Love is a powerful yet, overused word. The word represents the apical human experience. Innumerous poems, songs, and stories have been written for love. Epic battles have been fought, and boundaries are redrawn for love. However, we use that word to describe our attraction to material items.

Conversely, the ancient Greeks used six terms to differentiate the various forms of affinity we may experience. They denote agape (divine love or love for humanity), philia (friendship between equals), storge (love from parent to child), eros (sensual attraction), xenia (hospitality), and philautia (self-love). These terms allow us to be specific instead of cavalier.

In the spirit of love, we invite you to take inventory of the abovementioned domains. You may contemplate how full each of your cups is. What can you do to ask more of each type of love? Loving-kindness meditation is a helpful practice for expanding the capacity for love. We invite you to listen to the following meditation to help you connect with your heart as more than a muscle—as the center of your being.

Numerous world traditions refer to the heart as the center of our being. Furthermore, many believe courage flows from the heart. Therefore, if courage originates from the heart, our willpower also flows from this source. This principle is antithetical to the idea that our will resides in our minds. The philosopher Jack Kornfield explains the mind and heart are a continuum of thoughts and feelings in dalliance. “This heart-mind has many dimensions. It contains and includes all our thoughts, our feelings and emotions, responses, intuition, temperament, and consciousness itself.”

To live a heart-centered life, we encourage you to move your awareness from your head to your heart and invite the wisdom of intuition—the still, small voice originating from our heart—to steer the ship. Allowing decisions to emanate from the heart is an act of courage. Brother David Steindl-Rast elucidates, “Deep trust in life is not a feeling but a stance that you deliberately take. It is the attitude we call courage.”

Learning to listen to the heart and step out into your truth takes practice. Perhaps you’ve practiced listening to the opinion of others or doubting yourself for too long. One way to connect with your inner strength is to listen to what is behind your habituated fears and thought patterns. When we still the mind, we may find the power we need abundantly in the silence that is our true nature. “Leaves on a Stream” is a meditation that helps you to step back from the chatter and connect with the source of fortitude.

Compassion can be a charged word because it is often confused with similar behaviors like pity, sympathy, and empathy. They are a spectrum of emotions without proper sharp boundaries.

Compassion is the movement to alleviate suffering. Compassion is "boots on the ground." Many wisdom traditions and psychology schools purport that this is why we have emotions.

Emotions enable us to increase our empathy and compassion. When we see another in pain, we can reflect on our suffering and live a life where we are less likely to cause suffering. This primal drive may lead us to ease the suffering of others. So, instead of resisting sadness and fear, we learn to listen to these sensations as a call to action in heart-centered living.

Many studies report increased joy and life satisfaction with participation in altruism. Philanthropy comes in all forms -- time, talent, and treasure. We encourage you to give generously! However, this generosity does not have to deplete you. Self-compassion, in the form of self-care, also has to be prioritized.

Discipline is a polarizing word. It may bring up memories of childhood punishment. However, as with the preceding attributes of heart-centered living, discipline can bring us closer to our authentic self. If you have a negative opinion about the word, we challenge you to reflect on it in a new light.

Discipline can also be thought of as commitment. This commitment is to being the healthiest, most vibrant, and most fully alive version of yourself. There is an old adage, “you get what you pay for.” The quality of our life is directly proportional to how much energy we’re putting into being our best incarnation. 

A heart-centered life requires daily effort. Perhaps “require” isn’t the right word. “Deserves” is another word to contemplate. Living a heart-centered life, we contemplate that health and wellness is our birthright. That is a fire to tend to regularly.

In order to live our fullest every day, we need to eat nourishing food. Every day, we need to take time and connect with what brings us closer to spirit, and every day we need some modicum of purposeful movement. The amount and the time may vary, and yes, this even leaves room for indulgence. But having a basic schedule and daily commitments to oneself reaps numerous benefits.

When you consider your daily routine of mind, body and spirit, do you think “I have to do this” or “I get to do this”? If the former is coming into your mind, pause, and reflect on the gift of being embodied and alive. It may be helpful to contemplate the gift of freedom, and the choices that you are privileged to make with regards to your health on a daily basis. When you’re feeling resistant, pause and reflect. Can you change up the routine without necessarily throwing out the baby with the bathwater?

