Heart Sense - def: Insightful perception & considered discernment regarding daily life developed through the wisdom of, and benevolent qualities associated with, the heart.
About
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The precious knowledge of the heart drives our research and creates a platform for the heart to speak. All our work (research, training, art, consultancy, one-to-one) arises by firstly sinking into the heart-space and thinking with the heart about life and its challenges. Working in this way creates possibilities to bring forth a radically different way of perceiving the world in its fullest living context; enabling us to bring in, and make sense of, subtler realms of experience that are often missed through a head/mind-based, rational approach. We take seriously what the heart wishes to say; encompassing and moving beyond the mental level of mind (learning the language of the intuition and subtler ways of knowing, and developing appropriate ways to bring this knowledge into the world). Our work commits to bringing together heart-centred knowing with head-based critique, in order to create the space for more of life to enter. This way of engaging with the heart creates opportunities for open and empowering dialogues with ourselves, the wider community and our beautiful Earth, developing the possibility to nurture safe, open, loving, kind and compassionate spaces for different questions and ideas to arise.
Purpose and Mission
To support and empower individuals and organisations to return to heart and reconnect to life. We do this by putting you back in the driving seat of your own life – guiding you to the wisdom and knowledge that resides your own heart, and giving you the confidence to bring forward this new understanding in everyday life.
Louise Livingstone - Founder, Researcher, Coach & Intuitive Artist, Stone Whisperer, Earth Energy Worker
(PhD, MSc, PGDipCEIG, BA, INLPTA NLP, AAMET EFT, VTCT, Reiki Master)
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In the early 1990s, I succumbed to viral myocarditis. This enlarged my heart leaving me with numerous physical ailments. Deep in my soul, I knew that my heart was urgently trying to speak to me, making me aware that I had been ignoring my heart's wisdom and guidance for many years. This experience transformed my life, and I began a long journey of recovery; learning to listen to the soft whispers of my heart's wisdom and guidance. This meant un-learning almost everything I was taught about the world through the contemporary Western approach towards knowledge; along the way gaining an MSc in Holistic Science from the Schumacher College, and a PhD in Transformative Education from Canterbury Christ Church University. Today I bring my research, professional and personal experience into a practical setting; empowering people to access their heart's wisdom in order to engage more fully with life and our beautiful, living, breathing Earth.
​In deep conversation with the heart, our research has:
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Uncovered a lost heart, hidden in our past
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Discovered many different layers of the heart - each with its own wisdom and guidance
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Developed a way of engaging with these different hearts from within a contemporary framework to enable deep personal transformation
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Revealed that each heart is a portal/key; enabling the possibility to be present to what is speaking to you - helping you to deepen your understanding of yourself, and yourself in living relationship with the world
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Meet the Heart
The heart was once revered as the seat of the soul and the locus of wisdom. However, over the course of many hundreds of years, knowledge that arises through the heart has been systematically separated from, and rendered subservient to, knowledge about the world as generated through the brain (understood in modern times as the seat of knowledge and rational thinking). While the heart's wisdom (arising from its direct connection with the subtler realms of life), and benevolent qualities (such as love, kindness, non-judgement, compassion) are often alluded to within every day conversation in relation to life's challenges, the practical role that the heart could play is consistently, and frustratingly, left unaddressed in contemporary society. Sadly, since the Scientific Revolution, a narrative has been created within which the heart has only been able to live in our perceptions as a biological organ. Through this lens, any other heart that wishes to speak its wisdom is perceived as irrational, irrelevant or merely sentimental. This, however, is only a perspective.
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Reconnecting with the heart, reconnecting with life
Happily, there are signs that the tide is changing. The heart beyond the scientific organ is speaking out through many wonderful projects taking place across the planet. Indeed, here at the Heart Sense Research Institute our work is questioning the old narrative of the heart at a socio-political level, and within the discourse of sustainability in particular; creating possibilities and opportunities to contemplate the heart differently and to learn to hear the heart's guidance once more.