It's not I only feel love when I'm with my husband or with my child or I only feel good if people like my stuff. It just becomes how you are. This is so priceless because it's like we're always chasing that new experience or going to that party or having this big retreat or these things. moment to moment how you are, how you feel from your heart can change. And that's priceless and the most powerful. So grateful for you. Very appreciative of this conversation and that somehow I've...

You feel lighter. Yeah. Somehow I've made my way into where what I do for living is doing appreciation and meditations on a podcast. So I feel so grateful to be at this place. And I just really resonate with so much of what you said and how I think a lot of people struggle with relationships, you know, for example. And as you start to tap more into your heart, which is a very simple process that anybody can do in their moment, whether their eyes are closed in a formal meditation in the morning or a spontaneous moment where they need it throughout their day.

where they start to shift their attention and feeling to their heart. They start to become appreciative of something and they deepen their breath. And within a short amount of time, that shift of feeling corresponds to a completely different pharmacological, chemical cocktail that your body generates and promotes more wellness and ease in your system. And you start to make decisions from that place, which I think radically changes what happens in your life. And I'd love one of the invitations in your book,

which is when examining where a decision is coming from, whether it's the ego or the mind, just asking yourself, is this going to bring me more peace in my life? Yes. Will this bring more joy into life? Exactly. And to be clear, most of the tools in the book are not. There's one primary meditation, but a lot of them are done three to ten seconds and under a minute, right?

There's the heart aligned study in life through big emotions, the harmonized practice for the propelled heart. I can't tell you what a difference this is made in my life. And I'll use a specific example of my marriage because you mentioned. relationships. My husband and I met, it was like fireworks, huge love. We got married within two months of meeting, and it was amazing. And I had never felt myself. And I was getting to the steady heart, allowing myself to be in this wild love. Like I said before, it was more calculated and like didn't want to be abandoned and all these things. So I allowed this love in and I allowed

this marriage. But then COVID hit. And we were, there's lots of things came up and like wounds and patterns and great challenges and just like everyday bickering and sort of like his wounds and like my wounds were coming up. And it was like, oh my gosh. Like this isn't what I want. And so when I started doing this hard work, I would say, Andre, I'm not exaggerating. I would say my marriage got 90% better moment to moment because it's not the love was always there but relationships like you said are hard because we bring in so much and our partner is a mirror to these things and we want them to see us a certain way and say things in a certain way and there's just two people can be very complicated from an egoic place as I started opening my heart and doing these practices it was

like communication smoothed out it's like byron katie says you don't need both people to really, you need people that are aware and awake, but I was really doing the work. And he was open to it, but I was really doing the work. And that really changed our day-to-day dynamic. We got closer. There's more coherence, harmony running through the family. Our kids, like, just feel so much more, it's easier for our kids to get over, even tantrums and big feelings. There's just more that authentic openness. So it makes such a big difference in day-to-day relationships, not just at work, but in, you know, with our loved ones. And so I'm really grateful for that.

I really want people to have that, too, access to that. It's such an important fundamental change in orientation towards reality where when we're, if we're continually expecting to extract joy from our external situations and relationships, and we're always dependent on that showing up the way we think it should, versus you're coming into this place of sharing joy, not extracting joy. And in relationships, that has a completely different,

like 90, 100% change in your relationship. And I feel the same way. You know, when I engage with somebody or something that I'm, you know, excited about or passionate about when I come at it from a place of wholeness, rather than trying to garner wholeness from the thing, it completely changes my dynamic with it.

Well, it's the difference between attachment and connection, right? Attaching is like, I need this to be a certain way. It needs to work out. We need to be like this. It's supposed to go this way. And connection is, you know, I'm good and, you know, let's see each other and grow together or not. Because in my heart awakened, I got out of a relationship. I could see that it wasn't going anywhere. I wanted it to work, but it wasn't. So another thing that happens is your heart awakens is you can deepen into relationships or sometimes you realize that you need to shift. And either way, you're good because you always have your own heart.

