Heartfullness: 52 Ways to Open to More Love

by Barry Vissell, Joyce Vissell

There is more and more written about mindfulness because of the growing pop-ularity of meditation and Buddhist philosophy. But what about heartfulness? Not that there’s anything wrong with mindfulness. In fact, in Buddhist teachings, mind and heart often refer to the same thing.It’s just that, in Western civilization, we have come to separate mind and heart. And then we have gone a step further … we have glorified our minds. The philosopher, Rene Descartes, is famous for the line, “I think, therefore I am.” Well, what about “I feel, therefore I am.”? And ultimately, in the highest language of the heart, “I love, therefore I am.” The two of us believe that love is the highest validation of our existence.Real wisdom can only be found in the heart, in a much deeper place within us. The heart holds the feeling of expansive openness and love and, therefore, the feeling of real power. The mind can be a great tool, but it can also seek control in the guise of power. The heart is already powerful and intuitively knowing, so it has no need to con-trol anything. Those of you who, like us, came of age in the sixties and seventies, remember the excitement and the struggle to bring feelings into our awareness. A big focus of en-counter groups and therapies of that period was to get “out of our heads,” to get be-yond our minds and enter the rich domain of feelings, and ultimately our hearts, our love center.Heartfulness means so much more than sentimentality or schmaltz. The heart chakra in yoga is the spiritual center of the body, with three chakras above and three below. It is the balance point between lower body and higher body, or between body and spirit. To dwell in your heart is therefore to be in balance, to integrate the lower three chakras with the higher three.When you are centered in your heart, you are the most powerful. You are like a tree deeply rooted in the earth with its branches reaching to the sky. When you are cen-tered in your heart, you know and feel a deeper spirituality.This book contains writings and stories that all illustrate the many facets of heartfulness. For over 35 years we have taken turns writing a monthly self-syndicated column for newspapers and magazines all over the world. That’s over 420 articles! For this book, we have chosen 52 articles that most illustrate heartfulness. That’s one per week.Our goal is to lead you into your heart. Our goal is to give you a feeling experi-ence of the heart in its many dimensions. We could say each piece will make you feel good. And this may be true. But each will also challenge you to grow in spiritual awareness, for there is often a certain risk that must be taken before the heart can open. Sometimes we need to leave our comfort zone to really live from the heart.

141 pages, Paperback

Published December 6, 2019

About the author

Joyce Vissell, RN, MS & Barry Vissell, MD have been a couple since 1964. A nurse and medical doctor, their main interest since 1972 has been counseling, healing and teaching. As a result of the worldwide interest in their books, they travel internationally teaching about personal growth, relationship, parenting and healing. They are the founders and directors of the Shared Heart Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to changing the world one heart at a time. Their six deeply-moving books on relationship, family and healing are:

THE SHARED HEART: Relationship Initiations and Celebrations

MODELS OF LOVE: The Parent-Child Journey

RISK TO BE HEALED: The Heart of Personal and Relationship Growth

THE HEART'S WISDOM: A Practical Guide to Growing Through Love (also available as LIGHT IN THE MIRROR: A New Way to Understand Relationships)

MEANT TO BE: Miraculous True Stories to Inspire a Lifetime of Love

A MOTHER'S FINAL GIFT: How One Woman’s Courageous Dying Transformed Her Family

As a result of the wide popularity and unique perspective of these books, Barry & Joyce have been sought after to present talks and workshops internationally. They have been featured presenters for The Association of Unity Churches (including the Adults of Unity National Conference), The International Conference on Sacred Sexuality, Findhorn Foundation in Scotland, the Living Enrichment Center, The Bob Barcley Foundation, The Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.), Science of Thought Foundation in England, Unity in Yoga Annual Retreat, and Adult Children Of Alcoholics (ACOA). They have been invited to offer programs at Omega Institute, New York Open Center, Interface Foundation, Whole Life Expos, and hundreds of “new thought” churches internationally. The Vissells are regular guests on radio and TV nationally. Their books have been translated into six different languages.

They are contributors to the New York Times bestselling series, Chicken Soup for the Soul.

They write a monthly column, “New Dimensions of Relationship,” which appears in 80 publications internationally.

The Vissells are the 1991 recipients of The Aquarian Award, a national honor given to those who have made an “outstanding contribution to the transformation of human consciousness.”

In 1992, they built a center for their work on 16 hilltop acres in the Santa Cruz mountains, where they live, counsel individuals and couples, and facilitate workshops and trainings.

Guideposts Magazine (approx. 15 million readers) featured Joyce and Barry, telling the story of their spiritual transformation and interdenominational marriage in their November, 2001 issue.

In 2004, a story from their book, Meant To Be, was made into a CBS Movie of the Week, “It Must Be Love,” starring Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen (real-life husband and wife actors), and directed by emmy-winning Steven Schacter.

The Vissells have two daughters born in 1976 and 1981, and a son born in 1989. They are committed to “walking their talk,” so they spend as much quality time as they can cultivating their relationship with each other and with their children.