Look, Listen and Lead with your Heart

Welcome! My name is Dr. Kate Smith. I am a licensed Naturopathic Physician and certified Yoga Instructor. My patients tell me they experience Yoga through my Naturopathic Medicine. My Yoga students tell me they experience Naturopathic Medicine through my Yoga classes. I have found that Naturopathic Medicine and Yoga share a common philosophy and are the perfect compliment to each other. By bringing your awareness into your body and listening to your emotions, you can begin to create change through your thoughts, with the foods you eat, the air you breath and the movement you create in your body.


This month I am dedicating awareness to the heart. While Valentines Day traditionally is a time to celebrate love, heart opening and connection, sometimes this meaning can be lost in boxes of chocolate and the illusion that this holiday is for couples only. I suggest we use this month to remember the true meaning and celebration of the heart.

Within the yoga philosophy, the chakra system has been used for centuries to bring awareness to different parts of the body and to illuminate and correct for emotions, beliefs, or physical symptoms which are out of balance. This month, I invite you to bring your awareness to your heart chakra.

The heart chakra is located in the upper chest, and the body parts associated with this chakra include the heart, lungs and thymus. The color associated with the heart is green. The sanskrit name for this chakra is Anahata.

When the heart chakra is in balance, the qualities you experience include a sense of love and compassion to yourself and others, kindness, understanding, peace, generosity, receptivity, openness, connection and a sense of trust. When the heart chakra is out of balance, you can feel a sense of isolation or abandonment, lack of self love, jealousy, co-dependency or a lack of connection and understanding toward others. You may feel a sense of lack of trust or fear of opening up to others.

Physical symptoms you may experience if your heart chakra is out of balance include heart conditions such as high blood pressure and heart disease, breathing disorders such as asthma or recurrent bronchitis, immune dysfunction such as increased susceptibility to colds and flus, or autoimmune conditions.

Here are some of my favorite ways to create a sense of balance in your heart chakra.

Begin with the breath. Here is a simple breathing exercise that is great for creating a sense of heart opening and awareness to the heart chakra.

3 part breath: Imagine your lungs and entire chest cavity as a vase. Begin by exhaling out all of your breath, emptying your vase. Inhale 1/3 of your breath, expanding your low ribs and belly and pause. You can visualize your vase being 1/3 of the way full. Inhale 2/3 of your breath, expanding through the middle of your chest and rib cage and pause. Here your vase is 2/3 of the way full. Inhale 100% of your breath, lifting through your collarbones and shoulders and pause. Now your vase is completely full of your breath. Exhale out in 1/3’s, in the reverse manner. This breath focuses on whole lung and chest expansion, and begins to create a sense of heart opening.

Yoga is a wonderful way to create on your mat what you want more of in your life. Backbending poses, such as urdhva dhanurasana (wheel) and ustrasana (camel) encourage a sense of heart opening, connection and trust. For a more restorative heart pose, I recommend uttanasana (foreward fold). This encourages a sense of self reflection, and cultivates a sense of self love. This is also a great pose to practice leading with your heart. As you lean forward let your head follow your heart. Then, you can begin to apply that principle to your life off the mat.


Use your food to encourage heart health. The top tips I recommend:
Eat more green! Include more green leafy vegetables in your diet including kale, swiss chard, spinach and broccoli.
Decrease your consumption of animal products and lower your saturated fat intake.
Increase your essential fatty acids. Fish oil is known for its cardioprotective effects and cholesterol lowering abilities. Essential fatty acids can also be found in nuts and seeds like flax, pumpkin, and walnuts.
Eat foods rich in magnesium. Magnesium helps to encourage vasodilation, or opening of the blood vessels, and invites a sense of heart opening. Magnesium rich foods include green leafy vegetables, beans, fish, and nuts.
Prepare your food with love. Whether you are cooking for yourself or for your family or friends, set an intention of love into your food. Your meals will taste so much better!

Begin to create heart opening through your every day actions.
Come from a place of love. Commit to leading from a place of love in your life. Each time you make a decision, ask yourself, is this coming from a place of love?
Create positive affirmations. Write down 1 new thing you love about yourself each day for one month. You will amazed at how many things there are to love about you!
Connect to your community. Put together a pot luck with friends and neighbors. Get to know the people who work in the building next to you.
Give. Volunteer at a soup kitchen, homeless shelter, or other organization you believe in.

I encourage you to try some of these suggestions this month. Begin to notice how wonderful it feels to create a sense of openness and connection within yourself and with those around you. Let yourself look, listen and lead with your heart. In celebration of heart health, I wish you a wonderful February!