Hands On, Not Hands Up For The Holidays
Customized Self Care When Triggered
Was it the Dalai Lama or Ram Das that said, ‘anyone who thinks they’re enlightened, go spend a week with your family’. There’s nothing like family to push buttons and resurrect old fights, right? So here’s a handy guide (I can’t resist those puns) to help make sure you take care of yourself this holiday season, with or without family to push those trigger points.
Our Heart Line reveals our emotional setting. Our Head Line identifies our coping skills around those emotions. Emotions are actually molecules that surf our nervous system on waves. Which means that like water, they take the shape of their container. Our Heart Line represents those waves of emotional energy that the Head Line then shapes with words and actions.
Not to geek out on you too much but where the lines land in your hand often correlate to childhood developmental themes. Those patterns link up with neurobiology and psychology. For example, a short straight Heart Line that ends in the middle of the hand often corresponds to a feeling of childhood neglect or abandonment. Neglect has an effect on your frontal lobe development that contributes to behavior patterns later on in life.
Now this is not to say your parents were evil. One client had two high powered executive parents. She was their adored only child. But she was definitely aware that they were always doing big adult things and rarely sat down to enter her child’s world. Instead she was expected to fit into the land of grown ups as seamlessly as possible.
Which means her Head Line was long and straight, so much so it almost ran right off her hand. She spoke her first words very young, and had a big vocabulary early on because it was how she could connect and not be so lonely. Yet there’s her Earth Heart Line that hangs out all by itself in the middle of the hand. It reveals her emotions as a bit isolated and unaware of what she really wants, besides to belong.
Are you intrigued? I know I love the topic…In the interest of brevity, since it is Holiday season and there is no shortage of things to do - here is a quick summary of Heart Lines for you to give your core emotional needs the attention that works best for you!
Earth Heart - You require physical soothing. Think young child in distress. Talking to a child that age has far less impact then picking them up. Now, as an adult, tune in and be with what your body feels. You may not know how to honor those little prompts to tell you what you feel and need. If you overindulge in food or drink, often a sign there’s feelings that could use your attention. Sugar is a big temptation but sugar blues are vicious, especially for you, Earth Heart. There are kinder choices you can make.
Here is one choice and it works directly on the brain’s switchboard. I’ve seen ‘before and after’ brain scans using tapping or Emotional Freedom Technique. There are hundreds of free videos on YouTube and Brad Yates is always a good-go to for tapping. By all means, find one you love. Doing this calms your amygdala down and helps retrain your brain to pay more quality attention to yourself. It’s the closest thing to picking up a very young you and soothing yourself.
Breathing is also good to interrupt a pattern when that fight flight or freeze response is triggered. When your nervous system highjacks you, grab this little breathing technique to help bring your limbic system back on line. When triggered, our brain stem takes over and has us breathing only in the top half of our lungs. This starves the brain of oxygen and we make poorer choices. Do this instead. It works and hurray you’re calmer. Whoops and then the trigger goes off again.
But guess what, you’re still breathing, so why not do the breathing technique again? Lather, rinse repeat as often as needed. It helps strengthen the part of the brain that helps you feel safe in stressful situations. Breath of Love is a great pattern interrupt for painful brain loops. It resets your autonomic nervous system and helps you trust you’ll take good care of you.
If you have an Earth Heart Line, you learned that ignoring your needs was standard. So having a simple fix where you get your own attention for even a few minutes retrains your brain. Learn to tune in to your body, which is your primary soothing system. It give your emotions safe physical space that way. You have more power than you realize in those uncomfortable moments.
Guess what? The more you pay quality attention to your body, the less sensitive those trigger points will be, I’ve seen it work too many times to doubt. Take a pause to ensure your needs are met, even if you fail at first. Things will improve.
To find out more about this subject and beyond catch Lisa’s talk for the Book Club here. The discussion about Hands begins at 13:13 minutes.
Water Heart - this Heart Line corresponds with trouble in childhood being mirrored. There was likely either a need or expectation of agreement in order to feel safe. You probably didn’t learn that two people can stay connected even when they disagree. This ability is called differentiation. When you have the Water Heart Line you want and offer harmony in relationships.
Normally that’s a good thing! Except the young wounded place may think everybody needs to see things the same or behave similarly in order for it to be okay. Water Hearts can feel anxious and stressed around conflict. It’s likely you go into peacemaker mode. Some of the most difficult tribal behavior begins as a need to feel safe within a homogenized group.
Water is the feeling element and the Heart Line is the feeling line, so it dials up both the best and worst of our emotions. On the plus side, you can empathize and relate to those around you. You are the true connector. Yet you can also be like water on a rock trying to get everyone to see things the same way. Agreement achieved this way is false harmony and far less than what is possible with a little applied effort.
Perhaps instead of getting everyone to share the same vantage point, find what threads all those individual vistas together! This honors each individual by applying your own special talent. When you find yourself defensive on any subject, you’ve been triggered. Water can feel threatened easily, because you sense when things are ‘off’. Yet you are not enemies, even when there is unnerving conflict.
