Allowing the Heart to Speak

The intellect becomes a far more intelligent tool when it allows the heart to speak; when it opens itself to that within us that resonates with the truth, rather than trying to reason with it. “And now here is my secret, a very simple secret,” the fox advises the Little Prince in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s beloved tale: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” The intellect can see verifiable facts—provided that denial doesn’t obscure or distort them, as it often does to protect the wounded or pain-averse parts of us. It is possible to declaim, declare, and insist on facts, all without a scintilla of what I’m calling truth. The kind of truth that heals is known by its felt sense, not only by how much “sense” it makes.

If any of this strikes you as vague or unscientific, recall that the heart is a living, beating organ before it is an abstract concept. Dr. Stephen Porges has brilliantly shown that the neural circuitry of social engagement and love is intricately connected with the heart and its functions. More than that, the heart also has its own nervous system.[*] The verbal-thinking cerebrum has arrogated to itself the honor of being the only brain, falsely so. Actually, it shares the distinction with the gut and the heart. In other words, the heart knows things, just as surely as a gut feeling is also a kind of knowing. In fact, the gut’s neural plexus has been appropriately called a “second brain,” as has the heart. Thus we may speak of three brains, meant to function in concert, with the autonomic nervous system connecting them all. Without that heart- and gut-knowledge, we often function as “genius-level reptiles,” in someone’s apt phrase.

Excerpt From
The Myth of Normal
Gabor Maté, M.D. & Daniel Maté

Image: Fethi Bouhaouchine