So as we come deeper into wholeness as an individual, like these, I think this framework is very helpful for our own awakening process. You're somebody that has spent, you know, a decade plus in the holistic wellness, nutritionist space. And I love speaking with individuals that have an integrated understanding of the many different components, mind, mind, body, spirit. to coming back into ourselves and finding true vibrancy. So I'm just curious for somebody that desires to come into full wholeness, which we all do subconsciously whether or not we want to admit it, there are these practices, which are amazing,

to focus on the emotional and spiritual components. But there's also the diet and the physical and the things that really support us or hinder us depending on our relationship to them. And so I'm just curious if you'd like to share, because I know you do throughout your book and so much of your work, focusing on those side of things and how they say, support us. So for somebody that wants to arrive at that place of wholeness and vibrancy, what would you say are the most fundamental pillars that people can focus outside of what we've

been talking about so far? Yes. No, thank you because we have been focusing a lot on the practices, but it is a lifestyle. It's a way of being. So at my brand saluna, we have what we call our four cornerstone lifestyle, which is food, body, emotional well-being, and spiritual growth. So everything is energy. And I actually came into wellness as a nutritionist, very focused on food. I was trying to heal my bloating and my low energy and my head acne and my hair wouldn't grow and all these very physical things. So it was like the layers of the onion as I got into it, you realize, oh, there's like all these deeper parts of the energy and there's a real strong emotional component to my very unhealthy relationship with food. But they're all intertwined and they're all important

because everything is energy. So in the heart stages, and thank you for bringing this up, there's an embodiment section, a practical embodiment section, with really helpful foods and practices and herbs and things to take into your body to support your awakening heart, since everything has an energetic shift and change in blueprint to it. So, and for many, it will be really helpful to focus on some of those more physical components

and then to take in the teachings and the practices. is. Right. Like if your sleep is always horrible, like, you know, tapping into your heart will just, you'll be fighting more of an uphill battle throughout the day. Yeah, you're eating sugar all day. And your energy is kind of going up and down. You're having high fructose corn syrup or tons of seed oils or whatever it is. You're just feeling like crap in your body. It's really hard to hear the more subtle messages. And also, again, the heart and the gut are really connected. And there's a section of the book that talks about that. If your gut health is really screwed up, your vagus nerve and all these things are off kilter, it also affects.

your ability to be in full vitality and full heart awakening. So a couple simple things we can share with everyone that can to start doing is, number one, remember the appreciation waves, like the HRV patterns are really harmonious and smooth. So one of the things you can start to do in your life is start to create more regularity in your routine. This is known in Arjuveda's dinaharya, your daily routine. Your body, your nervous system starts to relax. If it knows, okay, I always get up between six and seven, not sometimes five and sometimes ten, or you start to go to bed around the same times. You start to exercise around the same times. You eat your meals around the same times. It starts to regulate your digestion, your sleep patterns,

your immunity, your endocrine system. Your body likes those natural rhythms, like the circadian rhythms in nature. So those are some of the simple things you can start to do. Drinking hot water with lemon in the morning, like really basic ancient practice of heat, in bringing you into presence in your body and the lemons like sun energy in a physical form with all the vitamin C and the enzymes to support your liver. So, and then the book, there's, you know, cacao, which we grow on our farm, some amazing, accessible plants to keep around to enhance that bliss and also heart brain communication. Most of the foods that are really good for your heart are often good for your brain

because we're talking about coherence, heart brain, anti-inflammatory, lots of greens, whole foods. So yeah, I won't go down that really. have it hold too much, but the lifestyle and certain things, the regularity, the sleep, the foods are very supportive of heart awakening as well. Amazing. Yeah, those are really, really important. And the foundation, right, for so many, and I know that you spent so much of your career focus on those foundations, which are really important. And I love to see the continual evolution of your journey into the emotional

and spiritual side of things with the books you're writing with what you're sharing in this conversation, you know, because one without the other is not complete. Part of my, it's like, I have these like periods of my life, Andre, which are so different. Like now I'm really in like a motherhood stage. But before this, I used to live with clients. There were actors and celebrities. And so I would live with them for four months at a time and very different energies, very different body types, men and women.

And this is where it was just like taking me deeper on the path and making me really realize that number one, we're all equal. We all struggle with the same stuff. And number two, it's like beyond the yoga asanas and beyond how I'm meeting and all these things, there is so much in there with these cornerstones of the emotional and spiritual. And learning to really unlock that often is the missing piece into more easefully getting the body that you want and to having the skin that you want. And, you know, having all these outer things, it was like all these pieces of the puzzle were fitting together. So yeah, I've had a really interesting journey and it continues to this day. So to where we are in this very moment sitting here in these comfy chairs

talking to each other. Here we are. Here we are. So good. You know, this conversation, I think, is so needed at this time and society where there's a lot of division war, ego, fear, propagated people profiting off of, you know, it's just, and, but at the same time, that's, that, that's in the world, and it's really magnified through our phones and how much we, you know, take that in. I think the more time we spend in nature, have these appreciation moments and honor what our vessel needs and gives, gives that to ourselves, we become an agent for positive change. And so, one, again, thank you for being on the own process of your own self-realization and sharing yourself and sharing this message with the world that, you know, desperately needs right now, more voices coming,

