I rarely hear about the role of the Heart or the power of Love as relevant determinants of human health or spirituality. This was particularly highlighted at a recent energy psychology conference in which a keynote presentation on the topic of Enlightenment seemed to focus almost entirely on achieving altered states of consciousness. I could feel my heart crying out inside me how incomplete this felt.

Also at a breakout session where an energy therapy was being presented as an effective way of releasing ego based negativity (i.e. negative emotions, perceptions, beliefs and memories) one question shockingly drove home to me the level of disconnection we have with our hearts. The question: “As nature abhors a vacuum, once we release this ego based negativity, what do we replace it with?” My answer: “With the essence of who we are and have always been, our hearts!”.

So on hearing all this, as a duty to my Heart and Myself, I feel it imperative to help bring the Human Heart back into the forefront of our work and personal development. As a result I will share here some of my clinical experiences of the crucial role that I feel both the Heart and the energy of Love play in the field of energy psychology and in the destiny of humanity.

I start by addressing the following issues:

1. How the current concept of consciousness as a mental phenomenon has deflected our attention from the Heart.

2. The awareness that the Heart is the equivalent of the Core

As a woman, your body is very complex. Throughout every phase of your life you will require extra care and nutritional support. Today’s scientific advances support a number of natural choices for women, like soy. Still, the fact remains that calcium, folic acid and iron continue to be the most important nutrients that can impact a woman’s total health. All women should take a daily multiple vitamins with these essential nutrients.

Calcium is essential to strong healthy bones.

As a woman you have a much greater risk of developing osteoporosis because you have less bone tissue and lose bone more rapidly then men do. Be sure to consume adequate calcium throughout life, as this may reduce your risk of osteoporosis later in life. Calcium is essential to the health of bones, teeth and skin, yet few adults get enough of it in their diets. Make sure you find a high quality calcium supplement to ensure you receive a health-enhancing daily allowance.

Folic acid impacts women in many ways.

It plays an important role during rapid fetal growth and development. In fact, adequate intake of folic acid as part of a healthy diet before and in early pregnancy may reduce the risk of having a baby with a birth defect of the brain or spinal cord. All women of childbearing age are recommended to consume 400 mcg of folic acid everyday starting at least one month before conception into the early weeks of pregnancy.

Folic acid also plays a role in the maintenance of normal homocysteine

In this life, one thing we can be certain of is that not only is it not always about us, it’s actually very rarely about us. It’s about “them” - our friends, our community, our region, our country and the world around us. We cannot function by ourselves, and we cannot succeed without the support of others. Likewise, they cannot succeed without us. Here are some ideas to help you get involved in the great communal effort to make the world a better place for everyone.

1. Volunteering is by far the best way to “keep your hand in.” Not only are you doing necessary and important work for whatever cause you support, but you are also creating and strengthening those social ties that are most important to each of us in times of need. It is true that you cannot pull another up without first joining hands - and this joining, once created, is almost impossible to break. By throwing your weight into the communal pull toward a better life, you join yourself to those around you in ways that will pay you back a hundred-fold in the years ahead.

2. Set up a tithe to contribute 10% of your earnings to the community, church or cause that you support, or create a tithe checking account from which to afford random acts of kindness wherever you see the need. It is only by giving that we realize how much we had to give (and thereby learn the true extent of our