“When they showed me pictures of their son, I knew him directly. I would have picked him out anywhere. He’s in me. I know he is in me and he is in love with me… How could he know years before he died that he would die and give his heart to me? How would he know my name is Danny? And then, when they played me some of his  music, I could finish the phrases of his songs. I could never play before, but after my transplant I began to love music. I felt it in my heart. My heart had to play it… His song is in me. I feel it a lot at night and it’s like Paul is serenading me.”

‘Organ Transplants and Cellular Memories’, by Paul Pearsall, PhD, Gary E. Schwartz, PhD & Linda G. Russek, PhD. Extracted from Nexus Magazine, Volume 12, Number 3 (April – May 2005)

It sounds like melodramatic cries coming from a tragically star-crossed soul at the climax of a Hollywood romantic comedy. But it isn’t – it’s a direct quote from an 18-year-old girl who, diagnosed with endocarditis and subsequent heart failure, received a donor heart from an 18-year-old boy killed in a car accident.

The donor’s father, a psychiatrist, said:

“My son always wrote poetry… We found a book of poems he had never shown us, and we’ve never told anyone about them. One of them has left us shaken emotionally and spiritually. It spoke of his seeing his own sudden death. He was a musician, too, and we found a song he titled: “Danny, My Heart Is Yours” – the words about how my son felt he was destined to die and give his heart to someone. He had decided to donate his organs when he was 12 years old… When we met his recipient, we were so… we didn’t know, like, what it was. We don’t know now. We just don’t know.”

Extremely haunting words, yet starting to sound more and more like mumbo-jumbo, ‘new-agey’ speak. But this 18-year-old girl was far from alone. Numerous cases have been reported of organ transplants, in particular heart transplants, correlating to extreme character and behavior changes in the transplant recipient. The prevailing explanation boils down to cellular memory – the idea that the cells in our bodies contain information about our personalities, tastes and histories.

In other words, our cells contain fragments of our ‘souls’ and the tissues of our hearts seem to have a greater amount, or a higher density, of these memory encoded cells. You would think that an individual’s own potent DNA, combined with deep treasure troves of memory and learned behavior, would trump whatever powers an alien (i.e. donor) heart sends pulsing through one’s body. But this isn’t what these cases report. In fact, the growing evidence of miraculous physiological changes have many scientists beginning to propose that ‘the heart transplant’ may be a feasible cure for various, if not all, mental and behavioral conditions, such as depression, eating disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder and more.

“Want to cure yourself of the blues, of all the anxiety and heartache you’re suffering through? Science has discovered a cure for all your mental ailments! A new heart! Now on sale for…”

Clearly I say this in jest.

But what if someone else’s heart could have a measurable, positive, healing effect on your physiological state? Or, quite the opposite: a negative, destructive, painful effect on your emotional state? What if you could communicate to another individual with your heart, on a purely energetic level, as opposed to the language used by your mouth, your tongue, your vocal chords, your eyes, your hands, not to mention all the unique twitches and ticks your body makes? What would you, or more specifically your heart, say to someone you love? Someone you hate?

The good news is that everything you wish you could say you have already said. The very first language you learnt to speak was that of your heart, of energy (and of love), and you continue to communicate those very sentiments. The bad news is that everything you wish you could say with your heart’s tongue has already been said. And you continue to communicate those very sentiments, those exact emotions you perceive as being stored deep within you, inaccessible to the external world. But you’re probably not aware of doing so.

Imagine this scenario: You’re meeting with a potential client. You’ve been preparing for this all week, and you’re now ready to present an innovative solution to his business needs. Unbeknownst to you, your client was on a personal call prior to the meeting. A silly argument with his wife concerning upcoming bills. Nothing that should concern you.

You meet, shake hands, cautiously  but firmly, making sure to look him in the eyes. You exchange the usual niceties and the standard professional half-smile. You promptly get down to business. You pitch your business solution, communicate your intentions and express your desired outcome. You pause, anticipating a reaction, a signal of approval, a question or merely a confirmation that he was listening and heard everything you said.

He squints his eyes then verbally rejects your solution. You re-phrase your idea, thinking he probably just misunderstood you. He rejects it, again. You pause. You ask why, pushing him to explain. He explains why. Now you’re the one who objects. Your voice pitch is every so slightly higher. Your heart rate is ever so slightly faster. Frustration, irritation, and hints of anger are rising within you.

‘Why isn’t he listening to me? Can’t he see how great this idea is? Does he have an ulterior motive? Maybe he just doesn’t like me. But I have to sell this solution or my boss will kill me! I have to push him harder, slap some sense into him.’