Generosity is the next attribute of heart-centered living. If we want to live a robust life it involves the dichotomies of “hard” and “soft” attributes. As opposed to the previous quality, discipline, it is fairly intuitive how generosity improves our psycho-social wellbeing.

Most wisdom traditions, and many scientific studies, reveal that generosity is a conduit to increasing life satisfaction. It was once said “The heart is not like a box that gets filled up; it expands in size the more you love.” The final word of that can be replaced with “give.”

When we give of our time, talent, and treasure, we see another aforementioned trait of heart-centered living, compassion, put into action. Generosity is compassion with boots on the ground. When we give to others we realize our power to enact change in the world. This feeling of fulfillment does not compare with self-serving acts. Although it is important to practice being generous with ourselves, too.

Generosity towards ourselves is less intuitive than generosity to others. This behavior may take practice, may not be automatic, and cannot be done incorrectly. It often involves allowing others to help us. Learning to receive generously is part of this continuum.

To explore what this looks like involves improving our internal dialogue and asking ourselves questions like: “What do I really need to be fulfilled?” In the quietude of reflective time we can contemplate opportunities to serve the world and nourish ourselves so we can replenish and continue the unending loop of giving and receiving.

As one of the ten principles we recommend for heart-centered living, mindfulness is the most significant buzzword. The idea of mindfulness is easily Google-able—with thousands of resources accessible at our fingertips. Despite its trendiness, the principles of mindfulness predate written language. As long as humans have existed, we've had our most incredible tool, the mind. The essential tool works best when sharpened. Despite our historical challenges with distractibility, the effects of this are at an all-time high.

Modern society has too many benefits to expound. However, most of us experience tremendous internal and external pressures. The forces stress the nervous system; over time, this can cause health problems—notably for the heart. Chronic poorly managed stress is associated with arteriosclerosis, hypertension, stroke, and heart attack.World-renowned meditation instructor Sharon Salzberg shares that many people experience "constant partial attention." Thus, we feel we are moving in multiple directions. Although we may believe doing a million things at once makes us more productive, studies show that diluted attention produces lower-quality results—in work and relationships, too.

Mindfulness is a particular type of attention that may alleviate some symptoms of chronic unmanaged stress. The Women's Heart Program defines mindfulness as "the practice of paying attention to, and seeing clearly, whatever is happening in our lives, at the present moment, in a non-judgmental way." The operative words: "practice," "seeing clearly," "present moment," and "non-judgmental" are essential to understanding how mindfulness works.

"Practice" acknowledges that this may not be our inherent way. Mindfulness is a learned behavior, and practice makes it proficient. "Seeing clearly" requires admitting that we all have a limited view. We all are subject to bias, and our gender, race, culture, gender, etc. form our biases. The "present moment" means mindfulness is about what is happening now. It is about being awake to life as it is unfolding. Lastly, "non-judgement" implies we offer ourselves and others compassion for our imperfect thinking, and we resolve to begin again and again.

You can cultivate mindfulness in many ways. It's all about slowing down and triggering a relaxation response. The hallmark practice is meditation—several are on our "flourish" resource. However, this is not an exhaustive resource—find any way to slow down, savor, or silence. Spending some time in tranquility will help nourish you, help you flourish, and thrive.

It’s easy to let striving for wellness become a full-time job. If we allow seeking wholeness to be a mere obligation, it can become tedious and rote. While it’s important to be disciplined, some studies show that being rigid can lead to boredom. When we experience boredom with our wellness routine we may falter. Ironically, the commitment we made may erode without something as simple as fun.

The need to have a good time is inherent to humanity. Can you recall the joy you felt when you saw a baby laugh? Remember, all children have recess! Yet, when we get older there is a tendency to over-value rugged individualism and hard-work. The key to heart-centered living is to work smarter and living by your values! Working smart entails leaving room for play. Values are the qualities you want to bring forth while striving for your goals.

Play and silliness are not synonymous—although for some people play is uproarious. Like all aspects of heart-centered living we are encouraged to find what works for us. Play can be structured - for example, laughter yoga, an improv class, or a painting lesson. Play can also be spontaneous and unstructured - for example, picking up your child’s (or grandchild’s) art supplies and having at it or rolling on the floor with a puppy.

