--- title: "Palpitations: Emotional and Spiritual Meaning | Body Hemi-Sync" canonical_url: "https://www.body-hemisync.com/heart-and-circulation/palpitations" last_updated: 2026-10-04 meta: "og:title": "Palpitations: Emotional and Spiritual Meaning" --- # **Palpitations: emotional and spiritual meaning** Heart rhythm Also known as: Heart palpitations, Arrhythmia, Tachycardia, Bradycardia Updated 4 October 2026 **In short** Palpitations are a heart you can feel, racing, skipping or pounding. They are read as an alarm about love, about a choice you cannot make, and about a life lived at someone else's pace. LoveFear of lossChoiceDependencePaceSafety ## What palpitations are Palpitations are the sensation of the heart beating in a way you notice. It may race, pound, flutter or skip. A rhythm disturbance, an arrhythmia, is a change in the heart's timing. Many palpitations are brief and benign. Caffeine, effort, fever, [**anxiety**](https://www.body-hemisync.com/emotions/anxiety), an overactive thyroid, anaemia and pregnancy can all bring them on. Some rhythms need care. A heart that stays fast at rest is a tachycardia. A heart that is very slow, and makes you faint or fall, is a bradycardia, and a pacemaker is sometimes the right medical answer. An irregular rhythm such as atrial fibrillation raises the chance of a stroke and is a reason to be assessed. Ventricular fibrillation is different from a flutter you notice and carry on with. The ventricles quiver and no longer pump. It is a cardiac arrest. Without defibrillation within minutes, it kills. It is an emergency. It is not a decision about love. ## The emotional meaning of palpitations The heart is read as love. Palpitations are an alarm, a call for help, about that love. A deep [**fear**](https://www.body-hemisync.com/emotions/fear) of losing the love you need, or of never having it, is what the racing is heard as. Your heart beats as fast as you live your life. You have the impression of having no control. You do not feel safe. You need more calm. You look in every direction and find no answer to your questions. The heart beats for several things at once. People, in love. And also what you love to do with passion, work or a hobby. You have the impression you must choose. You know you have to let someone or something go, and it is very hard. You feel unable. The [**dependence**](https://www.body-hemisync.com/emotions/dependence) is great. You live a split. Myself, or the others. Whom do I put first? Whom should I look after first? The choices are difficult. You feel divided, perhaps about the meaning of life itself. You may fall for people because you need so much to be loved. Like the heart, you are unstable in your emotional reactions. There are things you are asked to do, and you do them *à contrecœur*, with a reluctant heart. The French word has the heart in it. Instead of living at your own pace, you take the frantic pace of society. A pulse that is off is read through another French phrase. *Entre les deux, mon cœur balance*: my heart swings between the two. It is the idiom for being unable to decide. The reading hears how hard it is to take a decision with everything it implies. ## When the rhythm has a name The reading distinguishes a few rhythms. The medicine of each one stays with a clinician. **A fast heart.** Tachycardia is a rhythmic racing. Effort, a strong emotion, an anguishing situation, or fear can throw the heart off for a time. The heart sends an SOS. In [**anguish**](https://www.body-hemisync.com/emotions/anguish), adrenaline makes the beats very strong, and an abnormal rhythm feels dreadful. You may have believed you always had to do more, and faster, in order to be loved, or even in order to have the right to live. You may feel you have to make up for lost time. **A slow heart.** Bradycardia is a slowing. Endurance sport can slow a healthy heart. A sudden abnormal slowing can cause a collapse, and a pacemaker is sometimes what a doctor recommends. Deep sorrows, particularly about a father, are what the reading sets beside this slowing, as if the heart could no longer bear to suffer and wanted to stop. You step back to protect yourself, because you no longer have the taste for the fight. You would rather savour each moment of happiness and love, because they seem rare. A pacemaker, if it is offered, is a doctor's decision. Sorrow does not replace it, and it does not forbid it. **An early beat.** An extrasystole, a beat that comes too soon, is read as a lack of love from your parents, particularly from your father. Love presents itself in an interrupted way, often through frequent separations and reunions that tear the heart. **A quiver that does not pump.** Ventricular fibrillation is described in the book as a chaotic, useless contraction of the ventricles, and as coming from a damaged heart muscle, an electric shock, or, in a newborn, a moment of panic. If it is not put right within minutes, it is sudden death. Call for help. A decision about love does not explain a heart that has stopped pumping. Atrial fibrillation is read differently. It sits with the sense that it is not legitimate for you to love whom you want, in the way you want. You feel constraints on showing love. In any of these, the reading says love is what is at stake. Breathe calmly and deeply. Listen to the heart. ## A gentler way to hold it - **Give yourself the love you need**, so that worry can loosen into a greater inner safety, and so that you can trust life. - **Let go of what is no longer good for you.** - **Choose the road you want**, and stay with the choice. - **Let harmony return**, in love and in the life you share with others. - **Keep the medical plan.** An irregular or fainting rhythm needs a clinician. Heart medicines stay as prescribed. Cardiac arrest is an emergency. ## **Questions to ask yourself** Take your time with these. There are no right answers; simply notice what comes up. - What love am I afraid of losing, or afraid I will never have? - Who or what do I know I should let go of, and feel unable to? - Whom do I put first, myself or the others, and which choice am I avoiding? - Where am I living at the frantic pace of everyone else, instead of my own? - What sorrow, especially about my father, has my heart been carrying for a long time? - Where does love arrive in fits, through separations and reunions that tear me? ***Affirmation *** > “I let go of what is no longer good for me. I choose my road, and I let harmony return in love and in the life around me.” ## **When to see a doctor** **Please seek medical advice if you notice:** - Chest pain, fainting, severe breathlessness, or a heart that will not slow. Call emergency services. - Someone who is unresponsive and not breathing normally. Call emergency services and start CPR if you know how. This is cardiac arrest, not a mood. - A new irregular heartbeat, especially with dizziness, or if you already have heart disease. - A very slow pulse with falls, blackouts or exhaustion. - Palpitations with a fever, a thyroid problem, anaemia, or in pregnancy. - Do not stop a beta-blocker, a blood thinner, or any heart medicine because of anything you read here. ## **Sources and inspiration ** - Jacques Martel, *Le Grand Dictionnaire des Malaises et des Maladies*. This page is an original interpretation written by Body Hemi-Sync. It is inspired by these sources and does not reproduce them. ## Sitemap See the full [sitemap](/sitemap.md) for all pages.