Western civilization fails to appreciate the heart as an intelligence system. But have you ever wondered why it is that when you put your heart into something, you tend to do better? This is where our guest comes in to bridge that gap between heart and creativity. Bruce Cryer is one of the founding members of HeartMath, whose breakthrough research and techniques were instrumental in the exploration of biohacking and performance optimization. In this episode, he joins Ina Gjikondi and Bonnie Buckner to discuss the connection of creativity to our way of being. Why are people more drawn to being creative? How do we cultivate that more? Follow along as Bruce gives us the answers. Every human is born with the power to create life. Tap into that today!
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Connecting To Creativity As A Way Of Being With Bruce Cryer
We are joined by our guest, Bruce Cryer. He has had a lifelong fascination with human performance and well-being. He began as a singer, dancer, and actor in New York, including two years with the Fantasticks, the world’s longest-running musical. Bruce has been adjunct faculty at Stanford University since 1997 and also part of the founding team of HeartMath in 1991.
HeartMath’s breakthrough research and techniques were instrumental in the explosion of biohacking and performance optimization over the past many years. He has worked with organizations such as Mayo Clinic, Kaiser Permanente, NASA, and all kinds of executives and high-performance athletes. He is now Executive Director of the New Integrative Health Institute at Salem University. Welcome, Bruce.
Thank you. It’s good to talk with you.
We met a few years ago, and one of the connecting points that emerged right immediately from our conversation was HeartMath. I say that because I had a personal experience years ago. I was going through a time when I was working on my healing, and so much was going on in my life. I was seeing, at that time, many different doctors. We couldn’t figure out exactly what was going on with me. Everything was right. My body was speaking in ways that I wasn’t familiar with. The system was somehow in this fight or flight response.
I remember going to this functional doctor at that time, and part of the practice they were offering was this thing called HeartMath. I started working with it. I had my little monitor and started doing the exercises. It was quite a beautiful way to ground. It wasn’t easy right away. I had to keep doing it. As part of that process, I remember it calmed my nervous system. I stepped into a space that I now know was creativity. I started writing this little children’s book for adults because it’s beyond children in a way. We have our own children to nourish. As part of the process, as I was doing HeartMath and other things, I was writing this book. I remember when it was finished, it was like, “What happened? I feel like a new person. Something shifted in me.” Only later on could I make sense that there was this space that I had forgotten to cultivate, and that was getting back in touch with my creativity and slowing down. In meeting you, I know you have brought creativity to your life in ways that are very inspiring. I would love to learn more and maybe have you speak a bit more about this connection, heart, and creativity. How do you work with it? How do you step into it? You are The Renaissance Man, after all. I’m all curious.
Thank you for that accolade. What a lovely topic. It’s as close to my heart as you can get everything you’ve shared. HeartMath was a very powerful experience. I’m still very connected to it. I was part of the original group that launched many years ago. I was on the leadership team. I was the CEO for eleven years. It’s in, on, through me, under, and above me. My daughter and my ex-wife still work there. What attracted me initially, even before we had set up anything, was this idea that the heart was underappreciated in Western civilization for hundreds of years.
Not so in ancient traditions. The heart was revered everywhere. In fact, every ancient religion, spiritual system, you name it, the system of medicine, Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, enormous reverence for the heart, and somehow it got dumbed down about 150 years ago to the belief. Thanks to Cartesian thinkers, the heart was a fantastical pump, and that was it, nothing more but it’s fantastic. It’s an incredible machine but nothing associated with spirit, courage, intuition, being a hero or heroine. I was intrigued that this organization was set about to validate the role and the intelligence of the heart for Western minds who needed evidence, science, and data. Luckily, we were able to generate a ton of it and gain enormous credibility. I have been teaching HeartMath at Stanford in various parts of the university for many years. It gained a tremendous amount of credibility. Thanks to science in the West. When we would go to Asia, they would knowingly say, “You are catching up to the idea that the heart is an intelligence system.” We step by step a little.
Part of why I was always intrigued with the study of it is this connection between the heart and creativity because when we first talked about HeartMath, a lot of our motivation was, why is it, then when you put your heart into something, whether it’s a job, a relationship or sport, you tend to do better. When your heart’s not in it, and you are Quiet Resignation, Quiet Quitting or whatever is the vibe, whether that’s in a relationship, a job, a sport or anything, the outcome isn’t as good, and the satisfaction isn’t there.
