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April 30 - May 5, 2021
We separate the mind as rational from the heart as relational, but ultimately the mind and heart are part of one unified intelligence.
Our individual happiness and our collective well-being depend on the integration and collaboration of both our minds and hearts.
Our journey is one of transcendence, not endless self-reflection.
we can create anything we want, but it is only the intelligence of the heart that can tell us what’s worth creating.
There is an epidemic of loneliness, anxiety, and depression in the world, particularly in the West. There is an impoverishment of spirit and of connection with one another.
Anxiety depression loneliness
one out of every four people you see or meet today has no one to talk to, and this lack of connection is affecting their health. We are wired for social connection—we evolved to be cooperative and connected with one another—and when this is cut off, we get sick.
Research has shown that the more connected we are socially, the longer we will live and the faster we will recover when we get ill.
Authentic social connection has a profound effect on your mental health—it even exceeds the value of exercise and ideal body weight on your physical health.
only way to truly change and transform your life for the better is by transforming and changing the lives of others.
the power of compassion to not only heal each of our own wounds of the heart but the hearts of those around us.
Compassion
Ruth’s teachings that seemed so compelling and realized that at their core they were about opening the heart. Acting kindly and compassionately with intent.
It turned out that there were a small number of researchers who were doing groundbreaking work on how being compassionate, altruistic, and kind affected the reward centers in the brain and positively affected their peripheral physiology.
Compassion and kindness, it turned out, was good for your health.
alphabet of the heart. While
I began a new practice each morning of reciting this new alphabet. After relaxing my body and calming my mind, I would recite this alphabet and set one quality from the list of ten as my intention for the day. I said them in my head over and over again. I found that it centered me, not only as a physician but also as a human being. It allowed me to start my day with a powerful intention.
THE ALPHABET OF THE HEART C: Compassion is the recognition of the suffering of another with a desire to alleviate that suffering.
D: Dignity is something innate in every person. It deserves to be acknowledged and recognized.
We have to look at another person and think, “They are just like me. They want what I want—to be happy.”
E: Equanimity is to have an evenness of temperament even during difficult times.
F: Forgiveness is one of the greatest gifts one can give to another. It is also one of the greatest gifts we can give to ourselves.
G: Gratitude is the recognition of the blessing that your life is—even with all its pain and suffering.
Simply taking a few moments to have gratitude has a huge effect on your mental attitude. . . . You suddenly recognize how blessed you are.
H: Humility is an attribute that for many is hard to practice.
I: Integrity requires intention. It requires defining those values that are most important to you.
J: Justice is a recognition that within each of us there lives a desire to see that right be done.
Yet, we need to guard justice for the weak and the vulnerable. It is our responsibility to seek justice for the vulnerable, to care for the weak, to give to the poor.
K: Kindness is a concern for others and is often thought of as the active component of compassion.
A desire to see others cared for with no desire for personal benefit or recognition.
L: Love when given freely changes everyone and everything.
THIS MNEMONIC connects me to my heart and allows it to open. It allows me to begin each day with intention and purpose. And throughout the day, when I am stressed or feel vulnerable, it centers me in the place I wish to be.
Ruth had said, “What you think you want is not always what’s best.”
The Dalai Lama once said, “My religion is kindness,” and that has become my religion as well.
Religion is kindness
I knew that I wasn’t the only one in the world to have been hungry. I wasn’t the only one in the world who had ever been frightened. I wasn’t the only one who had known loneliness or felt isolated and different. I opened up my heart and found that my heart had the ability to connect with every other heart it met.
Like meditation techniques, music reduces heart rate, decreases stress, and lowers blood pressure.
We all have that gift and ability to connect.
Ruth wasn’t wealthy, and she wasn’t without her own life problems, but her heart was open, and she saw someone who was in need and did something about it.
It made me wonder, how is it that those who have so much can do so little to help those that are struggling?
What I have learned since is that compassion is an instinct, perhaps our most innate.
We humans are even more instinctually compassionate; our brains are wired with a desire to help each other. We see this desire to help in children as young as toddlers.
Many misinterpret Darwin by implying that survival of the fittest means the survival of the strongest and most ruthless, when in fact it is survival of the kindest and most cooperative that ensures the survival of a species in the long-term. We evolved to cooperate, to nurture and raise our dependent young, and to thrive together and for the benefit of all.
There’s no shame in caring or feeling someone else’s pain. It is beautiful and, I think, why we are all here in this life together.
When our brains and our hearts are working in collaboration—we are happier, we are healthier, and we automatically express love, kindness, and care for one another.
This was the motivation to begin researching compassion and altruism.
During one of our meetings the Dalai Lama’s name had come up, as one of the leading centers doing this work had been encouraged by him to research the effects of meditation and compassion on the brain.
It is quite extraordinary to be in the presence of the Dalai Lama. There is this absolute and unconditional love he exudes that feels just like taking a deep breath after holding your breath for a long time.
You don’t have to be anyone other than who you are, and you are met with total acceptance. It’s a profound feeling, and there are no words that can adequately explain it.
Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE).
It’s easy to connect the dots of a life in retrospect, but much harder to trust the dots will connect together and form a beautiful picture when you’re in the messiness of living a life. I could never have predicted either the successes or the failures in my life, but all of them have made me a better husband, a better father, a better doctor, and a better person.
I have taken my role as a healer with great seriousness. The lessons that Ruth taught me allowed me to open my heart and temper that seriousness with kindness and compassion.
I had been chasing a chimera, and letting that go gave me the most valuable gifts of all: clarity, purpose, and freedom.
