“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”Т 

―Т Antoine de Saint-Exupéry,Т The Little Prince

There is something special about the heart: a miraculous, continually pumping, life-giving organ located in the center of the chest, the heart beats 100,000 pumps a day, over the course of a life that’s 2.5 billion beats (more heart facts here).

The heart also contains neurons that allow for communication with the brain. While this does not mean that the heartТ isТ a brain,Т there is evidenceТ of interaction between these two parts of the body, affecting one’s health and emotional state.

When I visitedТ Andrea Patton‘s classroom earlier this week, we usedТ heart-focused breathingТ with students before moving them into a prompt where they mined their own thinking about the process via journaling.

Click on this link to get directions for heart-focused breathing and watch a trailer connected to the practice from the movieТ The Little Prince.

-By Brandi Lust