Understanding the concept of filters can have a considerable affect on not only how you see your life, but also how you experience it at any one time. We have much more control over our reality than we usually give ourselves credit.

Try this. With others, go to a relatively quiet spot, in nature. Separate and find an isolated spot for yourself. Get comfortable and allow yourself to take in your environment. Experience sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste. Just breathe it all in. Notice how many different sensations compete for your attention.

Spend some time focusing on just one sense at a time. Pick a spot rich in variety. Start by scanning it, and then focus in on a particular piece. Zero-in on the tiniest part of what youre observing. Practice doing this with a number of sights, shifting from wide-shot to close-up and extreme close-up. See just how selective and precise you can be? Do something similar with each of your senses.

Now, take in a few slow, deep breaths and shift your attention to your heart. Breathe in to it for a minute or so. Then, go back to the spot you were just focusing on. Through the filter of the consciousness of your heart this time, begin exploring what you had explored earlier.

Just taking the time away from everyday reality opens up so much more of you on its own. Slowing down works its own magic. But when you set your intention on seeing through the eyes of your heart, a subtly richer world opens up to you as you learn to become more adept at recognizing and staying with that center. It may take a number of times to get the hang of it.

Oddly enough, I find myself beginning a session on heart-consciousness by offering an intellectual, head-centered start that acts as a bridge to the concept which acts as a bridge to the experience. This is what I am doing with this series going back and forth from the intellectual to experiential. On the plus side, as I mentioned before, its more a matter of placing someone in the position of remembering something that lives inside them rather than starting from scratch.

For me to teach heart-centered consciousness, in person, however, it is best if I am there myself. The second I do make the choice to shift my consciousness, something interesting happens; I tend to shut up. Its not that I dont have the words, its that I dont feel the drive to express them. Even in this moment, as I type I feel resistant to having to intellectualize and articulate what is essentially my present state of being.

After seemingly interminable times sitting at the edge of the prairie in silence with the Lakota, I would begin to feel attuned to the person I was with in a connected way that did not require conversation. In so many ways, we just sat together experiencing the same thing (more on this kind of synchronization later). I would absorb the concept by being near it.

That brings into play the power of exploring heart-consciousness with others. The more time I spent with the Lakota, the more present I became in the moment, and it had nothing to do with what I was taught. It is, conceptually, similar to the spark of life being passed from mother to offspring. In the presence of someone in this mode of consciousness, it becomes easier to access.

The Dalai Lama is a great example. In all the films Ive seen of him, there are lines of people just waiting to be in his presence. He looks into each persons eyes, connects, and without saying anything of any substance, is just there with the person, and then the next and then the next. He laughs a lot. They cry a lot. I fantasize that the laughter is about the irony of people traveling so far to be with him to encounter something that has always lived inside them!

Now that youve had a solitary experience of heart-consciousness, get together with one of the people with whom you have gone into nature. Go to a different spot. Sitting back to back, or within just a few feet of each other, repeat the sensory exercise that you just did solo. Do this silently for about fifteen minutes. Then, face each other and share your experiences.

You will find what you will find, and its not my role to lead you on, but lets just say you will be getting a taste of how people in connection with their hearts come into better connection with themselves, and together more quickly can become in better connection with all things.

Our next installment will expand on the concepts of working with others.

Russ Reina

Russ has been involved in the healing arts since 1969. As one of the first ambulance paramedics in the country he began to explore the difference between being a healer and being what he calls a "flesh mechanic." His path has taken him through alternative modalities of healing, including working and living with a Lakota medicine family on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (SD).

His experience also has included over 20 years in performance arts, including movie writing and production, stand-up comedy, improvisation, acting and singing/songwriting. Today, he lives on the island of Maui, produces sacred art and offers counseling and workshops.

His emphasis is on working with healers. Russ has a special interest in crisis intervention and counseling having to do with serious life changes.

He supports himself and counseling through sales of his art work, which can be found at his web sites. Please take a few minutes to explore the fascinating world of the healing arts there.

"There is a most powerful gift that one person can give to another," says Russ. "It is permission and encouragement, in whatever form it takes, for the other to be as wholly themselves as they are capable of becoming. It is also the most powerful gift one can give to oneself.

We all do this at some time or another in our lives. Therefore, each of us are healers, for the act of healing is the act of assisting in bringing about wholeness. The only difference between a healer and anyone else is that the healer actively looks for opportunities to do the work. Look for opportunities; becoming a healer is that simple."