We all intuitively already know that. You tell your kid when they are out on a soccer field or about to perform in a ballet recital or a little kid’s orchestra, “Play with your heart.” You don’t say, “Play with your mind.” That’s all that’s about. We knew that we were onto something, and the more we could validate it from a scientific standpoint, the left brain types that run organizations, by and large, would say, “At least you’ve done some data.” Back to why creativity became such an interest of mine, I have been a fairly creative person all my life. I never thought of myself as a creative person until much later in life.
Even though I had started playing young, became an actor and singer, and did that professionally in New York and was a dancer, I still didn’t think of myself as creative. I’m getting sick for a couple of years and having a couple of life-threatening things I had to deal with before I fully recognized, “I am one creative human. I’ve got to be fully embracing that to be fully alive.” Luckily, I did get through it. I did have a renaissance or personal rebirth. Also, it was a recognition that this creative energy that has always been in me from varying degrees needed to be fully embraced and expressed.
The easy connection for me between heart and creativity is why people are drawn to wanting to be more creative. To me, one of the main reasons is because whatever they do that is creative, whether that’s being a writer, gardener, painter or cyclist when they are doing those things, their heart is alive. There’s a direct connection to me between the heart and creativity, and the things that we put our heart into are incredibly satisfying. The things that satisfy our hearts that are creative are incredibly satisfying whether or not anybody sees the results of that creativity.
Just the fun of having weeded the garden. I miss weeding gardens. I have a garden that I have to weed for some time. There’s something incredibly satisfying about putting my heart into getting all those weeds out, so the flowers can spread out and be beautiful and magnificent. That’s a little bit of my thoughts about this connection.
It’s profound to me because many people and I have been teaching around creativity now for a few years. We are given messages as kids your creative interests may be, “We are a family of engineers. We are doctors. You can take your Art class maybe when you retire but don’t be putting energy into it now. That’s not going to be a career for you.”
Many people have told me those stories. They told them not to sing, dance, paint or write, not to do anything that would satisfy a creative urge. That was shut down, and then they go into the work world, and if they say anything that’s not directly their job description, they are told, “Stay in your lane. Let the marketing people do that. You are in accounting.” The urge to want to create and contribute is often shot down in work situations as well.
That’s the heart that’s being shut down. It’s our heart wanting to do that. The heart is not happy. It’s a vicious cycle downward but it’s also an awesome opportunity to get in touch with what our heart wants and open to how that could play out creatively too because you never know. You can have one idea of, “I’m supposed to be a writer,” and then you discover, “This painting thing is getting my heart on fire.” Those are some of my initial thoughts on your question.
Get in touch with what our heart really wants and be open to how that could play out creatively.
Outside of these things, writers or painters are the outlets of creativity that we commonly think of as that is creativity. We start to slice, “I’m not a writer or painter, so I’m not creative.” A lot of creative research is honing in on what they are calling everyday creativity and the creative expression of an individual, in whatever way, large or small, recognized in some of these creative career spaces or not.
When you are talking about the heart and putting all your heart into it, and tell me, “I want you to look at this guy Bruce. I want us to talk to him. He’s the creative guy.” That was my introduction to you. If Ina were to introduce me, she would say that I’m the dreamer. My field of research and work with people is dreaming and imagery.
When I talk about imagery, I’m talking about the inner imagination and stimulating that inner imagination. It’s a very ancient lineage that I teach. In this lineage, the way it would be spoken of is that we all have a life force. That life force is inherently creative, and it’s constantly moving. If we thwart it, it can only move inside and stagnate. That is the very definition of disease and malady. I’m talking about the ancient lineage who, as you discussed, the Chinese are all about the heart.
We have always been about the heart, and the seat of that intelligence is in the heart, not much of this consciousness engineering space that you talk about. This expansive movement out to contribute, create, and allow the life force to express itself and all the myriad ways it does. Also, how we, for whatever societal or belief systems, as you said, our family is not creative people or you need to make money, thwarting that and stifling it, which shuts everything down incrementally.
I have a very similar way of talking about it without that particular link with the lineage that you may be speaking of. Part of how I’ve looked at it is, and you mention this Renaissance Man that was used to describe me enough times after I got over cancer, the staph infections, the double hip replacement, my mother’s passing, my marriage, and I was healthy again finally. Now I was doing obviously creative things again. I kept getting these comments like a Renaissance Man, you have been reborn, plus you are doing all these things that clearly make your heart come a lot.
