Heart disease – is it all about love?

Heart disease – Is it all about love?

Heart disease – is it all about love?

Facts

  • There are over 7 million deaths per year from coronary heart disease globally.[i]
  • 40-75% of all heart attack victims die before reaching hospital.[ii]
  • Each year cardiovascular disease (CVD) causes over 4 million deaths in Europe and over 1.9 million deaths in the European Union (EU).[iii]
  • Approximately every 6 minutes someone in the UK dies from a heart attack.[iv]
  • The World Health Organisation (WHO) predicts over 11 million deaths from coronary heart disease in 2020.[i]

Inflammation in the lining of the wall of the arteries that supply the heart (called the coronary arteries) is a key process in the development of heart disease. As a result of the inflammatory process, over time, plaques can form in the arterial wall. This is called atherosclerosis and it causes the arteries to become hardened, narrowed and less flexible.

If a plaque should rupture, a clot can form and cause a sudden loss of blood supply to a section of the heart muscle – this is called a heart attack. When the arteries are just narrowed and hardened, then there can be a lack of blood reaching the heart muscle under times of exercise or stress and the resulting pain is called angina.

Previously it was thought that heart disease was due to a high fat diet and high levels of cholesterol, but this is now known to not be true. Inflammation is the underlying process that leads to heart disease. You may well ask – what factors lead to the inflammation?

It is increasingly recognised that lifestyle factors are much more important than previously realised and that most heart disease is actually preventable.

What lifestyle factors are important?

  • Overweight and obesity
  • Lack of exercise
  • Alcohol
  • Smoking
  • High sugar and carbohydrate intake
  • Stress leading to high blood pressure
  • Hostility, depression, emotional wellbeing

How do lifestyle factors lead to inflammation?

Science is now showing how our thoughts, feeling and emotions can impact the immune system and lead to inflammation.

  • So what if how we are with ourselves also affects our cells and organs?
  • For example, what if when we are hard on ourselves and others, are aggressive or hostile, that over time this could also result in hardening of our arteries?

OUCH!

It’s a bit like when we go to the gym and we work our body too hard and our muscles become hard and stiff. From an energetic perspective, being hard on ourselves can lead to our body also being hard. We may not like to hear this as it asks us to live in a way that is more responsible, but what if it is true?

If this is true, isn’t it a good thing to be aware of it? When we are aware, we can at least choose to change it ...

  • What if us being hard on ourselves, and in general not honouring, listening to our true needs, and just pushing on, getting through and generally not feeling good about life, also drives behaviours that cause us further harm?
  • Is it possible that a lack of care and love for our self usually underlies the unhealthy behaviours like smoking, drinking and over-eating?

Are we prepared to look at that as a possibility?

If yes, then isn’t it super-important to develop a way of looking after ourselves that is truly loving and caring, devoid of such hardness and emotions?

If being hard on ourselves could actually harden our arteries and cause other hardness in the body, then that is worth looking at, is it not? We’re not saying it is a fact – we’re just offering the possibility.

This can occur for many reasons. We often have taken on beliefs about ourselves that are not true – that we are not good enough, not worthy, not loveable and so forth, that feed into a lack of self-worth and lack of care for ourselves. In other words, if something hurts us and someone – perhaps way back in childhood – says something that we find crushing, we can take that on as being all our fault, and take on the belief, for instance, that that must mean we are not loveable, or not worthy, etc.

Most, if not all of us, can relate to this in some way, although the specifics of how it actually panned out for us may differ.

The point is, often there are underlying hurts that we do not wish to feel and so we harden up, put up walls and defences, thinking that will protect us from getting hurt. We then carry these brick walls throughout life – in all our relationships and encounters with others.

Alas, it is those very walls that are hurting us more than we realise, as we shut off the love to our self and others.

Is that not what a wall does – keep people out?

The inner heart is the centre and source of love in the body – so is it no wonder that if we shut ourselves off from this source and do not care for and love ourselves, and keep others walled out, that we can end up with heart disease?

Is it at least possible that they are linked?

If that is true, then what can you do to prevent or heal heart disease?

  • Stop being so hard on yourself – give yourself a break and develop a more loving, gentle and caring way with yourself.
  • Accept that you are worthy of love and care – first and foremost from yourself!
  • And then choose to take down that wall!
  • And finally ... let people in.

As a result of feeling more love for ourselves we can be encouraged to develop more healthy lifestyle choices like:

  • Stopping smoking
  • Reducing or stopping alcohol
  • Exercising regularly
  • Reducing intake of sugar and carbs, especially wheat-based foods
  • Developing ways of dealing with stress e.g. gentle breath meditation® and esoteric yoga
  • Dealing with underlying hurts and emotions, letting go of the defences, bringing down the walls
  • Expressing how you feel instead of bottling it up
  • Getting regular check ups from the GP and having medical problems seen to early and fully

These are things that you can do to help yourself, irrespective of whether you also need surgery or medication from your doctor to help with your symptoms – such as heart disease. Surgery and medication can be a necessary part of looking after yourself but they do not prevent you from making lifestyle changes that can have amazing beneficial effects.

Consider the possibility that if the heart is the centre and source of love in the body (and it is), that it is the lack of love for ourselves that is the root cause of heart disease, as that also results in behaviours that are self-destructive rather than self-loving.

If we accept this, the good news is you can change this around – by choosing to love yourself because that is what you are – Love.

"The greatest form of medicine is to be love and to express it in all that you do."

Serge Benhayon Esoteric Teachings and Revelations, p 623

To understand more about the energy of heart disease listen to this audio excerpt taken from the September 2014 Livingness 2 Workshop presented by Serge Benhayon which, after a short introduction, explores the root cause behind heart conditions.

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Developing trust

The Livingness 2 workshop is about clearing the hurts you hold in your body and developing trust to let people in, even those who have hurt you.


References:

  • [i]

    World Health Organisation. Retrieved July 2014 from:
    http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs317/en/

  • [ii]

    World Health Organisation, Integrated Management of Cardiovascular Risk, 2002.
    Retrieved July 2014 from:
    http://www.who.int/cardiovascular_diseases/media/en/635.pdf

  • [iii]

    European Society of Cardiology, European Cardiovascular Disease Statistics 2012.
    Retrieved January 2015 from:
    http://www.escardio.org/about/Documents/EU-cardiovascular-disease-statistics-2012.pdf

  • [iv]

    Heart Research Institute (UK). Retrieved January 2015 from:
    http://www.hriuk.org/about-heart-disease/heart-facts/ </li> </ul>

Filed under

Heart diseaseLifestyle diseasesInflammationSelf-loveInner-heartIll health

  • Photography: Dean Whitling, Brisbane based photographer and film maker of 13 years.

    Dean shoots photos and videos for corporate portraits, architecture, products, events, marketing material, advertising & website content. Dean's philosophy - create photos and videos that have magic about them.