By Jennifer Muscato *First published in Light of Consciousness Journal
Living from the heart. A dreamy, starry-eyed whim.
It’s easy to say, “I want to live from my heart.” Most people want to follow their hearts–Its wants, passions, hopes. And many think they are.
But consider this. Totally unfiltered, without your career, your family, your to-do list, your circle of friends, your role in your community, what would you look like? Do you even let yourself go there? Ask yourself, if I didn’t exist within the confines of this material world, who would I be every day? Where would I be if being, not doing, was all I had to do? If I didn’t have to worry about getting ahead? Close your eyes, take a breath, snap your fingers or do whatever it takes to get yourself there.
I’d be living on a flower farm in the middle of nowhere, with beauty and nature and romance all around me, writing and reading and painting and singing, running barefoot in the sun and sifting my hands through heavenly dirt. Not terribly realistic or productive, and that’s the point. Often, where our hearts reside doesn’t completely align with the roles we end up with in our daily existence. It’s usually not practical in our reality.
“The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.”Blaise Pascal
The world desperately needs us to live from our hearts.
The Earth needs us to love it and all that’s on it, to know that it’s all worthy and holy, from the mosquitos to the millionaires. So how do we keep the precious content of our hearts a priority in a society that values unbridled achievement fueled by frantic busyness headed toward some arbitrary future date when all of our dreams trigger a utopian climax and we’re finally fulfilled? Not easily, and that’s why we’re so drained and distracted and depressed and…wanting.
Heart vs. head
So here’s my take. According to our minds, life is a series of external events that we’re beholden to. Our happiness depends on what happens to us. Further, our minds tell us that we can “get” love and approval if we behave a certain way. Don’t get me wrong, I feel that the mind holds infinite power to do good, but it can also lie to us. And constant thinking, ruminating, stressing, telling ourselves silly imaginary stories, dulls our hearts.
As children, our stories were pure, birthed from our emotions and nurtured by simplicity, goodness and joyful innocence. We were our hearts. As life teaches us adversity, our minds pass judgement and divide to armor ourselves against pain. Our survival brains kick in, for they love fixating on what’s wrong with everything, including us. We become the concrete world we live in, seeking reason, evidence, cause and effect, logic. We learn that living in the mind will get us somewhere, safely. Someday, at least.
But when we armor, we forget our sacredness. We forget our inherent goodness. We forget that it’s okay to be gorgeously flawed. We forget that we’re not only bodies, but souls. We’re both matter and spirit. The armor protects what’s inside, but in the process, we forget who we are. We mistake ourselves as only bodies living in a material world, and this assumption shapes our decisions.
The heart is the voice of the soul, which talks to us through emotions. Living from the heart means trusting that voice, and that’s tough. It means embracing possibility with courage. Living from the heart accepts that we don’t have to define ourselves by what our culture thinks is important, because our culture may not value our true image. Living from within our hearts means we don’t have to settle for a “close enough” version of ourselves. It means we don’t have to slave to fear. What would happen if you fully accepted yourself (and others), flaws and all? Would you live more peacefully, more authentically? Would you have to wait for some future date and time to give yourself permission to enjoy what you’re doing?
How can we live more authentically, from the heart?
We can listen to our emotions. We can trust the wisdom of our “gut.” We can choose to keep the heart open when we most want to close it. We can let it crack open when it most hurts, regenerate from what it teaches us, and trust that it’s going to be okay, even though we don’t know how, when or why.
We can remember our goodness by turning toward gratitude and abundance rather than scarcity and lack. We can rewire our minds to recognize the good within us, in the living world, and in other people, helped by prayer/meditation/self-reflection.
We can admit that we’re not alone in our pain, and be willing to be vulnerable. We can take a leap, putting ourselves out there, in a sea of masks and armor. We all hurt the same. We all feel the same. Shedding our barriers and believing in others can help us to believe in ourselves more fully. This leaves the door open for others to believe in us. When we see the sacred in all of us, the walls that divide can dissolve. It all unravels. Judgement, blame, and selfishness lose their glitter.
We can add more pockets of joy to our lives, no matter how small. Treat the present moment as not a means to an end, but a gift. And ask ourselves, where are we inhibiting our self expression? Where is it being filtered?
None of this is easy. But I feel that our heart, right inside us, holds the love we’re always seeking outside of us. That it can bring us home to who we truly are. And that those who are enamored with who you truly are will find you, which is way better than pretending you’re something you’re not. Maybe someday I’ll live on a flower farm, but until then, pieces of it grow in my heart, in this moment.
“The heart is the perfection of the whole organism. Therefore, the principles of the power of perception and the soul’s ability to nourish itself must lie in the heart.”~Aristotle
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