What Is Heart Mapping? This Coach Explains How It Can Make Parents Happier

What fills up your head space right now? Bills? The kids’ half-done assignments? Work/ It’s so easy to lose ourselves in the demands of daily life that these tend to overshadow the things that make us truly happy. Heart Mapping will help us find our way back to the many things that keep us happy and we would be surprised to know that we have quite a trove filled with reasons to be happy. 

Finding what makes you happy

How to create one’s own Heart Map was the lesson Happiness Coach Michelle Tambunting taught the parent squad in a recent episode of Smart Parenting’s Happiness Class titled, “How to be a Happy (Not Perfect) Parent.”

The parent squad-cum-hosts is composed of composed of Edroy Lim, Grace Donato, and Debbie Villanueva

Michelle Lichauco-Tambunting, a mom to a child with special needs, obtained her Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from Wellesley College in Massachusetts, U.S., and her master’s degree in education from Harvard University. She co-founded the Young Creative Minds Preschool, as well as Happiness Class PH.

With their kids’ colored pens, Teacher Michelle asked Debbie, Edroy, and Grace to draw their own Heart Maps. Daddy Edroy’s map showed drawings of tools because he loves DIY projects and a smiley face because he loved ‘making people happy’.

On the other hand, a big chunk of Mommy Debbie’s map occupied ‘sleeping time’ which is a luxury for her as she has to physically be at work despite the pandemic.  Part of her map also showed family, skincare, and arts and crafts. 

Meanwhile, Mommy Grace placed being called ‘Mama’ by the whole family as something she loves hearing. ‘Netflix and Chill’ and taking care of her ‘hair’ are other pleasures she reflected in her own Heart Map.

Heart Mapping as self-care

After plotting their own Heart Maps, coach Michelle made sure to ask how they felt and ‘where that feeling landed in their body.’ The latter question was anchored on the fact that how we feel often manifests physically.  “We have to ask where the feeling landed kasi we're so used to suppressing feelings that it comes out in our bodies,” elaborates Michelle. 

In answering the questions, the parent squad said that the whole exercise made them feel lighter and they felt it’s effects that it ‘landed’ in their hearts and soul. The Heart Mapping also made them realize that there were a lot of things that they never thought made them happy but more often than not, they tend to take it for granted.

Explaining the purpose of Heart Mapping, Michelle says that it’s a way for us to find our way back to our hearts  because ‘it's very easy to lose our way.’  “As parents, we're so busy taking care of other people’s hearts and making sure that other people are okay,” says Michelle. “A big part of what you did was really self-care at its best because you took the time, like little children, to draw and to really look into your heart.”

The exercise also made the parent squad realize that many things that make them truly happy can’t be bought with money like family time or are really simple like having more time for some shut eye. “Actually, most of them don't cost us anything,” Mommy Debbie says.

Appreciating the ‘Now’

Michelle points out that one of the benefits of Heart Mapping is that it allows many busy parents to appreciate the ‘now.’ “While you were doing your heart map, were you looking at the future?” she asks. 

Michelle says that the pandemic provided an opportune time for many to be appreciative of the ‘present’. “Yan 'yung biggest lesson ng Heart Mapping [and] ng pandemic--that we all need to learn that all we really have is the ‘now’. 

She adds that when she did the same heart mapping exercise with her young students, they were very much in touch with the ‘now’. “Tayong [adults] 'yung nakakalimot,” she reminds the audience.

A Heart Map is where one can place everything important in one’s life and it comes in handy during times of stress or sadness. Michelle shares the story ‘My Heart Meter’ that elaborates on the reason why we all need to make our own Heart Maps:

• To show us the things that make us smile again that only we would know

• To focus on things we like to do

• To find our way back to our hearts… so that our hearts can feel whole again.

• To make our heart bigger by remembering to do the things that make us smile like planting or doing arts and crafts

In summing up the benefits of Heart Mapping, Michelle brings the lesson back to the heart. “There’s a reason why God put our heart in the middle of our body,” she says, “because it really should be the center of everything. 

With restrictions back because of another wave of Covid-19 infections due to Omicron, now would be a good time expand our hearts and ask ourselves: When was the last time I stopped to remember what makes my heart happy?

Watch the full happiness class here: 

Watch more self-care sessions here.