LOVE: Your February Character Strength
Do you ever take time to quietly, personally bask in the feeling of love? Give yourself and your loved ones this heartfelt Valentine.
We are bombarded with messages of LOVE this month. Romantic love. Familial love. Pet love. Self love. And there’s no shortage of advice on how to show it. But sometimes all the hoopla makes it seem like love is something we do instead of something we feel.
Love is a powerful emotion. It fuels some of our most positive experiences. It can be elusive and complex and difficult to describe in words, yet if you ask anyone on the planet where they feel love, they will, most likely, place their hand over their heart. This isn’t just a product of cultural messages — those messages exist because they reflect a deeper truth. The heart always plays a leading role when we experience love.
The scientists at the HeartMath Institute have made it their life’s work to study the heart, and their groundbreaking research has shown that our heart rhythms reflect our emotional states, both positive and negative.
Experiencing the feeling of love almost immediately brings our heart rhythm into coherence — a state that sends a positive cascade of electrical and biochemical messages to our brain and the rest of our body. This may make us feel exhilarated or it may give us calm comfort. Either way, the experience of love is positive, profound and beneficial to our health and wellbeing. It has been shown to reduce stress, lower blood pressure, balance hormones and serve as a strong antidote to fear, anger and anxiety.
HeartMath research also shows that our heart emanates a field of electromagnetic energy that can be detected by others and even produce measurable effects in a person several feet away. When we experience the deep, heartfelt emotion of love, it radiates from us. (This is also true for negative emotions — think of how many times you’ve walked into a room where an argument or contentious meeting is taking place and you can physically feel the tension in the air.)
So, in honor of this month of love, I’d like to share one of HeartMath’s most useful tools: the Quick Coherence Technique. As you engage in this exercise, I invite you to explore, experience and radiate the feeling of love.
It will be a heartfelt Valentine to yourself and your loved ones!
Jennifer Allen Newton is a Functional Medicine Certified Health Coach and certified HeartMath practitioner. To learn more, contact Jennifer at reachwellness.org.