I ponder this a lot. The term Renaissance Man eliminates half the world’s population. I came up with the term Renaissance Human. It wasn’t just to describe somebody who’s embraced their creative side but to describe this idea that as humans, we have a very unique opportunity as compared to other species in that we get to continue to give birth to new parts of ourselves throughout our life. To me, we get to continue to have a renaissance and rebirth of new parts of ourselves. That’s obvious when we are young. We are literally birthing parts of our body, puberty.
We are birthing skills, talents, and all kinds of things. The mindset tends to be but then that levels off because then once the mortgage starts being due, and the kids, you shut that down just to make sure you make ends meet. The belief that you would continue to grow, develop, and give birth to new parts of yourself is not how the masses think. In fact, how dare you in your 40s or 50s consider a career change because you are going to be called, “He got a midlife crisis?”
Not at all. It’s something that is needed to be born. As you said beautifully, Bonnie, if that life force is cut off, it’s going to internalize. It will lead to some disease or some reflection like, “Something major needs to change because this is not working.” That flow is being stopped in too many ways. Part of how I talk in these classes when I offer them is that every human is born with the power to create life, whether we are ever involved or not, it isn’t the point. We are born with that power. I assert that the essential life force that gives us the ability to produce another life is what is the source of creativity. We are made of creativity. I will challenge people in the class, “Prove me I’m wrong. Prove to me you are different.”
Every human is born with the power to create life.
There haven’t been any takers so far but I believe that is the case that we are made of creative energy. God is a creative force. To me, there’s no escape whether you choose to call it God or not, it’s fine, but I don’t care either way. That unmistakable force within us to honor that is the challenge. It’s not about artistic expression. Another societal mistake is calling artists the creatives, “I will give that to the creatives.” One of the most creative people in the HeartMath organization was the head of operations. That guy was an amazing problem-solver.
Let’s get Eric in here. The outcome was not going to be a poem, a painting, a song or a dance. It was going to be a solution. I’m preaching to the choir and singing from the same songbook here. We are all made of creative energy. Every single moment is a creative choice unless we are always working from a script, unless we are on autopilot that everything has to be exactly the same every day, the exact same routine, working from a script.
I’m not working from a script now. I’m quite sure the two of you aren’t, which means we are creating as we go. I’m responding to what you said. You are responding to what I said. We are going to jump in. This is creativity and action. It has nothing to do with an artistic outcome. I’m into that. I’m like the pied piper of that energy because it got reborn in me big time. It’s like the genie gets out of the bottle, and she’s getting big by now. There would not be a big enough bottle even to put her in. That’s not even a consideration.
I feel that. To the point that it’s a vibrancy of life. It’s visceral and visual. You do feel that.
To build on everyday creativity because just me choosing to make my water, put the vitamin in it, come down here, and settle those little moments are, in fact, creative moments, intentional, setting, and opening space. If you even think about the word itself, to create art means to grow. It’s nothing to do with the way we imagine or think of creativity being as an art thing only. Bruce, when you talk about the Cartesian philosophy, part of this way or why this happens is because of that separation. We see it in universities too. We say, “The arts and the science, the body and the mind.”
We have created these constructs of separation that are contributing to the language that we use, and then when we go and break it down, we say, “Creativity is not about drawing.” Although if you can do a line and a curve, you can draw because that’s the basics of it. There are some people who develop talent for it but that’s only one expression. It’s how we make our choices, choose to show up, and allow for that mindset of growth that you spoke to, so that we can continue to reinvent ourselves and attend to parts of ourselves that we want to shift. I don’t want to say change but that we keep going through this process of self-remembering and coming closer to ourselves and our hearts.
The question that’s coming up, and I would like to connect it to my son or to the school. I have been following his learning process. This is not just in schools. It’s also in the universities. We continue to separate these things. We are going to go to the Art class now, and then this and that. He was saying to me, “When I’m done with Math,” we do this Math exercise. “I just want to draw it. I want to put it on paper.”
“My body feels better when I start drawing something, and I can get back up into myself, move and do something else. I can do that but the teacher doesn’t let me all the time because she has a structure.” The question that it’s coming is how do we create more spaces for these creative moments, whether it’s in the school systems, as parents, teachers or educators? How do we cultivate more of that?
