Revisiting my Heartfulness Journal: Becoming a Student Again

I'd love to share my final reflection that I turned in when I was a student in Dr. Murphy-Shigematsu's 2021 Heartfulness class experiencing Heartfulness for the first time that quarter.

As I share my experiences as a Heartfulness facilitator on this blog after receiving more years of training from Dr. Murphy-Shigematsu, it is very important for me to always reflect upon what it was like to be a participant experiencing transformative Heartfulness for the first time.

In my old reflection below, I write about my Heartfulness final project. For our final class, I wrote a song and shared it with everyone. Even though I've been a singer my entire entire life, I struggle to write music and lyrics. I rarely share my songs. When I do share them, I share only snippets with friends and family,

In an exercise of vulnerability and heartfulness, I wrote a song that I brought to completion for the first time in my life.

I accepted my creation for what it was and recognized the value in sharing it as part of my final project ( along with this reflection that I turned in separately).

I played the song live on guitar as students followed along with my printed out lyric sheets. I even invited the group to sing a few lines with me!

The song I wrote remains the only song I have completed in my life so far. I write about this experience below in my reflection. Heartfulness supports the growth of creativity, inspiration, and expression. Heartfulness and creativity will be explored in a future blog post.

I hope you enjoy my reflection from years ago. I had to comb through my drawers to find my old hard drive. Finding this reflection was worth the effort.

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From December 13, 2021

"This class has changed my life forever, and writing this sentence almost feels like an understatement. I apologize in advance if my thoughts are disjointed. I have been living with a really intense migraine the last few days and my thoughts feel more cloudy than usual. 

First of all, tears are welling up in my eyes as I think about the time that we all spent together this quarter.

After spending 5 years bed-ridden and starting college as a 24 year old, I felt like a fish out of water at Stanford. Throughout my first quarter, I felt too old for the undergrads and too inexperienced for the grad students. In our class, I experienced something totally different. In the Heartfulness community, I felt accepted, supported, and seen just as I was. I also felt strong and confident speaking up in class every week. When I carried nervousness related to speaking up in my other classes, I always felt safe and supported sharing my ideas during our class.

I felt accepted as I was and this led to my greatest growth. In addition, I really appreciated the conversations we had collectively around what defines successful learning and integration.

I really appreciated the Heartfulness assignments and honestly felt excited to do my homework every week because it felt like a really special moment to reflect and explore what I had gleaned from the reading and from class time. I'm not usually someone who is very excited to do my homework, but I was excited to do my homework for this class every week.

Throughout the quarter I noticed my relationships outside of this class shifting like my relationship with my mother, my partner, my friends, and my brother. As I applied what I learned from the readings and discussions each week into my own life, so many things changed. I noticed that I had more patience. I also noticed that my conversations with others became more loving.

I noticed that I was listening more actively, and most importantly, I became even more open to being "affected". In addition, my regular meditation practice became more frequent.

My practicing of heartfulness related techniques mentioned in our readings and introduced in class, led to an explosion of my own creativity this quarter. Heartfulness was the missing piece when it came to quieting my ego and tapping into my creative energy.

I believe every Stanford student needs to take this class. In this class, the most important thing I learned was how to learn with my heart and my mind. I built a bridge between the two. I felt that I was integrating and understanding the academic material not only on an intellectual level but on a "heart" level. I now know what this feels like, to connect with academic material with all the different facets of my being and thought, and I will carry this with me into classes into the future. 

I really enjoyed the final project. I hope to continue writing my music and would like to put together an album this year. I am working on writing a heartfelt song for my mother that expresses things that I have yet to share with her. 

I have so much gratitude! I really look forward to continuing to take classes with you Sensei. I will send you a longer emailed reflection over break when my thoughts feel a little bit more together. 

Best,

Gabriela