How Do We Grow Our Heart Capacity?
ICN Living Lineages Series – Beloved Community
This week’s rhythm of loving evolution: Becoming
We engage in processes of becoming to deepen the transformative work and play of evolution, participating in our growth from divine being, as God is beckoning us here and now.
The Becoming offerings below invite us into personal and communal deepening in our divine becoming. They can be practiced in WeSpace groups and our daily lives today and throughout the week ahead. Rather than one-time experiences, we encourage ongoing and repeated practice to better support our growth and evolution.
If you missed it last week, we encourage you first to read the Beckoning article informing these processes:
“Cultivating Our Capacity for Connectedness”
One of the foundational qualities of divine communion in our living, evolving, beloved community is being post-tribal. This means that our boundary markers for communal identification are not firm dividers. They are not fixed beliefs. There isn’t the need for strenuous gatekeeping and fortified barriers.
When we put walls around our beliefs or our communities, we put walls around our hearts.
Rather than defended barriers, our boundaries serve as flexible markers of distinction. Rather than dividing the field, our recognition of the different groups and collectives we are a part of brings texture and focus to the personal, spiritual, and energetic bonds that exist through shared resonance, common experience, and mutual coherence.
In post-tribal communion, these become more and more permeable. As we are less and less bound to geography and restricted to local community alone, online community provides us with greater diversity and range of connection. As such, we have the opportunity to grow our heart capacity in unprecedented ways. We have the ability like never before to engage in community comprised of connectedness with expressions of the intimate, Deep We, the broader Collective We, and the expansive Universal We.
This is an evolutionary way of community that has only become possible in our lifetimes. We are, evolutionarily speaking, largely unprepared for this new way of being. The only grooves of this from the past come from the mystical realms and spiritual expanse, which we can draw upon for our growing capacity and communal becoming here and now.
To enter into this great beloved community, we first must release—continue to release—our self-referentialism also on the collective level. This can be a great challenge to the degree that we are overly defended with our tribal markers of identity. Whether they be spiritual, religious, national, biological, or otherwise, these distinctions both make us who we are and do not define who we truly are. Our precious personhood is rooted in our divine essence, our ultimate source of being, who we truly are.
It is from this core and center of divine vitality and energetic magnetism that we are held. From the force and strength of this great, divine heart flows the love that casts out fear.
Rather than the inward pull of circling the wagons, we feel the draw of inflow into the very heart of God.
Rather than reinforcing the ramparts of self-protection—personally or collectively—we feel the overflow of life-giving abundance.
Rather than relating solely with our in-group and by our individual preferences, we feel the freedom of the interflow of expansive communion.
And from this divine heart, in holy abundance, with sacred communion, we can live into the experience of heartful community with the I, the We, and the All. Our hearts have the strength and capacity to move and flow through them all. To be in and of them all.
A Practice of Cultivating The Heart as a Mystical Organ of Perception
“What does your/our tender heart know right now?”
The following practice can be done either with a partner or in a group.
When done with a partner, each takes a turn as the questioner. For two minutes, participant A asks “What does your tender heart know right now.” After the response, the questioner says “thank you”, pauses, and repeats the question continuing for two minutes. Then the two change roles. They offer a bow together at the end.
When done in a group, after inviting attunement, the guide asks the question, pauses into the silence, says “thank you” and repeats the question—continuing for two minutes.
The Deep We – (Those gathered together now – a pair, a WeSpace, etc.)
Attuning to this Deep We among and amidst us here and now:
What does my tender heart know now?
The Collective We – (ICN or other spiritual community, the Cloud of Witnesses, a city or country, etc.)
Attuning to this Collective We among and amidst us here and now:
What does our tender heart know now?
The Universal We – (Global, Cosmic, Ground of Being, God, Communion of Saints Eternal etc.)
Attuning to this Universal We among and amidst us here and now:
What does the tender heart of God know now?
Inner bow to complete meditation.
Entering Heartfulness Now
A 5-Minute Meditation to Arrive in Our Heart Space
The following meditation from Martha O’Hehir is a short, guided practice to help you enter into your heart space. If you’re new to moving into your heart, or you would like to cultivate a greater ease in presencing through your heart throughout your day, this simple, short practice may help you do so:
Practicing Heart Capacity at All Times
Whole-Body Mystical Presencing
WBMP is a process that is practiced all throughout your day. It is a turning at every possible moment in which you can remember to do it—or when it comes upon you as a grace.
It does not work if just thought of at random. It is like opening an inner eyelid. If we have not learned to look for this inner presence, our eyes remain shut. The more we consciously open them, the more we will begin to see with the light of divine presence within and around us. The more we attune to our heart and the capacity we have for loving interconnection in any and every moment, the more it will grow and become naturalized.
This is a deep connection to the experience of divine love and mystery penetrating beyond moments of practice and into the fabric of life itself.
It will take specific intention and dedication to develop new neural pathways of the heart, and then over time the grooves are established so that the practice flows more naturally and we come into heart coherence more easily. But intentional, committed repetition is necessary to get to this place.
Heart Presencing in Every Moment
To take up this practice, set the intention today and every day this week to presence your heart awareness as often as you can.
You might use a word as a mantra to help you remember. Something simple like “heart” or “love.” If it’s not too disruptive, you can even set a chime on our phone to help you remember, especially at first. Maybe every hour, half hour, or even more frequently. Experiment!
In whatever way the moment arises, when it does, move into your heart. Don’t just think about your heart, but let yourself feel and be present from your heart space. Be in the energy of your heart, which may or may not have feelings connected to it. If you experience strong emotions, welcome them. If you can, be present in the deep core of your heart, always alive in divine presence full of love. Let it emanate out from you.
As you return to your day, in whatever you are doing at the moment, notice the felt energy of your heart still present, integrating into your everyday actions and state of being.
WBMP Heart Practice Beyond Me
Open your field of awareness to the deeper reality of interconnection and loving entanglement we have with people in our lives. And then actively invite a noticing of someone. Don’t choose who. Let that arise from deeper within you. When they come to mind, hold them in loving awareness and sensitivity. You may even receive a knowing about them in the present moment or an inner invitation to greater connectivity, such as reaching out to them or expressing your love and care in some way.
Beloved Community flourishes through healthy and effusive mutuality, as we release self-referentialism, embrace precious personhood, and inhabit deeper connectedness.
Commitment action step:
How might we step more fully into post-tribal living to grow our heart capacity?
Which area do you need to invest more time and energy toward: Your Deep We, Collective We, or Universal We? Open to how that might come forth more in your life
If you’d like to engage in the practice of cultivating your heart as a mystical organ of perception along with others, you’re invited to join the ICN morning meditation time led by Allen Bourque. On Monday through Wednesday this next week, we’ll be sharing in this practice.
Monday–Friday | 7:30–8:00 a.m. U.S. Central Time
All are welcome to join our daily meditation whenever you can.
Statement of WeCreating Authorship
This article was WeCreated by Luke Healy, Martha O’Hehir, Allen Bourque, and Beth Biery.
All of the wisdom, creativity, and spiritual emergence in ICN comes from the communal field of wisdom and spirit speaking in and through the “We.”
All text in this article is human-authored without the use of AI, according to our AI policy: 0 out of 10
All Images are open-source, used with permission, or created by ICN using AI