First of all, it’s even acknowledging the importance. STEM education has become supreme. There’s also STEAM education, adding the arts in there. I don’t hear about that part of it much. The fascination has been around this blending of science, technology, and all that stuff. Little by little, it may end up being leaders who catch onto this.
The full realization of why creativity matters, we’ve got the best shot at it as the world gets direr in what’s going on. What’s going to get us out of it? Is technology really the answer to everything that is collapsing in the world? Is it another Web3 that’s going to turn around climate change or the divisiveness between cultures and parties?
There’s another level of appreciating the power we have to create our lives because many people feel victimized by their childhood, upbringing, lot in life or how they perceive themselves. There’s got to be some reordering that the creative power in us, the life force that Bonnie spoke of, has got to be tapped. Don’t wait until retirement to finally tune into that thing. That should be starting. That’s what Montessori and Waldorf’s schools are about.
Much of the progressive education does honor this, and yet that’s not even close to being mainstream. Culturally, it’s a big challenge. I look at the impact of the last years, obviously, the pandemic but all that meant with isolation, loneliness, and social separation. It was three years before I saw my daughter again in July 2022. We were 3,000 miles away. It wasn’t easy but she was also immunocompromised. She didn’t want to see anybody because of the virus.
Three years without seeing my daughter was not acceptable. I’m probably going to move to California because it’s not okay to be that far away from her. She’s not a kid but I don’t want to be away. I don’t want to be that far out of her. My point being I keep noticing that my system requires more than ever as much as I’ve spent over many years as a meditator and doing wellness practices, yoga, Tai chi, and tons of stuff. I got the pedigree in all those things, yet I feel a level of exhaustion. I feel the need for more rest than ever.
I feel the need to create more space in my life to have creative moments. There’s a need to both understand that part of us as humans has to be honored, and we are not going to get there if we turn it into yet another thing to do because we are all rushing around hard trying to deal with the financial worries. Many people have been doing extra jobs in whatever they are doing. It’s almost inconceivable how I am going to find any time because I’m already totally maxed out and exhausted.
The idea that getting onto this could be the antidote is a little hard for some people to imagine. That’s why at least for myself, I will be the pied piper in those who I meet and say, “It is possible. I’m a cancer survivor. I went through stuff in my blood that’s life-threatening. I went through a double hip. I went through the loss of both parents and a brother all to Alzheimer’s.” All that happened. I have been through a few things. There is life possible after a tragedy.
To me, it has to have to do with honoring the creative nature of who we are, honoring that life force that’s in us, and knowing we have got to rest more. We are all depleted, and then we are part of a quantum field of humanity, which is all depleted. It’s no wonder we are tired and don’t even have the energy to think about creativity a lot of the time. Part of it is that we got to rest and create more spaces in our day for the rejuvenation to happen and for the insights to even occur.
We can’t just run all the time and think that’s the answer, even though it feels desperate. You feel like you have to do it sometimes. Those are some thoughts on how we help children. Fortunately, they are much more open than adults because they are much less formed in many ways. You still got a shot while someone is younger. I’m teaching some 19 and 20-year-olds who are tennis players at the university where I work.
I’m teaching them all about HeartMath, and they are loving it. They are sitting in on these Zoom calls. It’s also refreshing for me because I’m not used to working with undergraduate students like I never do. Suddenly, I’ve got a room full of high-performing athletes. They are a little cynical here and there but they are quite open because they know how stressed they get and unhappy that makes them feel.
You mentioned the youth and talked about rest. I love what the Dalai Lama always used to say, “If we can teach all the eight-year-olds to meditate, the world would be a better place, and we would have a better chance at cultivating peace.” When I think of meditation, it is exactly those moments of rest and creating space. That’s something to think about.
This is a big topic because, for me, rest means a lot of different things. It means a pause. A pause is always the time when new ideas emerge, and new things come up. About 50% of my practice, my client base, is creative professionals. I work with performing arts foundations. I’m applying the dreaming and imagery techniques to the creative process.
That creative process does not fit into tiny, small task slices. It needs time and space to develop and form, whether it’s rest in creating a pause space or it’s actual sleeping, which for me is integral to the creative process because in sleep, I dream, and dreaming is the place of new ideas and insights. Something else that I have started to speak a lot more intensely about is the transition time between sleep and wake because many people immediately fill that time with more doing.