A secretary walks into the room. She immediately senses the tension. She apologizes for interrupting, and promptly walks out, gently shutting the door behind her. A few uncomfortable minutes later you both stand up, walk towards  the door and finally, shake hands.

Loosely, very briefly, and lacking any genuine attempt to make eye contact. You both continue with your day, annoyed, snapping at people, feeling exhausted ruminating over how awful that meeting went.

What just happened here? A mere difference in opinion? A normal business, purely professional, disagreement? A mix of two disparate temperaments? All of the above, and then some.

This is an example of the sophisticated, syncopated dance that occurs when two human beings interact. The flow and intensity of any social interaction is dependent on the linkage between individuals, be it a spontaneous encounter or a complex relationship years in the making. On one level there are the overt signals expressed through facial movements, voice qualities, gestures and body movements;

think of these as the dramatic turns, dips, twists and lunges of a passionate tango. The more intense the conversation the richer and more synchronized the dance moves are, with mirrored movements, harmonious vocal pitches, rhythmic speaking rates and precisely timed pauses.

However, on a deeper, subconscious level there is the subtle, yet influential, energetic communication between one’s heart and the other’s brain, and vice versa. Before you or your potential client speaks’, before you shake hands, before you’ve even made eye contact, your brains have begun picking up each other’s heart signals; the electromagnetic energy waves radiating in a 360 degree sphere around every individual. As you venture closer to each other these heart signals get stronger and stronger, becoming more entwined until BAM! You touch each other. You grasp each other’s hand and shake vigorously. At this point it’s game over. With that touch, with skin-on skin contact, the loudspeakers have been plugged in and switched on, blaring pulsating base notes that  command your sensory cells to stand akimbo.

As the other person’s energy waves are absorbed by your sensory cells throughout your body, your brain begins to react accordingly, altering the energy waves it produces to become more in-sync with the rhythmic cycles it’s absorbing. If the energy waves being projected are high frequency and coherent you end up sensing the other person’s positive emotions

(‘Wow, he’s in a good mood today!’).

These high frequency energy waves will, more often than not, lift the frequency of the energy waves you create and project. Suddenly you find yourself feeling better, drawn to the other person’s positive vibes, feeling a little lighter and je ne sais quoi. In essence, your brain begins pulsating energy at the same rate and frequency as that which it is receiving. When measured on an EEG and ECG you can clearly see the two sources of energy (the other person’s heart and your brain) pulsing in wave like patterns that mirror each other. In science-speak this phenomena is known as entrainment – the synchronization of two or more rhythmic cycles, causing one rhythm to rise or fall to meet the other, or causing the two rhythms to meet in the middle.

Now that is you hearing the language of another’s heart, subconsciously absorbing what they are communicating. You ‘hear’ it as energy waves, you absorb and decode it as emotions. That is how another person hears your heart, absorbs your raw emotions, before even noticing what you’re projecting on the surface. We can feel through fake smiles. We can feel the tension in the air. We instantaneously react to a divorcee’s quiet sadness, to a toddler’s carefree joy, to a leader’s deep-seated anxiety.

Amongst the first thing a child learns to do is respond to their mother’s heart, their brains in-sync with their mother’s heartbeat, their tiny bodies responding to the high frequency energy waves – feelings of love, adoration and pure joy, projected in their direction. Even our pets can hear our hearts, becoming entrained to our squeals of delight, our undeniable excitement and unquestionably love we feel for them. It’s a phenomena science is only just now catching up to. We can hear each other, but question remains as to whether or not we’re actually listening – to our own heart’s tongue and to those around us, which we are absorbing. As I mentioned last month, spiritual leaders, truth-speakers, rebel-rousers, healers, and those ever so rare enlightened beings have understood the power and importance of the heart’s energetic language since the beginning of time. They’ve always known that the energy stored within our hearts is universal, instantaneously transferring from one individual to the next, from one species to another, from one community to another, and that it is fundamental to our existence.

They have attempted to show us, explain to us, inspire us, motivate us and help us believe a simple fact – we are all made up of, connected to, and surrounded by a universal energy field, vibrating with, to, or at, each other. And now science is finally beginning to acknowledge this universal language, this energy field that is the foundation of our existence.

Yet we’re still not listening. We still claim to not know how to speak this language, despite the fact that we’re doing it everyday. So now that you are aware of your heart’s energetic language, do you hear what it is saying? Are you actually listening to it? Is it aligned with what you desire to communicate, to both the external and your internal world? I know that I definitely have some work to do to reduce the discrepancy between desired versus actual heart communication. But at least I now know. And at long last, I have finally begun to listen to my heart.