Echo: A series of sounds caused by the reflection of sound waves from a SURFACE back to the LISTENER.
Consider the surface is your origin (heaven), the listener is you, and the sound is God communicating with you. In that respect, our heartbeat is a reminder of who we are, where we came from, and why we are here.
The heart is mentioned over 1000 times in the Bible, and about 265 times in The Book of Mormon. Try to find each reference and ponder what it is saying. Knowing that the heart is spiritual as well as physical changes the meaning of each reference. When the heart is mentioned, it often pertains to finding Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, following the Holy Ghost, purification, loving, focus & direction, and forgiving.
Our bodies are our temples, and the heart is the holy of holies, as such we should be careful what feelings and emotions we allow to take root there. Feelings begin in the heart. As soon as we are confronted with something joyful or painful, the effect starts to form feelings in the heart. At that point, the neurons begin taking that message up toward our brain and then we begin to form thoughts based on those feelings. That is why it is important to have a mediator between the heart and the brain. This can be any element you choose. I am a visual person so I imagine there is a bouncer between my heart and brain, I have assigned that bouncer to a certain look.
My bouncer is a Korean warrior from the Silla time period. Whenever I start to have feelings that are not good based on a situation that I’ve run into, and I begin to start having negative thoughts I picture in my mind the warrior driving those thoughts out. While that is happening I engage in something positive. That could be calling someone I haven’t talked to in a while, reading scriptures, watching a funny movie, or going out to do volunteer work. In these actions, I have shifted my focus elsewhere while allowing my bouncer to take care of the negativity. By the end of the day, I have been engaged in so many positive activities that the time has passed for negativity to take root. For others there can be different methods that work better because everyone’s different. The point is we need to have a system with us that recognizes the point when negativity opens the door for the adversary. We need to be in tune spiritually so when we feel it happening, we send out a call to action. Exercises such as these will help to be able to keep our hearts clear and purified. We need purification of our hearts in these times or we will not be able to withstand what is coming.
Another interesting thought is how an echocardiogram shows a blueprint of our heart. It checks for blockages and measures heart flow capacity. Spiritually speaking, how does our heart appear to Heavenly Father when he looks at it? Are there any blockages? Is the spiritual flow going well?
I have found so many neat insights to the spiritual heart since reading Dr. Anita Phillips’ book, The Garden Within. I highly recommend it!