When Latter-day Saints hear the counsel to “harden not your heart,” we figure that means don’t be stubborn or rebellious or proud. We don’t generally think of the organ in our chest that pumps blood throughout the body. It is understood that to “soften our hearts” means we need to repent. Why, then, do Alma and so many of the other prophets in the Book of Mormon even bother to mention the heart when speaking of repentance? What does the heart have to do with anything? Why not just say, “repent”?
Can Hearts Actually Harden?
Many of us recognize that when we experience certain emotions, evidence of these emotions shows up in our bodies. When we are sad, tears may flow from our eyes; when we are embarrassed, blood may rush to our face, turning it bright red. In like manner, certain emotions cause chemicals to surge to our heart, producing a sensation that can easily be described as “cold” or “hard.”
Emotions such as anger, frustration, resentment, or offense cause epinephrine and norepinephrine to be released, affecting the levels of cortisol in our bodies. These chemicals can cause rapid breathing, tightness in the gut, or an increased heart rate. This is the body’s evidence that something significant has happened. These responses can be the result of a threat which causes fear, or such responses can occur when we’re told/asked/admonished to do something we don’t want to do.
Consider the reaction of a compliant child who is told it is time to go to bed. Their cooperative response, “Okay, Mom,” doesn’t cause anger or elevate their heart rate, and they peacefully enter their bedroom. Contrast this with the defiant child who doesn’t want to go to bed and has a temper tantrum, demonstrating all kinds of physical symptoms, an elevated heart rate being the least of them.
We are often like the child at bedtime. When we are asked to do something that we don’t want to do, our body reacts physically. The chemicals surge through our bloodstream to our heart and can make it feel hard.
In like manner, a proud person may take correction to be an insult, and their defensive response causes chemicals to invade their bloodstream, enter the heart, and cause the heart to feel cold or hard. They resent the correction. They don’t want to change. They are offended at the mere suggestion. How dare anyone insinuate that they might want to wear more modest clothing or use appropriate language? The mere hint that it would be prudent to change something about themselves causes their defenses to rise like armor, and their heart becomes encased in steel.
Recognizing the need to Repent
In Alma 12, when the prophet is teaching the people of Ammonihah, he uses the heart metaphor five times in five verses. Alma equates a hard heart with the unrepentant and a soft heart with the repentant.
- 33 if we will repent, and harden not your hearts
- 34 whosoever repententh and hardeneth not his heart
- 35 whosoever will harden his heart and will do iniquity
- 36 if ye will harden your hearts ye shall not enter into the rest of the Lord
- 37 let us repent and harden not our hearts
It is no wonder that prophets from Nephi to Alma use the heart to communicate fidelity or lack thereof. Our body provides evidence of our emotions. Our body helps us be aware of occasions when we respond to counsel with stubbornness or pride. That stubbornness screams at us right from the center of our chest. Prophets who use the heart metaphor want their listeners to recognize the need to repent. The body’s defensive response provides that recognition.
Hard Hearts Can’t be Molded
Recently, I presented a class of young adults with an object lesson. Each student received a can of playdough. In some of the cans, the playdough was fresh and pliant. In others, it was a hard, dried-out lump. I invited every person in the class to open their can and mold their playdough into something beautiful. Those with pliant playdough easily created one object after another. Those with hard playdough were stuck. They shook their heads, resigned to their inability to create a single thing with their lumps of hard playdough.
I wonder if Heavenly Father looks at us the way my students looked at their playdough? He is delighted with those who are pliable, who are willing to change, who can be molded into something beautiful. I wonder if He shakes his head when considering those who are hard lumps, those that won’t let Him work with them.
Softening a Hard Heart
The most poignant example I can think of a soft heart occurred when Christ gathered his disciples together for the Last Supper. These men were his inner circle, his trusted friends, those who knew him better than anyone. He told them that within a few hours, one of them would betray him. Most of his disciples responded with intense humility. They didn’t claim, “I would never do that.” They didn’t look around the circle, trying to identify the traitor. They humbly looked inside. They recognized that we are all human. We are all vulnerable to temptation. We are all at risk of falling. As much as they loved The Savior, and as much as they believed in their fidelity, they responded, “Lord, is it I?” Eleven of the disciples knew the secret to having a soft heart. One, however, was too proud to escape mortal weakness, and he betrayed the Lord.
We can’t go inside our chest and massage the heart, making it soft. But there are hormones that can counter-balance or counteract those hormones that attempt to harden our hearts. Oxytocin is often called the “cuddle hormone” and is released when we feel connected and close, and safe to those around us. Oxytocin is released when a mother nurses her baby. It is released when someone wraps their arms around us and holds us to their chest.
We can deliberately seek out ways to increase oxytocin so that its effects are more abundant in our hearts than cortisol. Ways to increase oxytocin include:
-Spending time with those who care about you
-Listening to peaceful music
-Giving of yourself, through a kind word or deed
Coincidentally (or not), active participation in the restored gospel of Jesus Christ can provide the antidote to a hard heart.
Often, the hard-heart response occurs in our chest more quickly than we can stop it. Our instinct is to put up our defenses and surround our heart with steel. However, just because we put up our armor in the first place doesn’t mean it has to stay there. We can choose to do the things that soften our hearts. We can control our body’s chemistry.
JeaNette Goates Smith is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Licensed Mental Health Counselor. Her books about family relationships can be found on the website www.smithfamilytherapy.org