Soothe yourself first. The breathing technique and tapping are two good resources to get your executive brain back online before you act. Then it helps to put hand to heart and feel your own feelings without any need to justify or defend them. They get to exist. Whether another can honor them or not, YOU need to do it for yourself. Give yourself ten minutes to the let the waves of emotion travel your nervous system.
This helps ease the need to have agreement at all costs. It’s less lonely when our adult self looks out for the young part of us that is triggered. The younger you and the wiser you have each other’s back. Why look for validation outside of us when the person who can always give it to you is right there in your own skin. Go there first. Really feel the feelings. Not the story around them, but what your heart wants.
There are a thousand ways to achieve the desire. Not just one way to do it. Patience and presence with what you feel and what that feeling needs improves any situation, rich with possibilities. Once you still the crashing waves, it’s easier to attract others who follow you to safer space and expression, even when you disagree.
To find out more about this subject and beyond watch the discussion of ‘what’s on hand’ here.
Air Heart Lines are the trickiest of the four placements. That’s because your childhood set the stage for individuation as your emotional theme. Thinking your feelings is where you felt safest. Except individuation is not a relational experience. As the name suggests, it’s a more solitary path. Which is why there is a trick to master.
That big picture view you excel at separates you from the feelings that connect you with others. You can be a great moderator and keep all the planes safe while they take off or land on their emotional flights, you yourself are in a tower observing and directing traffic. Your default is to dissociate and see things from a distance.
When you get triggered you are likely to default to criticism. Here’s the rub, you are good at it. You can pick out exactly what’s wrong. Your brain has a superpower for finding the exact places and spaces where things are broken or misaligned. Which is why you prefer that 10,000 foot view. Your criticism is like columns of ants marching towards a goal.
The challenge with this approach is to balance what’s wrong with what’s right. In fact you want to do more than just equal out the scales, you want to tip them in the other direction. It takes at least ten things that work to outweigh the one thing that doesn’t. The Gottman Institute determined this is the minimum interactional number to keep relationships on sold ground.
Now that may seem like a big number, but guess what? Your super-brain can find all of them and more. All it needs is your command to go find it. Those positives are connectors. The negatives are disconnectors that serve a purpose, they can help you improve.
But watch for where they function more as protection instead of connection. It has its place but requires a healthier ratio. Whether the critique inside your head or aimed at another is louder, work on that ten to one ration.
Remember your mind is the servant. It can just obey when you tell it to find the healthiest ratio of good to bad. You can be the peacemaker extraordinaire and still feel close when you make sure your mind gets onboard with those you love instead of just directing traffic to keep everyone safe. You are safer together, with a little wise insight. Ten to one positive to negative, that’s the ratio you tell your brain. Then watch it exceed your expectations.
Fire Heart Line - We started with authority/agency themes from our Builder/Earth Heart Line. Then we explored a bit about differentiation with the Connector/Water Heart Line. Third we learned about individuation from the Discernment/Air Heart Line. Finally we arrive at actualization with the Fire Heart Line.
Fire Hearts are here in service. You are the visionary explorers that pull us into the unknown and yet unlived experiences. It is not an easy task, because leadership carries its own penalties and rewards. There is often a sense of purpose and destiny with this Heart Line along with a steep learning curve.
The right use of power is your theme. As you boldly go where no one has gone before, you show others what is possible. Your efforts are like breaking the four minute mile, something thought to be physically impossible. Until it happens. Yet there are failures included in your leadership. It’s inevitable. Those can wound and deflate you. Which is why your soothing is very specific.
Fire requires fuel. You don’t accuse it of being needy or greedy when the flames burn low. No, you just put more fuel on the fire when you want to burn brightly. Your fuel is praise, applause, recognition and respect. It isn’t a need, it is a functional requirement! In order to be the bright light you are, you need to restock the fire on a regular basis.
So, go get in front of the mirror, look yourself in the eye and give yourself credit for what you did right. See it, say it, hear it. Any judgement on what didn’t work will take a backseat as you focus on what did better than you expected it would. Refuel yourself first. Only then can you dial-back judgement of yourself and/or others for not living up to potential, a big theme for you.
This is how you light the way for those around you to be their better selves. Not because they are perfect, but because you are willing to seen in your imperfection on the way to that fuller expression of the light-filled you.
This is it - your short cheat sheet list on each heart type. Next time we can talk about coping methods revealed by head lines. The Mind is the servant, not the master, but it doesn’t easily take a back seat until directed to do so. Learn how to take back the steering wheel of on anything that happens. It’s easier than you think and it still takes focus.
So if family pushes those buttons, why not see it as the perfect chance to hone your skills on self regulating, self soothing. This way it can feel like an emotional gym work out with benefits on the other side, right?! Take good care of you and you’ll have an easier time with those around you who haven’t done such a good job for themselves.
And of course, to find out more about this subject watch Lisa discuss line placement and the neurobiology behind them Here.