unlocking through these different stages of heart coherence to coming into experiencing who they truly are. And then we all have a unique gift. We all have a unique fingerprint in which how we're supposed to express creatively our gifts in the world. And that's so exciting because they all come together in this beautiful puzzle, you know, with each of our individual pieces for the greater whole. And that's what I am so passionate about, community and people coming together to share their gifts and their understandings and how we're all, you know, greater because of it. Yes. We've been talking so much about, you know, hormonal management and, and the heart field and attracting what we want. So there's so much individual benefit. But this is also about

the collective because that heart field around us, Andre, all the fields ultimately intersect, right? this oneness. So we have to ask ourselves, like, what do we want to put into the field? Because not only our gifts needed, but our energy, we are all so powerful. So the more of us that awaken, it's not just going to be one person or a few people. We're all needed. This is how we're going to change society. This is how we're going to overcome the ego and the separation. This is how we're going to create more peace. Think about the world. I want my children to grow up in, the world we want to see. What do we really want to see? And it's not just going to be this, you know, one thing, off here and here. It's heart-based living. It's like changing our vibration. And then all those

interactions add up how we are on street, how we are in the coffee shop, how we are at the work. It just starts to be this resonance at our kids' schools and the workplace. It grows and it grows and grows and we can change society. I get really excited when I think about this because it sounds idealistic and it is, but it's also possible one heart at a time. So everybody's heart matters so much right now. Because sometimes we see about the election or stuff going on across the world and we're like, oh gosh, I can't do anything. But we can. The more we go in and we start to live from the heart, we awaken the heart. We create heart coherence. We change. We literally change the world from our hearts and starting with the circles around us, with our families, work spaces,

and friends. We really can change the world. Yeah, I know. I've caught myself in times that I know so many people struggle with this thinking that the big impact in the world needs to come from building this huge empire. And yet we often underestimate the power of one kind action back by love and how that can transform the world. And it does. And it really does. It's the kindness and the just the energy into the work and then how those people feel when they go home from work and how they are with those families and how their kids feel when they go to school and how they are with the teachers. It's just this web, and it's so powerful. And it's, I mean, again, it makes me tear up when I think about the quantum leaps that are really possible from the heart in ways that the mind can't conceive.

The mind thinks like, oh, this has to happen and this person has to be this or in power or like, oh, it's like futile. But it's not. Like, there's just energies that shift. And this is also bringing it back full circle to Shwamu Shri, Deshawar. One of the things he teaches is these. ages, which have been through millennia, by the way. So we could say, oh, gosh, the world sucks right now. There's so much dark heart energy. But the more of us that wake up, it ushers in a new age called the Satya Yuga, which is love and truth and unity. But it takes each heart using their

free will to wake up more and more. And that's how we change the world from ourselves, starting with ourselves. So grateful. So grateful. And And yeah, I just, I know this conversation, I think, will be impactful for so many because of the authenticity of your own journey and desire to study and, you know, embody this, this work. And, yeah, is there, is there anything else you'd like to share with our audience before we wrap up and then also where people can find everything you have going on? And yeah. So I'm so grateful with our deep connection and also this being one of the first times. speaking publicly about the hidden power, the five hearts. So we are offering a four-week heart reset for anyone who pre-orders the book before September 17th, which will include weekly zooms

with me to take a really deep dive. Four weeks was what we did in the study, which created 29% increase in coherence. So I'd love to offer that to everyone listening to this to invite you in personally into this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I don't know if I'll ever offer it again. so you can get all the information at myceluna.com slash five hearts book. Great. We'll link that below. And I think there are so many important invitations

that you shared throughout this whole conversation that I would love the audience in community to comment and reflect upon and see what uniquely impacted you. I think we're shifting largely from just the mind's probability to the possibility of the heart. And like a good friend Charles Eisenstein says in his book, there's a more beautiful world.

that our hearts know is possible. And I think we're in the age of that realization. Yes. Yeah. It's coming. It's here. We're all part of it. It's this big change coming.

And so it's a call to action really like stepping in, stepping up, stepping into the heart. Kimberly, thank you so much. Thank you so much, Andre. So much gratitude for you and your big heart. Blessing. See you and everybody that's been tuning in. Until next time, be well.