Courage: from Anglo-French, coer heart. A quality of mind or spirit (heart) that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, without fear.
I had done a five day intensive retreat with twenty-five, Youth at Risk on the coast of England. The course had been an amazing experience for everyone and I had been invited back to England to give a one-day seminar on how to deal with difficult emotions, particularly anger.
Many of the youth had “anger issues,” a term I particularly dislike because it labels people in a negative direction and segments anger out of our everyday world. In reality anger is a powerful force that when used for good, can move mountains.
Working with these youth was a unique challenge for me. Their emotions were high on the scale of being out of control. My job was not to contain, suppress or make these emotions wrong, but to teach them how to channel them through the heart. No easy task.
But I came prepared with my Heartmath presentation which would show their real-time heart rhythms on a large screen . According to the Institute of Heartmath in California, the rhythm of our heart shows all of our physical and emotional stresses. Heartmath has innovated a technique that shifts the heart rhythm from stressed to ‘coherent’. The coherent wave of the heart is where we feel balanced, centered, strong, energized, loving and kind.
The youth, though normally distracted, were immediately intrigued by the presentation. They seemed mesmerized by the giant heart rhythms moving on the screen. I asked who wanted to volunteer to demonstrate working with their heart rhythm and right away Ronnie shot up his hand.
“Oh no, not him,” I thought to myself. Ronnie was the most difficult kid of the group. During the five day intensive he had been obstinate and angry. He insisted on doing everything his way and breaking the rules over and over again.
He was the one kid out of all of them, who didn’t seem to soften, even after the numerous breakthroughs that had helped everyone else. Ronnie would have been my last choice for a demonstration subject. But turning down a kid like this wouldn’t send a good message, so I invited him up front.
Ronnie was tough and I was pretty sure that they only reason he wanted to come up front was because he wanted to show off in front of everyone or prove my theory wrong. Neither of these options felt great to me.
I taught Ronnie to breathe into his heart area and generate a loving feeling towards someone or something. I was pretty sure that he was either making fun of me internally or resisting everything I was saying, but I kept on. I encouraged Ronnie to focus on someone that he loved or cared about.
He was quiet for about 4 minutes which was the longest I had ever heard him silent. As he focused, the group watched his heart rhythms change in real-time on the screen. They were changing from irregular and jagged to smooth and rounded waves, all signs that the technique was working. But I was still not convinced that any of this would make any difference with angry Ronnie.
After we finished the demo, I had asked him to sit back down with the group. But to my surprise, he didn’t want to. He wanted to continue to sit by the heart monitor. I thought that was odd, but rather than choosing to enforce my rule, I let him stay. I continued on with the demo’s for another half hour or so and then finished my presentation.
At the end of the day, I asked for any of the kids to stand up and share what they had gotten from the presentation. Ronnie jumped up immediately. He practically shouted, “I realized that I really do love my parents.” Apparently Ronnie had focused on them during his session. “and for the first time in my life I feel that something might actually help me with my anger.”
I was blown away and I started to tear up. I had known the power of the heart in my own life but had never experienced it in someone who was as hardened and angry as Ronnie. I never saw Ronnie again but his story has stayed with me. The image of him sitting by the heart monitor, gives me great hope for the youth of the world.
What Ronnie showed me is that underneath of the pain and hardness of anger is the tender vulnerability of deep caring. When we get hurt sometimes we come to believe that ‘love hurts’ but it is actually in the restoration of our caring, that we regain strength. Thank you Ronnie wherever you are for being a leader in the power of the heart. I hope to see you again someday
Annie Hart, NLP Trainer, Ericksonian Hypnotherapist and Storyteller helps people create deep and lasting change through story. She believes in a business model which embodies kindness and caring through human relationships.
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