Have you read?

The Heart Speaks by Mimi Guarneri, MD is one of those books that I just don’t want to part with. Through all of my aikido/conflict resolution training, I have been taught never to lose sight of the bigger picture. In aikido, a person grabs your wrist and if you focus on that grab, you can get punched in the face. You made the error of focusing on the issue, rather than paying attention to the whole person. When we take aikido ‘off the mat’ into conflict resolution, the wrist grab represents the conflict or stressor. Progress in resolving a conflict only happens when you stop, take a deep breath, and look beyond the conflict into understanding the full experience of the person grabbing your wrist.

The Heart Speaks is a wonderful illustration of this concept of seeing the greater whole. Dr. Guarneri writes about her practice as a cardiologist and the lessons she has learned about healing. Through stories of her patients, she shares her lesson that to heal the entire person she had to shift from focusing simply on fixing the physical heart. When she broadened her gaze beyond the physical, she found cues to heal the full person. Only by knowing the whole heart – ‘the mental heart, affected by hostility, stress, and depression; the emotional heart, able to be crushed by loss; the intelligent heart, with a nervous system all its own; the spiritual heart, which years for a higher purpose, and the universal heart, which communicates with others’ was she able to support her patients in true healing.

I heartily recommend spending a few hours with this book. It will inspire and energize and send you away remembering to always pause and take in the bigger picture.