What does this look like to you?  Me, in the tie-dyed shirt, having fun with longtime friends?  If that’s your guess, you would be very wrong.  I had just met the folks pictured here less than 15 minutes before this was taken.  I wandered up to their pickleball court and before I could even ask to join them, they invited me in. Do your friends bring you that kind of joy?  Your family?  

Now that we’ve celebrated Valentine’s Day, there is another kind of heart connection to consider:  Takotsubo cardiomyopathy. That’s the fancy term for “broken heart syndrome.”  In 1990, a Japanese team of doctors had a female patient who’d suffered the death of her longtime spouse. Her symptoms: shortness of breath, dizziness, and weakness appeared to be those of a heart attack, but her arteries were in perfect condition.  An ultrasound revealed her heart was grossly misshapen.  It had ballooned at the top and shrunk at the bottom and resembled an octopus. 

Upon further investigation, they confirmed this distortion of her heart was caused by severe grief and stress.  They believed she’d recover and within two months, she did. What does this tell us?  That our emotions and thoughts hugely affect our physical body, sometimes to disastrous effects.  They can do everything from wreaking havoc on our sleep to causing cancer.  Our thoughts not only light up areas in the brain, but they can also cause damage in the dark recesses of our bowels. 

Your weight and cholesterol can be perfect but if someone breaks your heart?  Those stats are meaningless.  It is now believed that the intense pain of a broken heart is part of our survival instinct.  It happens because we are meant to be in connection with others.  If we’re not, we are struck by a pain that grips us to our core.  Remember your first heartbreak? I do.    

 
So, hang with people who smile when they see you coming.  Draw someone new into your circle. While you’re at it, tell someone who may not even know, just how much they mean to you.  It will be good for their heart and yours.  The folks in this picture sure made my heart happy that day.  Two years after this brief meeting, the couple in the back invited me to spend some time with them on Maui.  That still warms my heart.