After I retired from the Air Force, I contemplated how I might best use the final season of my professional life. In a meeting with a coach, he—out of nowhere—asked, “Where did you lose your heart?”

The question caught me off guard, but it stirred my curiosity. Instead of explaining, he gave me an assignment: go to a park, watch children play—notice their laughter, joy, and freedom from worry, and then ask myself, “When was the last time I felt that alive?”

Interestingly, the medical term for a heart attack is “myocardial infarction.” Infarct is Latin for “stuff it” and that’s exactly what I’d learned to do with my emotions.

His question became my quest to answer.

Emotional health is physical health

In my quest, I learned about a physical health measurement for the heart called Heart Rate Variability (HRV). HRV refers to the variation that occurs between each of your heart beats. If your heart rate is 60 beats per minute, that’s your average—your heart is not actually beating at a fixed rate of 60.  Instead, the heart beats a little faster for a few beats, then slows for a few, then speeds up again, and so on. This variation represents a normal, healthy autonomic nervous system, alternating between accelerating and decelerating the heart in a smooth pattern.

The heart can also beat in abnormal, unhealthy patterns, in which the HRV is chaotic and dysregulated. A negative HRV pattern is the single best predictor of sudden cardiac death.

Positive emotions are associated with a healthy, smooth-beating HRV. Conversely, negative emotions create an unstable, chaotic pattern. By improving your emotional state, you improve your HRV pattern, lowering your cardiac risk.

Further, the heart is the most powerful oscillating (rhythmic) organ—far more powerful than the brain. From a neurobiological perspective, this explains why people who are calm make better decisions than those who are upset. As the heart goes, so goes the rest of your body.

Heart and mind

As a child, I was taught through our family’s dynamics that emotions were irrelevant, opposed sound thinking, reflected weakness and instability, and that I should ignore them. Yet, as an adult, it was clear that science was telling me that emotions were of paramount importance. I was shocked.

Additionally, the Bible suggests that the heart and mind are connected. For example, Proverbs 23:7 [NKJV] says, “As he thinks in his heart, so is he…” Through this, I learned:

• The heart “thinks”
• The heart’s thoughts are shaped by our emotions
• Our feelings tell us what we believe to be true

Our hearts can influence the way we think. However, Jeremiah 17:9 [ESV] warns that “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick….”  We can’t trust our hearts; we need a fixed point of reference—the Bible.

Hebrews 4:12 [ESV] says, “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

Emotional intelligence

I came across a helpful book called “Running On Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect” by Jonice Webb. The book explains how a child develops emotional intelligence. She advises that, when a child is upset, a parent needs to attune to that child’s heart by doing three things:

• Feel an emotional connection with the child,
• Empathize with and validate the child’s emotions (in other words, don’t condemn feelings or tell a child that they shouldn’t feel that way), and
• Respond competently to the child’s emotional need.

When we do that for another person, they no longer feel alone, their distress typically dissipates, and we can help them back to a place of joy.

That was where my upbringing fell short. When my siblings or I were in emotional distress, we dealt with it alone. Neuroscientist Curt Thompson said, “We can grow up in homes in which the food finds the table, the money finds the college fund, and the family even finds the church on Sunday, but somehow our hearts remain undiscovered by the two people we most need to know us, our parents.”

King David gives us an example of what such attunement looks like. In Psalms 13:1-6, David was very upset. He felt like God had abandoned him. However, David knew the secret of what to do when his soul was cast down—he expressed raw emotion to God and found comfort in his time of need.

One of the greatest gifts I’ve ever received is that coach who asked me where I’d lost my heart. Through my quest, I discovered that I had not actually lost my heart—my problem was that no one had ever listened to it or the feelings I experienced as life happened, so neither did I. I had never learned its language. And I’d ask you: Where is your heart? Have you ignored it or shoved it away? Has anyone ever bothered to listen to it? Have you learned its language?

Once you find your heart, “guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” [Proverbs 4:23, NIV].

References

1. Webb, J., & Musello, C. (2019). Running on empty: Overcome your childhood emotional neglect. Morgan James Publishing. p. 6.