“He touched my hands,” I journaled on March 25, 2023, “and said the frequency created there speaks directly to the heart. I wonder if that’s true.”
I’d been dreaming. The words came from the mouth of a man I knew in waking life. One I might have let in.
Interesting since at the time, my heart was pretty closed off.
I was in the thick of it, vacillating on the regular between shock and awe. Shock that after 20 years in partnership, I was now waking up alone. Awe at cryptic dreams like these that kept me company each night.
Reading back this questioning of the dream statement’s validity had the “now me” excited for the “then me.”
Because I knew she’d find the answer.
This idea of a heart and hand connection brought my mind immediately to dance. I’d become captivated by salsa one solo trip to Oaxaca in July last year. On a warm, sweaty evening in a small, quiet town, I watched strangers move together, song after song, so, flawlessly, like they’d been paired for lifetimes.
It wasn’t until I immersed myself in dance back home that I realized what powerful communicators the hands can be.
The slightest, almost imperceivable movement from my partner’s wrist or open palm or fingers subtly asks for me to turn in one direction or the other, inviting every next step. If my hands aren’t listening, I stall out.
What’s more, when a song starts and our digits first connect, I can sense if our bodies will have a deep conversation or if we’ll just be going through the motions.
The hands seem to whisper what’s heartfully true.
Study seeks to validate heart energy exchange
I sat down to write about a most recent experience that made this dream-delivered concept even more real for me when I wondered if published research showed a connection between hands and heart.
Certainly, someone had proven it.
A 2010 HeartMath Institute paper titled, The Electricity of Touch: Detection and Measurement of Cardiac Energy Exchange Between People, appeared in my search with a portion of its summary reading:
“This study represents one of the first successful attempts to directly measure an energy exchange between people, and provides a solid, testable theory to explain the observed effects of many healing modalities that are based upon the assumption that an energy exchange takes place.
“Nonlinear stochastic resonance is discussed as a mechanism by which weak, coherent electromagnetic fields, such as those generated by the heart of an individual in a caring state, may be detected and amplified by biological tissue, and potentially produce measurable effects in living systems.
“One implication is that the effects of therapeutic techniques involving contact or proximity between practitioner and patient could be amplified by practitioners consciously adopting a sincere caring attitude, and thus introducing increased coherence into their cardiac field.”
How about a summary of the summary? Essentially, researchers found that:
Energy produced by the heart transfered between people.
Physical touch—through the hands—enhanced the transfer.
Positive emotions like love and care increased heart coherence.
“Heart coherence” was a new-to-me-term, described by the institute as “a synchronized and empowering state—physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually—allowing us to become our best selves.”
This sounds like how one might describe experiencing flow. Or full presence. Or divine connection. States of being with which I’m becoming more familiar, and in some instances, have absolutely been intensified by touch from another human.
Mystical massage
"How you doing?” she asked warmly as I emerged from the room.
“Oh my God, so good,” I managed to whisper. “I felt like I was in another world on your table.”
I booked time with her because my neck had been cranky for weeks. This I told her.
I didn’t share that I also needed support preparing my nervous system. The weekend would bring tough talks.
As I lay face down, she started to work, and a visual emerged: as a child, a man’s hand at the back of my neck, guiding me through a crowd.
A flash of insight that I’d felt controlled, directed, restricted, and untrusted to walk my path in this potential memory. Yet I didn’t express this out loud. I quietly followed.
Hard to say if this was a factually remembered experience. Either way, the touch seemed well intended to keep me close and safe.
And, it surfaced a realization that as I moved through life, I generally looked to others to show me the way. To take control of my decisions. To direct my next steps. I blamed external situations for my perceived restriction. And in some ways, felt like I was walking someone else’s path.
In full surrender to this woman’s hands on my body as my whole being processed, released a flood of electric charge.
It was as if both a physical and energetic block had disintegrated. In that moment, flowing through was life-affirming confidence that could tend to a limiting belief.
A limiting belief ultimately illuminated by the hands of a practitioner whose purpose was to heal.
My brain went quiet, and my body began to sparkle, integrating new levels of awareness: My heart has a voice that desires to be heard, and I can trust myself to speak her words out loud, with love.
Heart coherence, magnified.
> The ritual: Massage can be such a beautiful opportunity to unlock stuck muscles and memories. Drop into a meditative space as best you can. If the brain is busy, put it to work focusing intently on following the practitionar’s hands in your mind’s eye. That’s it. Feel them where they are, feel them where they go. Then simply notice, everything. Emotions coming up? Notice. Stories? Notice. Then let them dissipate, and trust the healing will unfold. Try this next time you treat yourself to some heart-led bodywork.
The energy anatomy
Traditional Chinese medicine modalities tap into meridians, considered passageways that carry energy flow throughout the body.
They’re also considered scientifically unproven phenomena.
This science-y study, Anatomical Evidence of Acupuncture Meridians in the Human Extracellular Matrix, explains that “the meridian system is composed of 12 principal meridians, each of which connects to an organ system and extends to an extremity and eight collaterals.”
Complete with cadaver photos, it attempts to validate the existence of these energy channels by showing anatomically that the body’s physical fascia network mirrors traditional Chinese meridians.
And one path goes straight from the heart to the palm of the hand.
Touching ourselves can be loving ourselves
In yoga, we’re often invited to “drop in” by placing one hand over our heart center. I’ve noticed an overwhelming suggestion for this hand to be the left.
Interesting that the HeartMath study specified how energy exchange was highest when the receiver’s right hand was held by the source’s left hand.
Which I understood to mean that the source was generating feelings of love from the heart, and it was delivered strongest through the left hand.
Could this theoretically mean we can create an infinite loop of self-love through a hand-on-heart practice?
Is it possible to nurture feelings of love and kindness from our hearts that travel through our left arm, out of our left hand, and right back into our body to amplify in strength and begin again?
Sounds like some sensual superpower that—if used wisely—could transmute anything we touch into gold.
> The ritual: When you notice those yummy feelings of love, peace, or gratitude arise spontaneously, place your left hand over your heart space and circulate the juiciness, feeding it right back into yourself. Need a nudge to get the feelings flowing? Follow a guided loving kindness meditation with your hands in place. Take the cultivated energy with you wherever you go.
Love Note
I love the way your eyes light up When the veil between worlds thin And magic fills your blood Body bonding with the energy beyond Until time and space are suspended And you’re back home Not the home where you grew up The home from way before and far away But also, right, here Looking around for a witness Someone to see what you’re seeing Feel what you’re feeling To tell you, it’s real When you’ve always known that it is And the breaking open has welcomed you back in
May your heart and hands stay open and warm, dearest Everyday Alchemist. Until next time, would love to hear what in this post resonated most.
My heart 🩷 is happy after reading this. Looking forward to more readings.
Sweet sharing - brings up thoughts of Pono. And love the human moments- being perfectly human means being imperfect. Love is a verb and we can only truly love another when we love ourselves. As if hand on heart yields hand in hand. Blessings.