back to heart
Edition no. 13 · October 25, 2026
At the beginning and end of almost every class I teach, I come back to the same four-part check-in: body, breath, mind, heart. It gives us a way to notice what has shifted through practice, but more than that, it asks us to listen before we decide what we need.
The whole thing began with one sentence from one of my favorite teachers:
Dear heart, what do you need from me right now?
I don’t remember the rest of the sequence nearly as clearly as I remember those words.
Dear heart.
Maybe it was the question. But I think it was also the dear.
There is tenderness built into that word before an answer ever comes. You would not begin a letter with dear and then demand that the person on the other end hurry up, explain themselves, or become something different.
You address them because they matter.
Over time, I began asking the rest of myself the same question.
Dear body, what do you need from me right now?
Dear breath, what do you need from me right now?
Dear mind, what do you need from me right now?
And still, the place where it began:
Dear heart, what do you need from me right now?
I brought these four pieces together not because the body, breath, mind, and heart live in separate compartments. Quite the opposite. They are always affecting one another.
A thought can alter the breath before we realize we’re anxious. The way we hold the body can change what effort feels like. Something carried quietly in the heart can find its way into all of it.
The check-in simply lets us listen to the conversation.
And maybe that is why I keep returning to it.
We spend so much time asking ourselves what needs to be accomplished, corrected, decided.
What do you need from me right now? is a different kind of question.
It assumes there is something worth listening to before we act.
the word dear
The heart is the final stop in our October series, but it has been present the whole time.
When we came Back to Body, we practiced receiving sensation before rushing to explain it.
With Back to Breath, we followed something that was already responding to the life around it.
Last week, Back to Mind asked us to loosen our grip on every thought that wanted to become a conclusion.
And now there is the heart.
Not as an answer to everything that came before.
More as a way of asking: how am I meeting all of this?
There are things the mind can explain beautifully and still not settle. There are choices we can reason through from every angle and remain unsure about.
The heart has its own timing. Sometimes it speaks clearly. Sometimes all we can do is make enough room to hear that it has been speaking at all.
The practice
Wrap your arms gently around yourself.
Let the hands land wherever they naturally reach.
Stay there for a moment.
You might slowly tap one hand, then the other, against the upper arms or shoulders. Let it be gentle and rhythmic. Feel the small percussion of your own hands against your body.
And then ask:
Dear body, what do you need from me right now?
Wait.
Dear breath, what do you need from me right now?
Wait again.
Dear mind, what do you need from me right now?
And finally:
Dear heart, what do you need from me right now?
You do not need four answers.
You may not get one.
The practice is not extracting information from yourself. It is staying close enough to listen.
The Soundtrack
It Feels Good
Justine Goggin, TomboyJ
Everything You Need to Know
Rob Riccardo
The Poem
dear heart
Tonight I sit with an artichoke,
pulling away one green blade after another,
each offering the little tenderness
it has kept close to the stem.
I dip them in warm butter,
draw them slowly through my teeth,
and lay the emptied leaves aside.
At last, the pale, bristling choke.
I work the edge of a spoon beneath it,
trying to reach the heart
without taking any of it away.
I scrape too hard.
A little of the tender part
comes with it.
Dear heart,
how often have I done this to you?
Pressed for an answer,
mistaken your hesitation for a wall,
insisted you tell me what you wanted
before I gave you time to know.
And all the while,
beneath my ribs,
you have been doing something
I never thought to thank you for.
Between your beats,
you loosen.
The chambers open
to receive the blood you've sent away,
and for a fraction of a second
you allow yourself to fill.
The heart rests
among its scattered leaves,
one edge nicked
where the spoon went too deep.
I turn it gently in my hand.
The other side is smooth,
its pale folds still intact.
Dear heart,
such a small thing
for all I've asked of you.
I take it,
still warm at its center,
and cut myself
a generous piece.
THE THROUGHLINE
We’ve spent October moving through body, breath, mind, and heart, giving each one a little more attention than we usually do.
And yet, the more time I spend with this check-in, the less separate they feel.
The body tells us something. The breath responds. The mind makes meaning. And somehow, sooner or later, the question seems to circle back to the heart.
What matters here? What am I asking of myself? What would it feel like to meet this moment with a little more care?
Maybe that is why the heart was where this practice began for me, and why it still feels like the place I return to.
Again and again.
Back to the body when I need something concrete.
Back to the breath when I need a little space.
Back to the mind when I need to notice what story I am telling.
But always, always, back to heart.
SOMETHING TO CARRY INTO YOUR WEEK
Dear heart, what do you need from me right now?
A hand to the chest.
A breath.
And a little time to listen.
Smile & sigh. Yay.
Let’s make a good day of it,
Bevin
previous editions
