By Pam Hale Trachta

Since many of my life’s challenges have manifested in my body, I’ve spent my adult life exploring all the ways healing can take its place in us. I’ve studied and taught shamanic energy healing and other modalities, including years of Heart Rhythm Meditation (HRM.) One opportunity to apply healing technologies has been through my own struggles with atrial fibrillation.

I walk into my cardiologist’s office for a checkup, feeling celebratory that my heart is clearly beating in sinus rhythm. The echocardiogram I had the week before and the EKG they gave me this week confirm my own experience. The cardiologist’s medical assistant Joe, who has followed me through two out of three cardiac ablations, exclaims, “This is the best EKG I’ve seen in at least a week! Wow!”I just love Joe, and have quite a history with him. 

In 2020 I was airlifted out of the mountains, where I had suffered a severe episode of atrial fibrillation in our mountain cabin. My heart pounding so hard and fast it felt like it was coming out of my chest, I woke up very early and told my husband we’d better get down the mountain. Halfway down, I knew I was in trouble, so we called 911 and an ambulance met us on the mountain road. By the time they got me loaded into a helicopter, the techs were clearly convinced I was having a heart attack, but my heart had quieted. Maybe it was my efforts to breathe deeply. Maybe it was my prayers. Maybe it was just a mystery.

At the hospital, tests were run. I had no damage to the heart. No heart attack. But clearly, I had a-fib that was now out of control. Joe visited me and advised me to have a cardiac ablation. That’s where the cardiologist inserts a probe through the thigh going up to the heart and delivers electrical shocks to the parts of the heart that are getting wrong signals and causing the heart to beat too fast.

It worked for awhile, but after a year I had to have a second ablation, this time by an expert who knew how to use not only electrical shocks but freezing. Joe had recommended this genius. Since 2021 my heart has been perfect.

I share these details to give full credit to allopathic medicine and the team that worked on my heart. But what I really want to share is what I shared with Joe on my celebratory checkup.

I am a devoted student and practitioner of Heart Rhythm Meditation. It has so many benefits that have been life changing for me! And one of those, I believe, is physical. The more I practice deep breaths, measuring each inhale and exhale to 8 heartbeats, the calmer I feel. I am no scientist, but I know that research tells us that is because the heart and breath have achieved coherence. I’ve seen proof of how this heart/breath resonance shows up on an EKG as smooth mountain-like shapes, instead of the random spikes and dips I’d seen before.

I told Joe that for 17 years I had a private practice as a life coach and energy healer, a career I began because of my own experience as a third- generation breast cancer patient. Ever since 2000, I’ve been exploring all the ways we can heal. I told him that along with my excellent cardiac care, my own explanation for the great EKG was to give credit to Heart Rhythm Meditation. Joe listened carefully to my endorsement. I know, I told him, that every patient will not be interested in meditation. But I’ll bet you can tell just which ones might benefit.

You too might know which of your friends might benefit from these wonderful practices that not only heal the emotional and spiritual heart, but can also have a healing effect on that organ on which our lives depend. Maybe that person who might benefit is YOU!