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The phrase listen to your heart gets thrown around in the spiritual and self-development scene like it’s the solution to everything.
If we’d all do it, it might just be the solution to everything.
But how do you listen to your heart?
First of all, most of us listen to our rational decision-maker the majority of the time. In human organs speech, the brain.
While those decisions logically make sense, we are often unsatisfied with the decision made from this place.
The rational mind is linear. You can imagine this as follows:
A → B → C
You move from one thought to the next, to the next, and so on.
In comparison, when you listen to your heart you are in the domain of the non-linear:
↓ ↓ ↓
A B C
This means that your access to insights is not bound by space and time.
Most often this is also the domain of genius ideas and innovative breakthroughs. Be it on an individual, social, or even global level.
And this is why listening to your heart is so important.
When it comes to personal matters that are intertwined with your emotions your heart is the best guide.
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” – Albert Einstein
What Does it Mean to Listen to Your Heart
The heart is so much more than just an organ or just a feeling. It’s the infinite creative force speaking through you.
It’s the universe beckoning you to step onto your true path. As such the heart, for many people, is the essence of spiritual and emotional wisdom and guidance.
When talking about the heart as a guiding force some people also like to call it intuition or gut feeling.
No matter what you want to label it, listening to your heart can be your greatest superpower in life.
The heart, or at least the energetic heart, is connected to our emotions. For most people this makes sense.
But to listen to your heart is more than to just feel your immediate emotions. Although this is already a big step for many. Because a lot of people rather avoid feeling their emotions.
Listening to your heart also means paying attention to what is authentic to you. It means to live from your integrity.
When you are confronted with a decision don’t just feel the emotions related to the decision at hand, feel into the broader context.
What does your heart tell you about the topic the decision is related to?
Often we act from an emotional impulse. And while many of us would say that we’re listening to our emotions, what we’re really doing is succumbing to conditioning.
We’re not listening to our emotions. Rather we’re acting in a way to mask or escape our emotions.
There is a fine difference between listening to your emotions and unconsciously deciding that you want to get away from them.
So the first step is learning to recognize how this powerful guidance system is communicating with you.
How to Listen to Your Heart
To trust what your heart says you have to know yourself to a certain degree. And you have to know how to interpret the sensations of your heart.
Here are a couple of ways to improve your heart-listening abilities that helped me to get in touch with my inner guidance.
And I’m certain they can help you too.
“You will never be able to escape from your heart. So it is better to listen to what it has to stay.” – Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
Feel into Your Heart
The first step to learning this sounds almost deceivingly simple.
Start to feel your heart.
I mean that literally. Put your hands over your heart. Feel its rhythmical pumping.
Whenever emotions come up feel into your heart and see what sensations are connected to which emotion.
The more you do this the better you will get interpreting your heart’s clues.
The heart is more than just an organ. It is an energetic locus. It has a powerful spiritual counterpart. Your spiritual or energetic heart.
And by giving attention to your physical heart, you are building a bridge to your spiritual heart.
As a result your intuition increases and deep insights may emerge.
You will get clearer on what’s important to you in life and your decision will come from a place of trust.
This all sounds very metaphysical but this is something you can experience for yourself.
Calm Your Rational Mind
For many of us listening to our heart becomes only relevant when we have to make an important decision.
But what keeps us from hearing the message of our heart is the rational logical mind.
The rational mind is without a doubt a useful tool. But when it comes to listening to your heart it’s a major crutch.
Your rational mind likes to inhibit the process of tuning into your intuition.
Whenever I had to make an important decision in the past, I would try to come to a solution rationally. But this approach just increased my frustration and anxiety.
So it’s important to recognize the occasions (which are many by the way) when the rational mind is not the best entity to turn to for guidance.
There are many ways to quiet the rational mind. A combination of various approaches might work best for you.
Here is a list of things you can try:
• Meditation (Meditation is something I recommend to anyone regardless of the reason)
• Yoga, Qi Gong, Martial Arts, or any other form of movement that connects body, mind, breath
• Going for a walk in nature and spending time in nature in general
• Daydreaming
I also want to mention that you don’t have to be a master meditator to calm down the mind. Nor do you have to stop your thoughts completely.
It’s enough to stop grasping each and every thought.
Give them less attention. Observe them. Don’t take them so seriously.
When you take away your thoughts’ self-importance a space for intuitive insights emerges.
Notice the Messages from Your Heart
Your heart has been talking to you your whole life.
Perhaps you have forgotten how it communicates. Or you became so distracted by thoughts and the external world that you don’t perceive its messages.
