Heart Descends as Brain Rises
Your heart is the seat of knowing, compassion, and love. It doesn’t need to "lift" or go anywhere. Instead, we can turn toward what we want from a soft heart. In this brief video, we explore how the heart can naturally broaden and descend with the breath. As it moves downward during inhalation, it rests gently on its undulating seat: the diaphragm.
Perhaps we've misunderstood the common instruction to "lift the heart." What if it’s actually the opposite? I propose we allow the heart to rest and even descend.
Watch the video first and then try the simple movement below.
Now Try This:
As you inhale, allow the heart to descend so the brain can rise.
Take a simple standing position or choose to play with the actions in a sun salutation.
As you inhale, feel your heart widen at its base in harmony with the diaphragm upon which it rests. Pay attention to the back of your heart and its resting place.
Go slow—pause if needed. As your heart descends ever so slightly with the diaphragm, notice its natural rootedness downward.
From this place of soft grounding, allow the heart to initiate an upward reach, while staying gently rooted.
Without lifting the heart, fill your breath into the back heart and diaphragm.
See if, perhaps, your gaze, your curiosity, or aspiration naturally rises. When the brain is connected to heart it is free to explore without fear.
Anatomy and Embryology
This approach is not only anatomically correct—heart softly descends with the inhalation and the widening of the diaphragm—but it mirrors our early development as embryos.
In the early stages of formation, the heart is positioned above the brain, gently arcing over it. As the heart descends, the brain rises in response. The diaphragm also rises to meet the descending heart.
This deep connection between heart and brain remains embedded in the organs, fascia, vessels, and nerves that link them. It’s a wide-open channel of communication: heart / brain, brain / heart.
Our brains inherently know their deepest home. Sometimes, we forget or become disconnected from what is most supportive, but we can always get out of the way. When the heart settles, the brain can rest.
As you inhale, allow the heart to descend so the brain can rise.
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