Jumper Leads for the Living and Why Life Is an Affair of the Heart
- Mar 5
- 10 min read
Written by Justin Edgar, Coach
Justin Edgar is a life and breathwork coach and creator of The Art of Creative Flow, blending entrepreneurship, education, and mindful somatic practice to help individuals, leaders, and teams move beyond struggle and burnout to reconnect with clarity, vitality, and purpose.
If you genuinely want to live a life you love, it makes sense to let the heart lead. The heart is not merely a pump. It is the primary home of our felt resonance with the world. Before the cortex thinks, before identity narrates, before the world names us, the heart pulses. Electrically, its signal is vastly stronger than the brain’s. Magnetically, its field extends well beyond the body. Biologically, it is our ignition point. Symbolically, it is our origin. And experientially? It is where we feel life most deeply.
To love life is not to control it. It is to resonate with it. Love, in its simplest and least sentimental definition, may be understood as felt resonance when we find ourselves in the presence of beauty. And resonance implies relationship. Embedded in the nucleus of our being is the capacity to relate. Before we speak of love, before we speak of meaning, before we speak of fulfilment, we must begin with something more foundational, life exists, and is experienced, through relationship.
A cell relates to its environment. Organs relate within systems. Systems relate within organisms. Organisms relate within ecosystems. Remove relationship, and life collapses. This is more than mere philosophy. It is physiological, speaking to the very essence of lived reality. Now consider this, "What is the primary organ of relationship within the human body?" Not the brain. The heart.
1. Origin precedes interpretation
The heart is the first functional organ to form in utero. It begins beating before the cortex has structure enough to think. Before narrative. Before identity. Life begins with rhythm. Before we reason about existence, we are pulsing within it. This matters. Because what forms first establishes the organising rhythm for what follows. The brain does not initiate life. It modulates it. The heart establishes the tempo.
2. The strongest field wins
The first law of thermodynamics states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only transformed. By extension, everything is energy in a state of endless transformation. Energy transforming is energy in motion, which is what we come to know as e-motion. And the highest expression of energy in motion, the only expression of energy in motion capable of uniting all other expressions of energy in motion, is the emotion we have come to know as love. It is, prospectively, the original expression of energy, the singular expression of energy in motion that unites and binds the field of awareness in which we all reside.
At its core, energy is electromagnetic. From a measurable standpoint, the heart produces the strongest electromagnetic field in the body. Its electrical amplitude is far greater than the brain’s. Its magnetic field extends beyond the physical boundary of the skin. This is not mystical language. It is a physiological and anatomical truth. The organ generating the strongest oscillating field is, by definition, the dominant rhythmic regulator.
The brain fires in response to signals from the body as much as it sends them. The vagus nerve carries more afferent fibres upward than efferent fibres downward. In fact, 80% of communication along the vagus nerve runs from the body to the brain, rather than from the brain to the body. Information flows heart to brain continuously. Which means this, the state of the heart influences perception before perception becomes thought. Feeling precedes reasoning, just as instinct prevails over intellect. And if home is where the heart is, surely it makes sense to fill that home with love.
3. Perception is not neutral
The rationalist will say, “But we think our way through life.” Do we? Or do we feel first and justify later? Neuroscience consistently shows that emotional appraisal occurs before conscious reasoning. The limbic system activates milliseconds before cortical explanation arises. We do not decide based on pure logic. We decide based on resonance. Then we build arguments to support the decision.
This is not weakness. It is design. It is often said, “Only what you feel is real.” Sit with that statement for a moment, and something quietly profound emerges about the nature of awareness and the conditioning of one’s mind. Every idea, every thought, every notion that we deem to be true is only ever true because we dare to believe that it is true. To that end, all “truth” is provisional, conditioned by belief and subject to edit, revision, or redaction at any point in time.
4. Resonance organises behaviour
If life is relational, and if perception is filtered first and foremost through feeling, then the quality of our emotional field determines the quality of our relationships and the quality of our lived experience. Fear narrows the field. Love expands it. Gratitude stabilises it. Curiosity opens us to more of it. These are not poetic claims. They are physiological states that alter heart rate variability, vagal tone, hormonal cascades, and immune response.
