The Heart-Centered Life and It's Significance

People often ask, "What is the Heart-Centered Life?" and what does it mean to be "heart-centered?" when I talk about the launch of my website and the Heart-Centered Life Podcast. Since I get asked these question quite a lot, I decided to devote this post to answering that question and going a step further to explaining why living a heart-centered life is especially important in this time and age.

What is a "heart-centered life"?

A "heart-centered life" is a life where we live our daily life in true alignment with our values, purpose, inner morality, personal experiences, and intuition. It is life where we can access our authenticity (which I take to mean a realistic view of one's self and others) and powerful emotions like empathy, courage, kindness, inner resiliency, strength, and integrity to be better people and leaders. A heart-centered life is the most fulfilling way to live because we draw from our inner reservoir of positive emotions in our approach to the world.

What does it mean to be "heart-centered"?

Being "heart-centered" means that we approach life from a place of inner strength, resiliency, courage, integrity, authenticity and truth. When we are heart-centered, we can be better leaders, make more positive choices, and impact our world in a more profound way because we make decisions and seek solutions in a way that is more purposeful, thoughtful, and open to the realities around us. We are less reactive, fearful, judgmental, and unrealistic in our approach to life. We move from an ego-driven space to a place where life flows more easily when we are heart-centered. 

Why is living a heart-centered life important?

Living a heart-centered life is so important because it is the only way for us to be truly fulfilled AND for that personal fulfillment to flow out into world at large so that in our own ways we create the positive change we need to see and experience in the world. An ego-driven life, which is fraught with anxiety, stress, overwhelm, fear, and self-deception will deplete rather than sustain us on a personal level and when we are depleted of positive emotions, we take rather than give to the world around us. In order to make the world a better place for those who will come after us, we need to be at our personal best and most fulfilled. To be that, we begin by living a heart-centered life. Personal fulfillment first, then positive change in the world around us will follow.

What is the easiest way to start living a heart-centered life?

As an intellectual property scholar, I have always been very interested in the human conditions for creativity. Over the past 5 years or so, I have gotten more and more interested in the science of creativity as new research emerge from the fields of brain science (which I use to broadly encompass fields such as neuroscience, cognitive science, and psychology). I believe that the easiest and quickest way to access positive emotions that will make us most fulfilled on a personal level is through human creativity. The mode of creation, whether through art, music, sculpture, acting, or dance is not as important as the act of creating itself. The bridge that then connects personal fulfillment and positive change in the world is the creation of intellectual property. The work that we do here focuses on these two things - human creativity and intellectual property. 

 Below, I have attached a slide deck on what a heart-centered life is.