We invite you to pick dandelions on your power walk and to laugh when you fall asleep in meditation class. Do whatever you can to let your hair down and laugh, laugh, laugh.

Much like mindfulness was the buzzword in the early 2010s, the benefits of vulnerability are being touted lately. Although it's not a new concept, vulnerability has been championed by positive and health psychology over the last decade. But the origins of vulnerability are ancient. Brene Brown defines vulnerability as "uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure." Why take this risk?

Many years ago, the psychologist Jean Piaget expounded a theory of cognitive disequilibrium as a state of mental imbalance. He explained that when we are in such inequality, it requires us to develop a new way of handling a situation. Then, we return to equilibrium. This is an essential concept in education. You have to get unsteady to learn. The caterpillar must be dissolved fully and remade into a butterfly.

The way to access this equilibrium is to be vulnerable. If we always do the same thing, the same way will get the same results. Vulnerability denotes that anything worth accomplishing in life involves a level of risk. This can be going to school, changing careers, entering a relationship, buying a house, the list goes on and on. All of those gains come from exposure.

There is a difference between vulnerability and mindless risk-taking. Vulnerability needs to be tempered with some assessment. But many people get stuck in the precontemplation phase of many of life's endeavors.

You can weigh the pros and cons and step into life more authentically by leaning into other attributes of heart-centered living, like mindfulness, discipline, and courage. Remember, the ancient Romans said, fortune favors the bold.

We explored light and heavy attributes on the journey to heart-centered living. A well-balanced individual has both the up and the down, the right and the left. That doesn’t necessarily equate with positive and negative. Boundaries are a more dense attribute but aren’t a sign of anger or closure. They are necessary. 

Boundaries are an attribute that is sometimes uncomfortable to talk about. Because when we think of them, we think of erecting walls. However, that is not a good metaphor. Boundaries are more like semi-permeable membranes. Some things can get through, and others must remain outside. The beautiful thing is you get to determine the flexibility and fluidity of the membrane.

Boundaries are not about separating and disconnecting. Boundaries are about understanding what works for you at this particular time concerning family, friends, or your work life. Boundaries are the ability to say, “This doesn’t work for me, and I need to pause and reframe how I will approach this situation.” Boundaries are about staying consistent with fulfilling behaviors in life-giving without being impeded by others.

Paradoxically, with good boundaries, we are more likely to access prosocial traits like generosity and altruism without sliding into compassion fatigue and care provider burnout.

Only you know when you need to say yes and when you need to say no. We challenge you to reflect on your values and declare some boundaries in places where you may feel inauthentic or frazzled. Boundaries empower you to discern the truth of your “now” moment.

In approaching our final attribute of heart-centered living, we definitely saved the best for last. Joy is what it’s all about. Even the word has an effervescent quality. But what is joy? Is it the same as happiness?

Happiness and joy have similar energies; however, happiness involves acquisition. Happiness is a temporary emotion occurring when we get what we want. But the question is, how long can such an emotional state last? Even in one day, we might have extreme happiness and sadness within 24 hours. Furthermore, to quote Dr. Russ Harris in "The Happiness Trap," happiness is not naturally our default state; we have access to an array of emotions. All of our feelings are appropriate at differing times. Secondly, if we get everything we want, we will just be happy — this is untrue as humans constantly seek new and different experiences. Lastly, Harris elaborates that in our society, we are incorrectly pathologized if we are unhappy.

However, joy is something that is accessible even inside of painful times. Joy is an affirmative contentment associated with living authentically. We can feel joy knowing we’re working our most sincerely, even if we fail to accomplish a goal. We can feel joy knowing that we are embracing our values. We can feel joy even in times of loss, knowing that we appreciate the person or situation that is no longer with us.

How do we access this substratum of joy? We practice. We have practiced our current default state whether or not we did so intentionally. Reflect on the previous attributes: love, courage, compassion, discipline, generosity, mindfulness, playfulness, vulnerability, and boundaries. Joy is the distillate of living these values. Joy is perennial, and happiness is ephemeral. Joy is uncovered as the truth of the heart when we embrace heart-centered living.