The Longest but most worthwhile journey is from your head into your heart.
Our heart is a mechanical pump that pumps oxygenated blood & nutrients through the body in order to keep us alive. How can it be a tool for relationship?
Energetically, intuitively, psychologically and emotionally it is a whole other organ. It’s seen as the centre of love, courage, wisdom, gratitude, forgiveness, the union of the inner masculine and feminine with its own unique brand of intelligence and communication and is powerful beyond measure. This more typically eastern way of viewing the heart is today being backed up by western science through studies done by the HeartMath Institute amongst others who say that ‘Heart intelligence underlies cellular organization and guides and evolves organisms toward increased order, awareness and coherence of their bodies’ systems’ www.heartmath.org/FAQS.
We see the heart as an important part of creating inspired, magical relationship, whether you believe in it at this stage or not…
What is your relationship to your own heart?
Do you see it as mere mechanics or are you open to the possibility of it being something more?
Can you think of time when you felt or ‘knew’ something in your heart that helped you, or that you needed to listen to?
Your heart is a powerful tool in relationship because of its many different qualities. When we come up against the challenges of relating the mind can easily be overwhelmed and go into a defensive stance where everything that comes next is about maintaining your position, rather than being authentic and staying connected.
We have a tendency to ignore our heart
We do this for one of four reasons:
- We haven’t connected with it in this ‘feeling’ way so we don’t believe in listening to it.
2. It takes a moment or two of dropping our ‘story’ to hear what it has to say.
3. We often don’t like what it has to say, for the heart cuts through the bullshit of the Ego mind, the part of us conditioned to stay safe and look for approval, and gets to the ‘heart’ of matters.
3. Our heart is where we can carry our deepest emotional hurt and we’d rather avoid this than take the time to feel and heal it.
Are you willing to listen to what your heart has to say?
Done regularly, just this one simple practice of connecting to your heart will change your life. The more you listen to your heart the more it will speak to you. Its pain will lift and leave you open to new possibilities in life.
In the beginning it can be tricky to know what is truly your heart and what is your Ego’s needs masquerading as your heart. How do you tell the difference?
Head Talk
When your head is speaking there are more negative judgements and self justifications occurring amongst much analysing, overthinking and questioning, with an underlying need to be on top of, or in control of the situation. Head talk is driven by our internal programming, our belief systems, our memories and the self identity we’ve created with a greater focus on our limitations. There is more fear about what might go wrong.
Heart Talk
Whereas the heart is always open to possibilities and is ok with not knowing. Heart talk limitless, infinite and unrestricted. This 
doesn’t mean the heart tells you to ignore your fear, it goes beyond it to a place of deeper logic. The heart uses more simple language that may be about letting things be, letting them go or finding compassion, acceptance and understanding. Sometimes it might be about getting off your butt, holding a boundary or maintaining some tough love which is ultimately the best choice even though it might be a hard one to take. Heart outcomes are ultimately more satisfying and better for the whole, helping you break out of old ways of being.
This has been true for our own lives, starting off being a very nebulous concept our hearts have now become a rock solid part of our self understanding, and a pathway to connecting with each other and those around us. Whenever our minds are overly busy with unhelpful thoughts we know our thoughts are probably out of alignment with our inbuilt bullshit detector so we better take a moment to check in and listen…
Practice: Connect with your Heart
Take a moment now just to stop and feel your heart. Close your eyes, breathe deeply, begin with your ABC’s then focus your attention slightly to the left of the centre of your chest. Think of something that you appreciate in your life and feel that for a few moments. Notice what you physically can feel there? Is your heart open, closed, full, warm, heavy, light or blank? Whatever the feeling is just be with it exactly as it is for a few moments. Do this as often as you can to start building your relationship with your ‘energetic’ heart for the more you connect with it the more it will speak to you. Your heart doesn’t speak in words but in intuitive knowing’s- those things you just know, even though you might not understand how you know- it’s magic.
Practicing when you’re in a place of ease can help you access your heart’s intelligence more easily in a time of intimate challenge, to speak from wisdom rather than fear or resentment, creating connection rather than dissonance.
And remember a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.
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