When we are in states of experiencing love, appreciation and gratitude, it has powerful impact on our physiology and psychology. Our immune systems are stronger, we’re more open to tuning into our deepest desires, and if you were to look at a heart monitor, you would see gentle waves. Based on a HeartMath exercise called the “heart lock-in,” Arielle Ford recommends doing this practice daily to “get us into this state of heart coherence, because it’s from this feeling state that we then drop in our desires, to present moment awareness and to the feeling state of love. Knowing and trusting that what you’ve asked for is already yours.”
Start in a comfortable upright seated position, feet flat on the floor, hands resting in your lap, shoulders relaxed. Close your eyes.
Take a long, slow, deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth. Do it again. Allow yourself to sink into your chair as you take another long, slow, deep breath.
Drop your attention down to the area around your heart, the center of your chest. Now remember a time when you had the feeling and experience of appreciation. It can be for anything or anyone, recent or a long ago. Just one memory of appreciation. With your attention on your heart center, recall that moment of appreciation and especially recall the feeling you had when you experienced appreciation.
Just take a couple of deep breaths while you relive this moment of appreciation.
Now let that experience go. Keeping your attention on the area around your heart, call up a time, an experience, a memory where you felt gratitude. It could be yourself or someone else. It could be recent or past, but find the memory and experience of gratitude and relive it right now. Feel the feeling of gratitude in the center of your heart.
Now let this feeling of gratitude evaporate.
With your attention still held at your heart center, call up a memory or experience of the time when you felt love. It could be as simple as looking into the eyes of a child or a baby. It could be a love experience from long ago; it could be something that happened earlier today. Call up a simple memory of love, and while holding it in the center of your heart, re-experience love.
As you’re experiencing this moment of love, let the feeling expand throughout your entire body. Feel it in your arms, your legs, and in your torso. Maybe even see it start to filter out like a fog outside of your body and through the room.
Wrap yourself in this cocoon, this feeling of love as if you were back in time when it actually happened.
Bring your attention back to the center of your heart. Thank yourself for being so open and willing to experience and re-feel appreciation, gratitude and love. Allow yourself to feel your feet on the floor, the seat underneath you, and the temperature of the air around you. Come back up to consciousness. And when you’re ready, gently open your eyes.
Arielle Ford is the author of The Soulmate Secret and host of Evolving Wisdom’s Art of Love series.