That’s a critical time to reflect upon the new perspectives that have emerged during the dream time and to be in that reflective space that’s between sleep and dream. A lot of neuroscience supports the different systems of cognition in the brain, from the executive task and the dreaming or default mode of being. What’s interesting about that default mold, the dreaming state or the daydreaming state, is that part of ourselves speaking now from neuroscience, that is responsible for social cognition, which means being able to imagine how another person feels.
It’s the space of consolidating memory and emotion, “How do I feel about this?” That’s also about the rest space. If I’m doing all day long without reflecting on, “What does this mean for me?” there’s no meaning-making, which is also stifling to my ability to then create beyond that, “What does this mean for me now? Therefore, what are some new perspectives I can bring to the situation or where I want to go next?”
I endorse your broad concept of rest. I’m a power napper. I might nap 2 or 3 times a day.
How long do you nap?
It depends on how much time I have and what happened. If I’ve had a very strange call and a long break, I might do twenty minutes. In other situations, I may have been back-to-back, I may only have 5 minutes, and I will do 5 minutes. I will be fully asleep and wake up refreshed five minutes later. Sometimes I do full-on meditation. I use my intuition to tell me what I need now, given that I have this amount of time. You need some almond butter. That may be more important for you than a five-minute nap. You need some nourishment for yourselves.
I continually ask myself, “What do I need?” because my body has gone through all that I went through and continues as the aging process occurs, ever more sensitive to what my body is trying to tell me. My body talks fairly clearly to me if I will bother to listen, and I follow, “What’s the message now? Do I need to meditate? Do I need to completely, fully relax and reset my autonomic nervous system and go as deep as I possibly can in the time that I have?” I have been doing this since college. This is the idea of restoring through a “power nap.” I have been doing it for a long time. I can dial it into 5 or 20 minutes sometimes if that’s all I’ve got or whatever feels optimal in the given times available to me.
Do you nap, Ina?
I don’t nap, but I do take breaks. I was curious when you said nap because if I go and take 10 or 15 minutes, I will go deep into sleep. I cannot get there. The way I nap is I can sit for a few minutes, which is totally fine but I need open space. For me, it’s more about resting my eyes in an open space and looking at the green, and walking also does it for me. I have the resting walk. It’s slower. When you take your dog, you keep going, and they will want to walk but Gem is a wondrous dog, which is beautiful, and many dogs are.
I will take her on the leash, and she will want to stop places. If I’m going somewhere, I’m going to have to pull her and say, “Let’s go,” but these kinds of walks are different. I let her wonder, and then I stop and wonder. It’s very nourishing for me to create that distance. This season, Bruce, you were saying the fall colors and being in tune with the rhythms. That’s the other thing that’s coming up. It’s the pause but also this tuning into the rhythm of nature, fall, and winter transitions. That makes a difference in my own replenishing and creative space. Do you nap, Bonnie?
I do. One time a week, I turn off all electronics for 25 hours. During that time, I take long hikes that are more like a wander. If I find a stone that attracts my attention, I may sit next to it for a while. I do a non-goal-directed hike. It’s more of a wander. In that 25-hour time, I spend a lot of time not sleeping, not napping but laying down, which is a different position than when we are always upright and going. I lay down and have my eyes closed. I might be in the grass, depending on the season. I might be in my house with my eyes closed but not sleeping, staying in-between state, watching, observing, and playing with what comes up.
My big time to do that is once a week. During the week also, if I have a moment, I will take a few minutes. It might be a 5 or 10 little catnap. Bruce, something you’ve said made me think of dogs because I started to get this watching my dogs. Every time we would do something that excited the nervous system, we would go for a walk or someone would pop over and hand me the mail. They would lie down and get quiet again. It might be a three-minute nap but the excitement was always followed by quieting.
I’m living with a dog where I live, and I have not lived with a dog since my junior year in college. That one wasn’t my dog, either. This is an incredible little cutie named Sapphire. She’s a sheep doodle. She’s a sheepdog and mini Sheepadoodle combo. She looks like a tiny sheepdog. She is incredibly sweet and loving. We had two whole days where there were no other family members around, just the two of us. We fell in love. I was going to change my relationship status on Facebook to, “In a relationship.” Please don’t ask about Sapphire. She’s not still a pole dancer. She’s a wonderful person now.
I noticed the same thing. She’s full of life and energy all the time. As soon as that’s over, it’s like, “Where can I nap?” She’s got about twelve spots around the house she can nap, including my bed. There’s something to that. I was in this period in my senior year in college where I was performing all the time, in rehearsal until very late at night. I was also teaching a Tai Chi class at 6:00 AM.
