Our heart is a powerful thing, and with HeartMath techniques you can explore that power and use it to improve your well-being and find peace and satisfaction. Khatija Dadabhoy, a Counselor with experience in various energy healing modalities, tells MysticMag readers how she does it and how she implements those techniques into her work. Enjoy!
How did you come across HeartMath and what sparked your interest in the field?
I think the first time I ever heard of HeartMath was back in 2011 when I saw the movie “I Am”, a documentary that featured some of the discoveries the HeartMath Institute was making. After that, I continued hearing about the HeartMath Institute from such teachers I highly respect, such as Joe Dispenza and Bruce Lipton. Particularly around the ideas of how our emotional states impact the energy systems we interact with in the form of others and the environment around us. My interest in the work has grown more through my own journey which has repeatedly led me back to the power of the heart.
Can you explain to our readers the principles behind HeartMath?
HeartMath puts forth the conviction that adding heart to everything we do increases our experience of peace, satisfaction, and security. The HeartMath Institute has discovered that the heart’s electromagnetic field is about sixty times greater than that of the brain, so the heart is actually communicating with the field around us in a much greater way than we have imagined. The foundation of HeartMath teachings is the principle of coherence. Coherence is achieved through a rhythmic breathing pattern alongside a self-induced regenerative or positive emotion.
Our ability to self-regulate the quality of feeling and emotion of our experience influences our physiology and the reciprocal interactions between physiological, cognitive, and emotional systems. Self-induced positive emotions are reflected in the pattern of our heart’s rhythm, which in turn increases the coherence in bodily processes. This shift in the heart rhythm plays an important role in facilitating higher cognitive functions, creating emotional flexibility, and facilitating social connectedness.
What can clients expect from your sessions?
Clients can expect to explore their stories of stressors and traumas. We’ll discover some ways to safely enter into the emotional relationship with our bodies. Then they can expect to learn and practice some HeartMath techniques such as Heart Focused Breathing.
What other services do you offer and how do you incorporate your experience as a HeartMath professional into them?
I offer counseling and personal guidance along the lines of trauma healing and our spiritual journey through this life into living with a heart wide open. I offer individual sessions, a three-month immersive experience, intuitive readings, and spiritual guidance using Tarot, a trauma discovery package, Reiki energy healing, couples and family counseling, and I also serve as a wedding officiant.
How do you measure the effectiveness of HeartMath techniques and can you share some success stories?
We’re able to measure the effectiveness of the HeartMath techniques by doing assessments across certain measures of emotional states and responses. If there is access to the HeartMath technology such as the Inner Balance sensor, then we’re able to track progress over time. A client of mine was experiencing a lot of nervous system dysregulation after a series of traumatic events occurred in her life. She purchased the Inner Balance sensor and over our Zoom sessions, I taught her the techniques she could practice while using the sensor and accompanying app on her phone. While we worked on processing the traumatic events, she practiced with Inner Balance daily. After some weeks we were able to see that her baseline stress response had decreased. She was also able to report that her triggers and dysregulation had improved as well.
What advice would you give to someone who is interested in incorporating HeartMath into their own life or work, and how can they get started?
I would say that the techniques are so simple and easy to incorporate into your daily life. You can start with simple Heart Focused Breathing and The Quick Coherence Technique for as little as five minutes a few times a day. Practiced consistently it can really work to transform your baseline responses to stress in the nervous system and create more resiliency. As a practitioner, it is really easy to incorporate these techniques with clients during sessions. The HeartMath Institute offers free resources where you can learn some of the tools. If you’d like to become a practitioner, there are self-paced trainings offering certifications.
