What is a Good Life? #163
Listening To The Mighty Heart with Dr Scilla Elworthy
Hello and welcome to What is a Good Life? A project exploring the big questions around how we live, who we are and what actually matters.
This week, I'm reflecting on a conversation with the wonderful Dr Scilla Elworthy, a three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, founder of Oxford Research Group and Peace Direct, and one of the world's most respected voices in conflict resolution and peacebuilding. She is the creator of The Mighty Heart programme and we explore how listening to the heart transforms the way we live, lead, and relate to one another. This conversation is for people who sense there's a deeper way to live but haven't yet learned to trust it.
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Take care, Mark
1. My Weekly Reflection
I had an aunt who passed away a few years back, and I was very close to her.
On this particular crisp January afternoon, we were walking up Harcourt Street in Dublin on the way to a nice restaurant. My aunt wasn’t flashy in any way, but she liked a meal out and was dressed accordingly.
As she and I were chatting away, we approached a man who was clearly sleeping rough. I remember half shaking my head as she gave him a five euro note, thinking, “Always notes, never coins.”
The man seemed relatively pleased with what he saw coming.
When my aunt placed the note in his well-worn hand, she cupped both of her hands around his and simply said, “It’s been a very cold winter, hasn’t it?”
He instantly welled up. I did too.
She sat down on the cold step beside him for a few moments in her Sunday best, and he told us briefly about how harsh the winter had been for him.
………………
I missed the train. The subway line I took to the Hauptbahnhof was delayed because someone had fallen on the track ahead.
I felt a heaviness when I heard that announcement. Then a jarring dissonance from the procedural way it was announced.
I rerouted at the next station, only to miss the train by a couple of minutes.
At the information desk, I explained what had happened—that someone had fallen on the line, that I’d just missed my train—and asked if I could transfer my ticket or would need to buy a new one.
I ended up buying another ticket.
A hundred euros felt trivial against the loss of a life.
What really struck me most was how the news of someone falling on the track didn’t stir even a flicker of pause or acknowledgment.
If anything, there was an impatience for me to finish my story to inform me that the U-Bahn is operated by a different authority, and they weren’t responsible.
………………
A guest on my podcast said something I keep returning to. Tom Morgan experienced what he called a psychotic break. While wandering Manhattan in a mystical state, he noticed something rather profound:
“Every time I said something I didn’t actually believe, my heart hurt — physically, my heart actually hurt. And I realised I had this connection where if I was saying stuff just with my head, the heart would call it out. And I was like, well, shit, how often am I feeling that in real life? And I’m suppressing that feeling.”
………………
I am not practicing any religion but a few years back I was making frequent visits to the Catholic Church around the corner from me in Berlin.
I was lighting candles for my aunty, who had a terminal condition. Before she became bedridden, her weekly ritual had been to light a candle for me and many others. I’d light it, take a photo and send it onto her.
The church was open from 12pm to 1pm each day and there usually wasn’t anyone else there. Given the church sat amongst residential blocks of apartments, it was surprisingly vast inside.
After lighting a candle for her one day, I saw that no one else was around and sat down in one of the pews and meditated.
At some point during the meditation, I felt a beam of light burst from my heart and rise up to the dome of the church—an experience I’ve never had before or since.
I clearly saw it as a golden beam — though I’m not sure how I could know that with my eyes closed.
It felt so visceral that, when I returned home and told my wife about it, I found myself shaking a little, laughing, and crying all at once. I remember saying to my wife: “What if much of this spiritual stuff I say I believe is actually true?”
………………
This week’s guest, Dr Scilla Elworthy, put words to something I’ve felt for some time is the cornerstone of a good life:
“The heart doesn’t lie. It’s probably the only one of our faculties that really doesn’t lie. Our imagination, our vision, our sense of other people’s feelings can often be fallible and inaccurate. The heart is truth. Every time I had a very big question in my life and taken the time to meditate and put my real attention on my heart. It tells me the most wonderful truth. And it’s not necessarily a painful truth. It may be slightly difficult to absorb, but it’s never unkind. The heart cannot be unkind.”
2. This Week’s Questions
What truth is your heart telling you that you are yet to listen to?
Have you ever noticed a pain in your heart from decisions or actions you have taken?
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3. Weekly Clip From The Podcast
4. Full Episode - Listening To The Mighty Heart with Dr Scilla Elworthy - What is a Good Life? #163
Listen to or watch the full conversation with Dr Scilla Elworthy below.
About Me
I am a writer, facilitator, and podcast host, based in Berlin, via Dublin, Ireland. I started this project in 2021, for which I’ve now interviewed over 300 people. I’m not looking to prescribe universal answers, more that the guests’ lines of inquiry, musings, experiences, and curiosities spark your own inquiry into what the question means to you. I am also trying to share more genuine expressions of the human experience and more meaningful conversations.