Coherent emotional states produce coherent biological patterns. Incoherent emotional states fragment them. Institutions such as the HeartMath Institute have demonstrated measurable changes in physiological coherence when individuals cultivate appreciation or compassion.
Empathy becomes the gateway here. It awakens the heart to shared experience. It transcends belief in separation. It dissolves the illusion that we stand apart. Consequently, through shared empathy, the field stabilises. And when the internal field stabilises, perception stabilises. And when perception stabilises, behaviour begins to align in such a way that one’s actions stand in service not just of one but of one and all. This is beautifully elicited in a speech given by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution” (1968), where he observed, “…all life is interrelated, and we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.”
5. The zeroth principle, the heart of the matter
Physics provides an elegant metaphor. The Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics states that if two systems are in equilibrium with a third system, they are in equilibrium with each other. Equilibrium through shared resonance.
If you and I are coherent within ourselves, relationship becomes easier. Conflict decreases, not because disagreement vanishes, but because the field remains stable. Life, at every scale, seeks equilibrium. And the heart is the body’s primary regulator of internal equilibrium.
Thus, if life seeks equilibrium, and the heart regulates equilibrium, then life is, structurally, an affair of the heart. Consequently, any expression of love or loving regard will naturally create a state of resonance with the relational field in which we find ourselves.
6. The blue zone observation
Populations that live longest share certain traits, strong social bonds, purpose, and relational integration. Four particular habits of mind have been found to be consistently well developed among inhabitants of the Blue Zones, curiosity, empathy, gratitude, and generosity. All four speak to the capacity for creating connection and to a deepening appreciation of life.
These are heart-centred behaviours. Not sentimentality, but orientation toward connection. Longevity correlates less with intellectual dominance and more with relational coherence. Which makes sense. Because isolation stresses the system. Connection stabilises it.
If we are to add years to our life, and life to our years, then our friends in the world’s Blue Zones demonstrate that we are best placed to lead from the heart or risk bleeding from the heart.
It should be little wonder that the primary cause of death globally is heart disease, given that the heart is so fundamentally connected to the primacy of life. If the heart is the seat of resonance, then chronic incoherence, chronic disconnection from feeling, has consequences.
We either lead from the heart, or we bleed from it. This is not sentimental. It is structural. When we suppress feelings, we fragment internally. When we deny empathy, we isolate. When we harden within entrenched views and opinions, we narrow the field of possibility.
7. The Einstein warning
Freedom to feel and choosing to lead from the heart achieves much more than establishing the conditions of inner coherence, a regulated nervous system and healthier relationships with ourselves and the world at large. Given that the heart contains the very essence of our own creation as the first tissue developed in utero, it stands to reason that it would provide the seedbed within which our creativity arises also.
Creativity is defined as the process by which we derive an original idea that has value to us. Intuition, in its simplest sense, may be described as the means by which we receive intelligence from a source beyond ourselves. Between these two definitions, it is plain to see a clear inter-relationship between creativity and intuition.
Albert Einstein described intuition as “a sacred gift.” He also lamented the fact that we have created a society that has “forgotten the gift and honours the servant.” The servant he refers to is the rational mind’s capacity for reason. It is primarily a function of the prefrontal cortex. Intuition, on the other hand, is more than gut instinct. In its most refined sense, it is the art of listening to the heart’s field. It is intelligence received through resonance rather than deduction, and the strongest capacitor of field resonance in the body belongs to the heart.
When the servant leads, life becomes mechanistic. When the gift leads, life becomes alive. When reason is running the show, we tend to become hyper-rational and under-felt. Intellectually sharp yet emotionally distant. Potentially brilliant in the cleverness of our thoughts, but brittle to experience when life unfolds in ways that mystify us.
We do not think our way into a loving life. We feel our way into it. And many of us have forgotten how to feel.
In James Joyce’s Dubliners, he describes the character of Mr Darby as “a man who always walks a short distance from himself.” How many among us live this way now? Disembodied. Observing life from a careful remove. Protected from feeling, and therefore estranged from the deeper experience of living.
And what happens when enough individuals walk a short distance from themselves? A culture begins to do the same. Efficiency replaces empathy. Speed replaces presence. Productivity replaces purpose.
We optimise systems but neglect the souls who inhabit them. We sharpen arguments but dull sensitivity to what might bring us together. We celebrate cleverness yet quietly starve the conditions through which life feels most worth living.
