(Part 2)
The psychosomatic interconnectedness of the heart diseases
Let us have a look at some typical cardiological symptoms and try to recognize their psychological causes. Symptoms are a direct expression of a soul reality. They are not coincidences, but they show relentlessly honestly what the actual causes are.
1. The heart tightness, angina pectoris
Angina pectoris is a symptom, which is always connected with fear. The sudden «iron fist» on the chest which radiates down into our left arm, is the consequence of a hardening and arteriosclerotic contraction of the coronary vessels, which we can see in men above the age of 45 and in women in their menopause.
Angina pectoris is the soul problem of a heart tightness, that must be solved, and which has been shifted onto the physical plane. The anxiety shows the tight spot in which such a person finds themselves, which, however, they are normally not aware of. The heart which is cramped shows the cramps and fights about the heart matters, in which they are entangled without admitting it. The bodily needs thwart them, so that they may focus their attention onto their heart problem, onto their narrow-mindedness.
All the measures of modern cardiology, like the dilation through a balloon catheter, stent or bypass surgery can help quickly, but they postpone the problem if it is not solved from within. The heart calls for dilatation, it would like to break out of its petrification, which came about because the person has kept their emotions locked up for years.
Such a person must recognize the impasse into which their locked heart leads them to enable a change and an opening. Since they have literally been put against the wall with their existentially threatening situation, this is a hard learning task for them. The unflattering perception of the message that lies in the symptoms, is a part of this task, out of which a willingness for inner change can develop.
The heart does not only force the angina pectoris patient to immediately stop all their outer activities and to concentrate on surviving, but it also puts them before the task to focus on the center and the essential part of their life.
The heart of such a person has often become dull through disappointments, resignation, bitterness and sorrows, so that life is only experienced as a burden and there is no joy any longer. To be indifferent also means that the soul power has been hurt and their hope is clouded.
The key to helping oneself is to withdraw into the “heart chamber” to get in touch with one’s needy soul again in silence. Then the inner perception is sharpened, the awareness is heightened, and this person can again become a conscious instrument of the soul with an open heart turned towards it. They can experience how the heart is able to hear again, how it can perceive the “soundless voice” of the soul intuition, by which they can be guided in doubtless trust.
2. The heart attack
The dead end of the angina pectoris, which is often final, is the heart attack. It has a sad popularity and a fifth of all the cases are fatal.
If the patient survives, a part of his heart, part of the person’s center, is dead and there is a scar. This is a deep soul trauma, through which, however, he is given a great chance to change his life consciously and which can lead to the gate of a spiritual awakening.
A heart attack never happens as unexpectedly and suddenly as it looks like at the moment of the catastrophe. It has been prepared unconsciously for a period of time. The heart is somehow blocked. The patient has not been open for any feelings that would touch their heart and they have not even noticed. They did not speak from their heart any longer. This unconscious character rigidity finds its symbolic expression in the body: in the hardened heart and the inflexibility of the calcified coronary vessels. The heart attack candidate is, together with their heart, under high pressure of a “hostile” environment and a high competition. For the sake of success, they have engaged themselves in the mill wheel of constant overstrain and an overdisciplined performance related stress.
If the person manages to open their heart wide and to pull down the “fence” which their ego has built up against the rest of the world, then a decisive turning-point to warm-heartedness, joy and empathy will occur. If we understand that it is our ego which is afraid to open its limits because it is afraid to lose its security or its comfort, then we will leave this isolation and the self-made sad loneliness and will open our heart. If we can open it in love, we will get into resonance with others and will experience the unity which is beyond polarity. This means being happy, being fulfilled with an uplifting feeling of gratefulness.
It is strange to what extent people – and with them their heart – allow themselves literally to be torn up for performance, success, recognition and money. Beside hypertension it is also the lack of relaxation which is the basis for a heart attack.
From this evocative experience the consciousness can be born that the constant quest for recognition and the addiction to earn it through performing, is actually nothing else than the deep longing to love and to be loved.
3. Cardiac arrhythmia
Skipped heart beats and tachycardia which are triggered through emotions, are an everyday experience that we are all well acquainted with.
Chronic cardiac arrhythmia is, on the other hand, a sign that the affected person does not experience their emotions any longer because they do not admit them. Those who focus completely on their mind and do not admit their emotions, can easily be taken out of their rut by cardiac arrhythmia.
Rigid tracks, immovable principles and an iron discipline often characterize such a person. In such cases the heart has to “play nuts” and slip out of its beat.
The classical cardiology uses betablockers or tranquilizers. These pharmaceuticals – in acute cases they suppress the symptoms and help quickly – cut the heart off from any exciting stimuli. They practically create a psycho-vegetative dissociation.
This way the soul, which cannot express itself, will be deprived more than ever of the bodily stage on which it would like to be noticed.
If there is an absolute arrhythmia, the hierarchization of the beats has been lost. Different heart cells in several places try to force the heart to beat in their way. They are a symbolical expression for incompatible aspirations, which block the heart’s work. The central sense-giving of the heart activity has been lost. The life concept has been frittered as it were, which must be expressed by the heart in a palpable way.
Extrasystoles, a wide-spread kind of arrhythmia, are stumbling blocks on our rhythmical paths, as it were. An impulse center, which is actually subordinate, supersedes the sinus knot, the “boss” of the rhythmical heart work and triggers a premature heartbeat, which is often unpleasant, but harmless. The soul background shows us that such a person is out of step without admitting it.
They will have to learn to live their own individuality and to consciously step onto the path of individuation. This may include inner autonomy, which is not always congruent with the social norms and expectations of our environment.
A soul derailment is the cause for each heart lapse in a field that touches our life center. The actual task of the symptom is to make us aware of the derailment and to give us the chance to return to the healthy hierarchy of the heart, so that the soul can become the ruler of our center again.
All the heart symptoms ask us to listen to our own heart again and to have the courage to have the unmasking self-knowledge which is always also a heart knowledge. Then faulty developments, avoidances, suppressions and self-imposed constraints can be recognized and transformed to the higher insight into the sense-giving task that is the basis of our life. The heart’s efforts can then stop, the heart does not need any more permanently to present to us our life problems like on a stage.
The spiritual teacher Sri Aurobindo says: “The lack to recognize yourself is the origin of all your sorrows and the cause for all your stumbling. Your task, the aim of your being and the cause of your existence is to become a perfect vessel of the deity.”
These words touch a level of the human being which goes beyond the above-mentioned psychosomatic equivalents of heart diseases. In the next part of the article we would like to follow this line.
(to be continued in part 4)
