Because I once fainted while giving blood, I’m aware of the
need to keep my body calm during this important process. In a bid to avoid a
repeat performance of the
losing-consciousness-then-needing-emergency-intervention-and-vomiting-everywhere
situation, I had a genius idea: meditation! What better way to keep my body
calm and well out of shock territory?
This was not a good idea, as it turns out. What happened was,
my heart rate dropped so low that alarm bells started going off –
literally! – and the staff rushed over to check that I was not on the verge of
fainting. (I wasn’t.) That’s when I realised it might be a good idea to keep my
heart rate fairly fast so it can pump blood effectively.
Guys, I slowed down my own heart rate! This is an incredibly
empowering realisation. There’s plenty of scientific research out there to
prove that meditation can calm your entire body but it’s something else to actually see that happen. Not only did this confirm to me that meditation is a
wonderful tool (when used in the right setting; ie not in a blood-donation
situation), it’s also a reminder that my heart responds directly to what my
brain tells it.
So maybe I should be telling it to open up more. To trust. To
dance. To take risks. To light the way forward.
This reminds me of a beautiful passage from Paulo Coelho’s
book The Alchemist – a book I adore
so much that it would be a desert-island item for me – about talking to your
heart: "Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself."
I think I’m going to do that more often now.