This is the subtle consequence of allowing the servant to lead. Einstein was not cautioning against the validity of reason. What he lamented was the hierarchy. When the rational mind assumes command and intuition is dismissed as sentimental or soft, we construct a world that is mechanically impressive yet emotionally incoherent. And incoherence has cost.
8. The return to coherence
Peace cannot be engineered purely through policy. Joy cannot be legislated. Vitality cannot be imposed from without. They arise from within, a regulated nervous system, a coherent heart, and a life lived in resonance with one’s own felt experience.
When the internal field stabilises, emotional coherence allows perception to stabilise. When perception stabilises, behaviour aligns. When behaviour aligns, relationship harmonises. And when enough individuals live in that state, something remarkable becomes possible. External peace becomes the natural extension of internal coherence. This is not utopian thinking, it is structural logic.
The laws of physics tell us that systems in equilibrium with a common reference point come into equilibrium with one another. If the heart is the primary regulator of equilibrium within the human system, then a society that learns, collectively, to lead from the heart creates its greatest prospect for harmony.
Life is relational. Relationship depends upon resonance. Resonance is felt. Feeling originates in the heart, where we find the locus point of the original impulse to become. Therefore, life is an affair of the heart.
Jumper leads connect dormant energy to active flow. They restore current. They allow a stalled system to ignite again. Choosing to connect to one’s heart provides the jumper leads that amplify the human experience. And when the heart leads, life flows. When it is bypassed, something essential stalls.
To lead from the heart is not to abandon reason. It is to sequence it correctly. The heart sets the tempo, and the mind refines the movement. Feel first, then think, then act.
When we create the internal conditions through which we experience inner peace, inner joy, and a felt sense of vitality, vitality born of purpose, belonging, and shared resonance, only then do we create the possibility of external peace, shared joy, and collective flourishing.
There is, perhaps, one more step in this logic. When we learn to feel without armouring against the experience, something begins to soften. The nervous system settles. The defensive reflex loosens. We become less preoccupied with control and more available to connection.
Freedom to feel is not indulgence, it is courage. It is vulnerability in motion. And it is the beginning of healing. Because what we allow ourselves to feel, we allow ourselves to process. What we process, we integrate. And what we integrate no longer governs us from beneath the surface.
When we become free to feel, we become free to heal. And when we heal the heart, that primary regulator of resonance, we inevitably recalibrate the mind. The narratives soften. The rigidities relax. Certainty gives way to curiosity. When we heal the mind, we heal all kind. Not as sentiment, but as consequence.
A coherent heart steadies perception. Steady perception guides wiser action. Wiser action reduces harm. Reduced harm restores relationship.
The sequence is simple. Courage and vulnerability ally to allow feeling. Feeling permits healing. Healing restores coherence. Coherence enables compassion. And compassion is civilisation’s quiet stabiliser.
This is why faith matters. Where we place our faith determines the quality of our courage and vulnerability. If we place our faith solely in intellect, we tend to guard ourselves against uncertainty. If we place our faith in relationship, in the underlying coherence of life, we dare to feel more fully. And in daring to feel, we dare to live. The servant must serve. The gift must lead.
The jumper leads
Jumper leads for the living are not found in sharper opinions or louder certainty echoing through eternally narrowing chambers of self-righteousness. They are found in the courage to feel fully, the humility to remain curious, the generosity to extend empathy, the vulnerability to trust that life will meet our open heart in return, and the gratitude to recognise beauty in the field of relationship.
Lead from the heart, and life ignites. Ignore it, and we risk bleeding from the very source of our vitality. The choice is not sentimental, it is structural. And life, in all its mystery and magnificence, is, and has always been, an affair of the heart. An open heart is the surest gateway to a life we love.
Read more from Justin Edgar
Justin Edgar, Coach
Justin Edgar is a life and breathwork coach, speaker, and creator of The Art of Creative Flow, a transformational program helping individuals, leaders, and teams move beyond burnout and reconnect with purpose, creativity, and resilience. With a unique background spanning financial markets, Montessori education, wellness entrepreneurship, and somatic practice, Justin brings rare depth and insight to his coaching. His work empowers clients to harness clarity, intuition, and creative flow as tools for personal and professional breakthroughs.
