Lead with Heart
Lead with Heart
Putting the "coeur" in courage // 8.15.22
Monday Mettā
A new + beautiful way to experience Mondays
I am free to lead with my heart.
“Heart coherence” is something I’ve been thinking about lately—how to experience life through an alignment between the heart, mind, and emotions.
In today’s mettā, visualize your brow chakra, your heart chakra, and your root chakra all coming into alignment as you breathe in, letting the power from those three chakras rest below your breath (right under your lungs). Pull that energy up to your heart and breathe from there, allowing your breath to “come from” the heart. (This may make more sense if you press play, listening to today’s meditation instead of reading it.)
By practicing this regularly, your experiences of joy, appreciation, love, and delight will feel whole and connected, instead of mixed with fear, denial, or skepticism.
More on today’s mettā below, in my reflection on David Whyte’s Courage, from Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words.
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So glad you’re here.
Intuitive Tarot Card Reading
Use your intuition to guide you to a specific card below. Choose the card with the crystal on it that calls to you.
At the end of this newsletter, you’ll see the cards flipped over, with a reading for each one. The card that you choose here will have your reading for the week.
*this week, I’ve done it a little differently, using selenite (a favorite of mine) for all three cards. Selenite brings healing and clarity. Choose what feels right!
Card 1: Selenite Choose this card if you’d like clarity and healing for your mind.
Card 2: Selenite Choose this card if you’d like clarity and healing for your body.
Card 3: Selenite Choose this card if you’d like clarity and healing for your heart.
Wait to scroll down to the bottom of the newsletter until you’ve chosen your card!
No Group Yoga This Week!
*Interested in scheduling a private yoga class? Info is here or email me!
Courage
I love thinking about the meanings of words. I am thrilled by semantics. I spend my free time researching the words that make up names, for example, which, in ancient and medieval times used to denote place or occupation. (Barker comes from the Middle English word describing the occupation of stripping bark off of trees and preparing it for tanning. Rachel means “ewe” in Hebrew. Leigh means field in old English, so basically, I, Rachel Leigh Barker, am a pastoral scene.) But names aren’t my only obsession. I think about the common uses and misuses of words a LOT.
This sometimes comes forward at the wrong times. I am guilty of word-policing conversations, of stopping someone halfway through their sentence to discuss the word they’ve just used and how they could (should… eek) use a different one. While I think it’s fascinating, more often than not my conversation partner decides to never again speak in front of me.
In other, less obnoxious ways, I contemplate and use words carefully. The flow of my writing practice is often halted as I dive deep into the original meaning of word, figuring out how to use it in dialogue or description, or marveling, during my yoga practice, that the word for “three” can sound so similar in so many languages. I’m fascinated that a word can start off meaning one thing and then, like a game of telephone several centuries long, can mean it’s opposite as it grows.
So color me delighted when I stumbled upon David Whyte’s Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words. I found his musings through the Waking Up app, where he delivers 5-ish minute sermons on everyday words, and how we can parse them out to think of our relationship to them differently. Most recently, he talked about the beauty in denial, the common human experience of getting help, and about being at peace with our ambition.
His talk about courage inspired today’s mettā. Most of us know that the word courage comes from the French word coeur, or “heart.” To have courage isn’t to do the scary thing to prove you can do it. To have courage is to lead with your heart.
David Whyte says:
Courage is the measure of our heartfelt participation with life, with another, with a community, a work; a future.
Our heartfelt participation with life. Even when it’s scary. Even when it’s dull. Even when it’s frustrating. Even when everything is going our way. How can we move through life with courage, with heart?
To be courageous is not necessarily to go anywhere or do anything except to make conscious those things we already feel deeply and then to live through the unending vulnerabilities of those consequences.
To make conscious things we feel deeply. Whether through conversation, action, or being. To consciously express our feelings, as in, mindfully living with heart first.
May you and I continue (or begin) to live with heartfelt participation, consciously expressing what we deeply feel and experiencing the consequences of those vulnerabilities. May we lead with our hearts.
We Support Each Other
There are three beautiful ways you can support my work writing and teaching!
Make a micro-donation, either through Buy Me a Coffee (or in my case, a love note), or after you’ve listened to one of my meditations on Insight Timer.
Book a class or an intuitive reading! Come to one of my online yoga classes, schedule a private yoga class, or contact me for a Tarot or Akashic Records reading.
Forward this newsletter on to anyone who might want a little love! Ask them to subscribe! Tell them you love them!
Thank you thank you!
Much love and gratitude,
Rachel
xo
PS- I love hearing about the cards you pick and your related experiences! Please email me or comment below to let me know what comes up from your card reading this week! 🔮
Your Tarot Reading, Revealed!
Card 1: Selenite // Wheel of Fortune
This card is ripe with religious, historic, and spiritual symbolism, and is a reminder to not think so logically. Pay attention to the little “signs” or synchronicities that come your way. If you always see your favorite number on license plates, for example, look to that as a tiny “hello” from the world (universe, divine, whatever strikes your fancy), acknowledging your presence and that you’re moving on your path. Of course, as wheels do, this one reminds us that life is not linear and that you will experience the same kinds of events, relationships, and conversations until you figure out how to grow from them.
Card 2: Selenite // King of Swords
This card shows us strength, clarity, and skill. The King of Swords is an expert in honing their skills to create a positive outcome. This week, this card is telling you to listen to your body’s needs and to seek help if and when you need it. Your job is to nurture and strengthen the body you are here on earth with, to love and care for it as you would any structure that keeps you safe. And sometimes that nurturing and strengthening needs an expert. Meet with a counselor or a personal trainer; do a free session of yoga with Yoga with Adriene or go to a live class; take time to walk and experience the natural world.
Card 3: Selenite // Ten of Pentacles
In general, this card is a joyful affirmation of knowledge, abundance, and family. It shows the outcome of good care, of cultivating and nurturing seeds that have come to fruition. So that’s your message. Give your heart some good lovin’. Surround yourself with objects that delight you and people who bring you joy and a sense of peace. The outcome of good care requires specific and noticeable work, must be nurtured, must be tended to. Tend to yourself this week.
✨intuitive tarot inspired by Sarah Greenman, who was in turn inspired by Chris Corsini, because inspiration is contagious✨