I had maybe three and a half hours of sleep on a regular basis. This is completely unsustainable, and I remembered my mother, who would come home from teaching high school. Before she started dinner and then picked up my father at the train station, she would take a nap. I don’t even know how long she would do it but it seemed like almost every day, she would do her version of a power nap for 10 or 15 minutes. It got her back up.
I don’t know who taught her to do that or if she intuitively knew she should do it. It was in college when my mother used to do that all the time after coming home from school. I should be able to do that. I talk my way through progressive relaxation as my first attempt to do that and realize, “Once you do that, you can get out pretty quick because you’ve trained yourself.” Years later, I had my human design done. I know a few of you have used that methodology.
I haven’t.
I’m not fluent enough to be able to adequately explain it but what I am considering in that model is a projector. It is someone who, by design, projects themselves in the situations not to dominate but to become part of it to harmonize. As a result, we projectors often take on the energy of the group or the person but our nature also is to be invited into places where arts energy is not to take a place to be invited in.
When I had my session with this expert in the process, he said, “First of all, you have to understand that many of your feelings are not your own. Much of what you feel you have to take on from a situation because of your nature and how you are designed but also you are the kind of person, the projectors based on this that you carry a lot, that you need lots of ways to release. You need naps.” Other people wouldn’t need naps the same way but you do because of how you are designed. You can’t help it.
You are designed to go into situations and feel what’s going on and feel that, and then it’s got to go somewhere. You’ve got to have ways to release, whether that be exercise, walks to nature, sitting outside in the sun for all that does whatever it is, and having a massage. I thought that’s interesting because I’ve intuitively felt that most of my adult life but never had a validation board.
You could think, not that I needed one but here he came saying all of those impulses that, “You have to nap, take breaks, walk outside, sit in nature, and sit by the pool. You need that based on your design. Other people wouldn’t need it as much necessarily but you do.” I thought, “No problem. I got marching orders.”
I remember doing this a while ago. I’m not an expert, and we don’t need to talk about human design but the manifesting generator was my energy type which means there’s a lot of energy in me, and this energy needs to be channeled. Rest is important. If you go to the extremes of it because you put the energy all into one thing, and it’s intense, you can burnout a lot quicker.
This is interesting also because I’ve had different kinds of burnout. I keep going through that space and learning through it. In the very first one, it took me at least a year to recover. That was significant. To go back into the rhythms of it and be like, “What lesson did I not learn? What I have learned, and I’m continuing to learn?”
For me, I need to be in between spaces because for those in between, I can go either this way or rest, either deep rest or deep movement. What’s new here? Moderation is the word but it is real because sometimes we can get into this sluggish, procrastinating energy or you get into a move, and you can burn out yourself in both ways in doing both of these things. The little breaks are the things that can fuel.
Bonnie, it’s interesting your observation about the dogs and how they go through that cycle because it’s given me another way to think about, “I see.” You know how they tell young mothers, “Follow the rhythm of the baby. When baby naps, you nap. When the baby is up, then you are up.” That’s all to go into that rhythm to support the energy and the flow. It’s very interesting to think that way. Do you have a dream practice?
Not really. I have been thinking I would love to learn more about your work, what has informed it, and how it looks because I don’t have that in any formal way.
Do you remember your dreams?
Sometimes. In general, themes of dreams, there are certain things that continue to play through but it has not been a major focus. I haven’t ever dived deeper.
Get a journal you like, stick it by your bed and start to write them down.
That’s a good idea. I have a journal but not about dreams per se. It’s more about what’s up in my conscious waking of the day.
Get one specific to dreams. There are many things for someone who’s active in that creative space to mine from dreaming.
Bonnie, you talk about dreams as a way of opening up the space, staying in the flow, and being in tune. Bruce, I was thinking about your photography, how you stay in tune with your flow and how you move into space. This is a question I always keep asking. How do you know when you are in that space? “That’s what I can see. That’s what’s getting my attention. That’s what moves me.”
How do you move into that space? How do you know that’s the thing that moves you? I know we talked and followed your heart in the beginning and moved with that but what moves you at that moment when you see something that gets your attention? How do you move? How do you follow it? What does that feel like?
