The Language of The Heart. What is it?

Recently I attended an 8 week course called Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction.  This is a course created by Jon Kabat-Zinn.  I found the time spent learning mindfulness very nourishing.  Every Wednesday afternoon for 8 weeks I sat in a circle with a dozen or so other people and we were led gently and without judgment to pay more attention to the life we are living in this moment.

Following the session we were told to, if we wanted, to follow the guided meditations we were given on a cd.  We were to do this once a day, if we could.

So I followed direction and was pretty faithful to meditate daily.

In one way nothing seemed different yet in another very gentle and subtle sort of way I found my perception changing.

I found over the course that I was much less stressed and self-conscious at work and in meetings.

Then on the final day we were asked to share what it was we had learned with another member of the group with whom we had been partnered.

A funny thing happened as I shared.  I was describing what I had learned and all the benefits I had experienced while practicing mindfulness.

The curious thing that took place was this…  As I was listening to myself talk, and very eloquently, I might add, I heard a voice within me. It spoke without words but its message came though loud and clear.  It said “yes I hear you speaking but I’d like you to step aside because I’d like to say something…But I don’t know how to talk.” I had such a strange sensation in my body as I perceived this happening within me. I could hear myself waxing eloquent and simultaneously detect this other voice.

I was made to be very curious about this message from that part of me that felt it had no language.

So I’ve been reflecting on this since.  

This morning what came to me was the difference that exists between the language of the mind and that language of the heart.  When I thought of about it, I was struck by the question: what is the language of the heart? Then I thought to myself… oh ! I get it.

The language of the heart is not so much with words but it is more like the feelings and impressions we get from life ‘experience’.

Walking in a nice warm rain and getting soaked can feel soooo goood.  The mist in my face and the beauty of a sunlit meadow goes right to my soul without words.  Yet without words its voice is clearly heard.  It cries out that beauty is all around and it vibrates in my body and emotions and soul.

And so it is with the language of the heart.  What I remember are the gentle touches of my mother or maybe those angry eyes looking at me.  This is such a deeply felt experience.  These ‘impressions’ speak louder in us that many words.  We can try to express such experiences with words but it’s the heart, the body that remembers.

Maybe what that part of me that said “I don’t know how to talk” was saying, is that I have to remember my ‘heart’ and to get out of my head.  my heart was asking to speak again, not with words but with the deep felt sense that I get in every life situation I find myself in…

Mindful to this voice without words, I hear it beckoning me to renew acqaintances.

And then I came across this marvelous  songwriter… David Wilcox and this song.