Have you ever been lost in any area of life (relationships, work, etc.) and someone tells you “just follow your heart.”
And have you ever thought to yourself – what does that even mean?
Does it mean follow my emotional whims? Does it mean follow my “intuition”? Does it mean follow what is true?
And how can you be so sure you KNOW what your heart is telling you?
And what IS the heart anyway?
Someone once told me – “your heart is in your head.”
That made me think.
I also had another time in the past where I experienced what felt like my heart hurting – like a lot.
I had recently gone through a break up years ago and I just was having so much trouble getting over it.
I was on the phone with my Dad and he said “sometimes your heart messes with your head.”
To me that mean’t your heart is essentially this irrational part of your ummm body? or soul?
And it can make you think things that aren’t RATIONAL.
There is something romantic about just running into the horizon and following your heart.
But is that just some toxic belief system under the guise of romantic ideals that we have adopted that actually isn’t bringing us to the truth?
The only way I have been able to conceptualize the “heart” is that there is two sides to a persons’ heart.
You know like the angel and devil on each of your shoulders?
Yes, I view the heart as the same concept but I call one side of the heart the pure heart and the other side the distorted heart.
Lets start with the distorted heart:
The distorted heart is where all of your beliefs about pretty much every area of life are closely tied to your negative emotions.
In essence, they are distorted belief systems that you still carry around that you believe are serving your life in some way or form.
I’ll give you a couple examples of how the distorted heart behaves:
1) You have a belief system that you can only receive love from a person if you work really hard for it. You believe the emotions of anxiety or fear about getting love are completely normal – and in fact, that is what love is “supposed” to feel like.
If you are being guided by your distorted heart when it comes to love, when someone tells you “to just follow your heart” you will associate following your heart with the emotions of fear and anxiety (and basically think thats the right thing to do).
2) You grew up with a belief system that you need to be doing a certain type of job. And then, and only then you will be a worthy human being. So you get that job because you think your parents or society would approve of that for you and make you look like a responsible person. Which then gives you a false sense of “security.”
If you are being guided by your distorted heart when it comes to your job, you will basically be doing things that YOU believe others would want for you. You then associate doing what is the right job for you with feelings of guilt and force.
Now, let me switch a couple examples of how the pure heart behaves:
1) When it comes to your love life and relationships, if you are being guided by your pure heart – you will feel a lot of feelings of freedom and relief. Even when things go terribly wrong, you can still centre yourself on who you were born to be. Which is an inherently loving human being that wants to give, but knows when to surrender control over outcomes and other people.
When you are operating from your pure heart (which ultimately means pure intentions). You don’t feel bound to anyone by guilt or shame, and they don’t feel that way towards you. When you live in this way – people who try to hurt you – may even be repelled by you. Or they will come around and realize how they treated you was wrong.
In a way it’s an armour, but anyone who touches this armour leaves a lasting impact (in a positive way).
2) If you are being guided by your pure heart when it comes to your work – you won’t be doing it for the money alone. You are doing it for something greater than yourself (pure intentions). You may have some bad days, but it won’t feel like you are using up every ounce of energy to get up in the morning.
You aren’t being pulled by guilt to be there – you are being pulled by your heart, because you actually genuinely CARE about the people you are helping.
So which sounds more irrational? Following your pure heart or distorted heart?
Did you know that most of the world is following their distorted heart?
I have found that it’s almost impossible to have days where I’m not oscillating from one side of my heart to the other throughout the day.
Because, we are human after all.
But if we can get a little better at discerning which heart we are operating from in any given situation – we can keep coming back to pure intentions and have a lasting impact on someone else.
Now, when someone gives you vague advice about “just ride off into the sunset and follow your heart.” You might ask yourself – what is my pure heart up to right now?
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