It varies. I’m pretty in tune with falling inter prompting. I have been at it. I’m quite a bit older than you two. I have been at this for a long time. I’m pretty able to feel the signal somehow in my system and pay attention to it. Sometimes, I need to experience the presence of God to understand what’s going on. Often it’s music that will take me into a much deeper state and then like, “Now it’s clear what’s going on,” because there may be several signals at the same time going on about several aspects of my life. It’s not just a single one. When I can release into feeling my presence, a whole other world of clarity emerges, and then what needs to go next? What action needs to be taken if any?
After I emerged from the health challenges I had over that two-year period, it wrapped up in late 2011. I was very committed to feeling everything I was feeling, the grief of my mother’s passing, the loss of the marriage, the exhilaration that I got through, all the health issues, and the hope that I would be able to regain strength in my hips and be able to hike and or wonder. I love your distinction, Bonnie. That’s a beautiful distinction. Not goal-oriented at all but happy.
Whenever I walk with people, I let them know in advance. I am odd by nature on every walk I ever take. Be prepared. I will be stopping a lot because there will be a leaf that I like, “Oh my God.” The way light hits the leaf makes it look lit up in gold and translucent. I’m odd by that and way more than I used to be. I’ve allowed myself to fully feel the aftermath of all the health issues that ended many years ago. I’m into that at this point that the light on my leg could take me out in a good way because I’m very responsive.
Meaning I pay attention very keenly to what’s going on in, around, and through me, etc. I tend not to hold back. If the situation allows any opportunity to go for that impulse, I will go. It’s not always possible. One day, I was driving to the bank and had a bit of a time schedule. It was one of the most spectacular drives I’ve ever taken in my life. One turn after another and the way the sun was hitting behind these golden and red leaves.
The sky was completely deep blue, and the countryside was all these huge beautiful farms. One after another, I thought, “I will never get to the bank. I will keep stopping and taking more photos.” I finally said, “Keep on going. Stay in the flow of the absolutely ridiculous magnificence that you are on the way to the bank.” It’s stunning. I’ve allowed myself to fully experience it.
All of what you’ve said is incredibly beautiful of how you put it. From this ancient lineage I teach, there is one of the teachers in the 1800s that said, “It is imperative to fill the body, nourish the body through the delight of the senses, and seeing that golden leaf and these colors because the body is the home for the soul. If the body is not full, nourished, and enticing to the soul, the soul may not be fully coming in and wanting to come down. The body becomes an invitation for the soul.” This goes back to all that we have been talking about. The more we live, the more we have life.
I would love maybe a couple of words of you playing in a lot of different creative spaces. Maybe share a couple of places where people can engage more with you or learn more about the work you are doing. That would be wonderful.
I do a variety of things and am very grateful that life set it up that way throughout my life, where I’ve had a chance to be a singer, dancer, executive, coach, and a lot of different things. I realize I am all those things and have to be all of those things, not in equal measure all the time. If I’m not facilitating a group around these ideas, we are talking about them now. I don’t feel right.
If I’m not singing occasionally in public, it doesn’t have to be regularly in public. I don’t quite feel right. If I’m not dancing, to some degree, in my own bedroom, at least, I don’t feel right. I’ve recognized that I am all of these things, and they have to be at different times and amounts but I’ve got to be doing a little bit of all of it.
Part one of my day jobs is running what’s called the Integrative Health Institute at Salem University. That’s a new enterprise to bring holistic thinking practices, integrative medicine, and integrative health techniques to the population of people who want to be in the healthcare profession or already are or general folks who need help because we need help these days for a lot of reasons. Holistic approaches resonate because it addresses everybody and every part of us, not just the body. That’s part of what I have been inspired by.
I’m working with a very interesting company now that has decided to bet the company on a shift into the wellness area. They have been a home products company. They started to realize that they were getting more and more drawn into products for the home that would help people with their health. They decided, “Let’s go into that because people need this more than ever.” I’m consulting with them.
It’s a company that’s both in China and in the US, where there are cross-cultural and time zone issues. There’s the creation of a whole new product line. I’m an advisor and consultant to all of this. It’s a fascinating new project that I’m getting involved in. There are some other things happening that may take me, and it’s more corporate work to bring ideas of emotional intelligence in HeartMath to the corporate world, especially to executives and leaders, which is something I did a lot when I was active with HeartMath.
