Have you ever heard the term “coherence” as it relates to inner harmony? Perhaps, just reading the words “inner harmony” and “coherence” makes you want to feel a little more stable inside?
It’s not easy right now. I mean, life is rarely what one would describe it as easy – but as long as my life lasts, it has never been so difficult to navigate while maintaining a sense of calm. I have come to believe that things evolve as they need to for our own greater evolution. Trying to change what we cannot control is the greatest source of self-inflicted pain.
What I can change is my mind, my heart and my response to any given situation. This is very much within our control and this is why understanding coherence and inner harmony is so critical at this time. We need it more than ever.
Many of us have a vision of what a happy life looks like. It might include a dream home, a vacation, a certain type of partner, or perhaps a certain level of wealth and financial security.
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The reality is that none of this is the ticket unless we can calm the nerves and move more effortlessly through life. Desires for those things that we think will bring us greater happiness are not really what we need or want. What we really long for is to feel peace. It’s much easier and more obvious to crave material things or extravagant experiences than to sit for five or ten minutes, focus on our breath and let what we really want wash over us. And what we want is this inner harmony.
What does it mean to be in a coherent state?
We know that the brain sends signals to the body. As I type this, my brain is telling my fingers to go to work with lightning fast, slightly manic, two-finger typing to get these words onto my screen. This is the brain sending a message to the body.
We also know that if we witness a frightening or frightening event, we feel a jolt of fear and our heart rate increases. These are the efferent pathways of the nervous system: brain to body.
Very few of us actively recognize that the heart sends more signals to the brain than the brain sends to the heart and the rest of the body. These are called afferent pathways.
When we can tune into this heart rate and bring it into harmony, we can directly affect how we feel nervously (anxious vs. calm), as well as how the frontal and motor cortex of the brain (responsive vs. reactive) work.
Optimally, we want to be in a coherent state where we feel calm and peaceful and where we are better able to make informed decisions, allowing for critical, creative and solution-oriented thinking. predominate. As you can see now, it is not the state most of us find ourselves in as we go about our day.
Most of us, most of the time, operate in a disjointed state where we experience stress, overwhelm, anxiety, uncertainty and fear. When we are in this state, our ability to think clearly, be compassionate, kind and caring is diminished. In short, we are not remotely at our best.
Being compassionate, one of the most critical heart-based emotions we all need to embody right now, means tuning into the heart and bringing ourselves into alignment. What is truly amazing is that being compassionate brings us together, and when we are in a cohesive state, we are more compassionate, loving, kind, appreciative, grateful, calm, and peaceful. A beautiful thing about this is that when we are in this state, we immediately invite others to feel more heart-centered as well.
Our level of cohesion it has been shown to directly affect the heart rate of those around us.
How Do We Cultivate Inner Harmony?
What I love about the technique I’m about to share is that you don’t have to sit quietly in meditation for 20 minutes to get there. You don’t have to remove yourself from life. Don’t get me wrong: it certainly helps to develop a dedicated meditation practice, as it will make the 30-second bursts of coherence easier to achieve, but it’s not necessary for impact.
The technique I share below is based on his teachings HeartMath Institute. There is no right or wrong way to be proactive. it’s all about stabilizing your heart rate and bringing your mind and body into alignment.
Introduction to coherence
- Take a few minutes to focus and slow your breathing. Consider trying an inhalation for a count of 1-2-3-4 and then an exhalation of 1-2-3-4.
- Once your breath has stabilized, visualize that breath going in through your heart and out of your heart. Continue with slower than normal breathing.
- Now, as you continue to breathe slowly in and out of your heart, embody the feeling of love, compassion and appreciation. Feel in your body how it feels to be deeply cared for, valued and loved. I find it helpful to turn the corner of my mouth into a smile as I integrate this feeling.
- Sit with that feeling for as long as you have.
- If you want to expand your practice, after just a few minutes, you can extend that feeling of love, appreciation, and compassion outward to someone you know, a community, or the planet as a whole. Continue to focus on your breath, moving in and out through your heart and integrating these heart-centered feelings.
Inner Harmony in 30 seconds
I have been doing this practice every day – sometimes for 5 minutes, sometimes for 20 minutes – for several years. It’s a bit of a personal check-in. Lately, though, I think I’m likely tracking a lot more time because of the constant 30-second workouts all day, all day.
See, as I mentioned earlier, it’s tough out there. Tension is high, resilience is low, and most people spend their day operating from a disjointed state, making them reactive, short-tempered, fearful, and lacking in patience and compassion. And I do my best to vent it. I imagine it a bit like the Care Bear Stare.
When I’m standing in line, waiting at a red light on my bike, or even when my son is exhausted after a day at school and ready to melt down, I carefully slow my breathing and embody compassion while sending that feeling to whoever is around me.
Imagine for a moment if 5% of us did that. Or what about 10%? If every 10th person we meet embodied love, compassion, empathy and care, we would live in a very different world.
If happiness is truly what you’re after, you’ll get there much faster – in fact, you will today – if you take a few minutes to get yourself together. It is literally your next breath away.
And so that’s my goal. Inner harmony and coherence will play a large role in the new program I am developing. If you want to learn more about evidence and consistency of experience, I have this 20 minute training that you can view here. In these sessions, I will also offer the science that supports what I have shared above in more detail. Learn more and get on the list here.
On My Mind Episode 20: Creating Inner Harmony in 30 Seconds
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Photo Caption: Nikki McKean
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