I got a lot of satisfaction out of it, realizing the potential impact of helping a leader. I’m sure that Bonnie is saying it is way beyond that single individual that you are helping but that add-on benefits to the family, community, organization or the part they could be significant. That’s another thing that’s on the plate. Moving back to New Jersey was partly because I wanted to be closer to New York City again instead of a few hours away when I was up in Connecticut because I’m part of a group that performs in the city.
We pretty much shut down during COVID but we are going again. That means being in the city and performing singing, which gives me great joy. We don’t get paid. It’s completely a gift that we are giving to Manhattan. It’s a little bit of all these things. At the same time, I’m involved in a long-distance relationship. It’s delightful, sweet, and loving. It’s navigating through all of that. Some people say, “Are you ever going to retire?” I was like, “What would retirement look like?”
Life is meant to be lived. I can’t imagine retiring and then like, “What would I be doing?” I love balance, rest, relaxation, and all that but I also want to contribute to the world, especially these times. I’m not going to pull back, “I’m over the world now. I’m going to live on an island somewhere.” It appeals to me but my nature wouldn’t like that either. I continue to feel like, “How can I best use my energy? What new parts of me need developing so that I can be of service and try to be as flexible as I can in my life so that I’m not too tied down to anything with maximum freedom, the maximum ability to express and contribute?”
Maximum freedom means the maximum ability to express and contribute.
I’m in reinvention number 800. I’m not sure how many it is now, but I like the thinking that I’m giving birth to new parts of myself. I prefer that for me as opposed to reinvention. I’ve used the reinvention word a lot because everybody says, “You are good at reinventing yourself,” but I said, “I guess.” It feels to me more like an organic process as opposed to a career perspective, “I need to reinvent myself. I should pivot.”
It’s more like, “This is an energy that’s coming through, and it’s supposed to.” I need to guide it but also understand it, follow the flow of it, and surrender to where it may take me, even if it’s a place that I wouldn’t have ever expected like the selection of things that I’m now doing. If somebody would’ve said any one of those things I would be doing, I would have been shocked a couple of years ago. The fact that I’m doing all of those at the same time is weird but delightful.
Your question that you put could be a great question to close. It’s, “What are the parts of us that need development, and are we birthing? What wants to be birthed?” It involves your whole self. It doesn’t just get here into this mind trying to figure out what will your next step look like or how you bring creativity but following your wholeness, taking those rests, and then asking the question, “What wants to be birthed?” Thank you very much for being with us. Bonnie, anything you want to say as we close?
Bruce, you are a treasure. I have been super looking forward to this, and I’ve enjoyed it. I can’t believe how quickly it’s gone by. It’s such a pleasure to talk with you.
Back at you, Bonnie. It was a delight to get to know you and everything you shared. I deeply resonated with it. Ina, you and I have had such a wonderful connection for years that I knew this would be wonderful because of you. I loved the three-way dynamic here of all the different perspectives. Thank you both for all the depth, care, and wisdom of what you’ve each shared. I feel very blessed to have been with you both.
Thank you.
Important Links
- HeartMath
- Salem University
- https://BruceCryer.com/
- https://www.LinkedIn.com/in/brucecryer/
- https://www.Instagram.com/bruce_cryer/
About Bruce Cryer
Bruce Cryer has had a diverse career spanning musical theater, biotech, personal development, health and well-being, and executive mentoring. He began as a singer/dancer/actor in New York, including two years in The Fantasticks, the world’s longest-running musical. Since the early 80s, Bruce has been teaching innovative approaches to optimal health, business success, personal balance, and human performance. Bruce has been an adjunct professor at Stanford University since 1997 and was named CEO of HeartMath in 2000, having helped launch the HeartMath Institute with founder Doc Childre in 1991. Bruce’s clients include Mayo Clinic, The World Bank, Kaiser, NASA, Unilever, Shell, Cisco, Cathay Pacific Airways, and the NHS (UK).
Bruce is co-author of From Chaos to Coherence: The Power to Change Performance and the Harvard Business Review article “Pull the Plug on Stress”. He has contributed to four books being released in 2020.
A two-year health crisis convinced him to focus his energies on creativity. Bruce now enjoys robust health while singing, dancing, and enjoying photography. His keynote performance, “What Makes Your Heart Sing”, awakens the power of inspiration. He recently released Renaissance Human, an album of original songs co-created with the Brothers Koren and he performs regularly in New York. He is now Executive Director of the new Integrative Health Institute at Salem University.