Now is the time to pay attention to those messages again.
Because you have your own heart, with its own desires and its own way of communicating it’s important to understand its own language.
Your heart’s language may be very different from someone else’s.
You can start this process by reflecting back on the times when you have followed the hunches of your heart, and evaluate where it has led you.
Then you may also ask yourself how your heart has communicated with you.
What were the sensations and emotions that came up?
Was there a tingling sensation? A shiver down your spine? A queasiness in your gut? Excitement? Calmness? Inspiration? A powerful drive?
Whatever it was make a note of it. And then, commit to listening to those signs and other signs for that matter, when they come up.
What you are doing here is learning to understand your organism’s translation of vibrational energy.
Why not words you wonder?
Well, sometimes there might be thoughts.
Usually, it’s the first intuitive thought that comes up within a hundredth of a split second right before you kill it with your doubt.
If you are really attentive you can recognize this intuitive thought and act upon it. And then you can see where it leads you.
Trust the Messages from Your Heart
“Trust your instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
After you have learned to notice the messages from your heart it’s time to start trusting them.
Because the interesting thing is, the more you trust your heart the more accurately it will guide you to places you didn’t even know you wanted to go.
Trust, belief, faith are powerful forces that can overcome any block.
It’s important to mention that when you follow your heart there is no guarantee that you will never experience roadblocks or hurdles anymore.
But this is exactly where the trust part comes in.
To trust means to have faith that everything is playing out perfectly despite the obstacles that may appear.
If you reflect on past experiences I’m sure you can find an occasion where things seemed to go sideways, but in the end, turned out just fine.
In case you are skeptical about what your heart has to say and want to increase your trust in it try the following.
Whenever a decision comes up listen to what your heart has to say. And if you are scared to follow your heart’s advice you don’t have to.
Follow your rational mind, and later, when the situation has played out, see if the outcome is to your liking.
If it is, great! If it’s not, remind yourself what your heart’s advice was. And then the next time, decide to follow your heart.
When I started to listen to my heart I was scared to follow its advice.
Sometimes its advice seemed counter to what everyone around me was saying. But then again they were probably not speaking from their heart either.
However, when I finally started following my heart and taking leaps, even though they seemed scary, good things started happening.
Talk to Your Heart
Over the day even if it’s just for a second give yourself time to check in with your heart. Listen to it. Talk to it. You can ask it:
“How are you doing today?”
“Is there something you want to tell me?”
You’ll be surprised, answers can be very clear sometimes.
And if you now think that it’s weird to talk to your heart just observe what other things are going on in your mind all day.
Why not use it to have a dialogue with your body to better understand it? Your body talks to you all the time you just have to learn to understand its language.
And you don’t have to limit your questions to ask your heart how it’s doing.
You can also ask practical questions about your life situation or any other topic you’d like an answer to.
For instance, you could start by asking simple things like:
“What’s the time?”
“Will my favorite sports team win this weekend?”
“How will the weather be tomorrow?”
And then wait for an intuitive answer to come up. The tricky part is to differentiate between intuitive knowing and rational guessing.
As mentioned earlier, intuitive answers usually arise as fast as they subside.
Nonetheless, with a little bit of practice, you’ll be able to recognize when your heart is speaking to you.
HIIT Training
Something else you can try to improve your heart-listening abilities is to do high-intensity interval training.
I know this sounds like unusual, radical advice to learn to listen to your heart but this really works.
Try this 10-minute exercise:
Go for a run or on a treadmill or a cross-trainer. For 1 minute give it all you have. Then for 1 minute go slower and focus on your heart. Calm it as fast as you can with the help of conscious breathing. Repeat this 5 times (10 mins in total).
You’ll get better at bringing your heartbeat down which is a very handy skill applicable in many situations. Also, HIIT training is very good for your body and overall health as well.
And if you are not used to a training like this, you will have resistance to overcome. Which is a good way to train your willpower.
This is a win-win-win.
Try it for a month 2-3 times a week and see the effect it has. I assure you it will be worth it. And, as a bonus, after each session, you’ll feel really good.
Final Words
Most of us have been taught to make decisions rationally and to “think things through.”
Hence, listening to sensations, emotions, feelings, and intuition might be new and unfamiliar to you.
But you may have also realized that thinking can get you only so far.
You can analyze a situation from every possible angle and in the end, still feel unsatisfied with your decision.
However, I don’t want to bash the intellect. The rational, logical mind is a useful tool. But it’s not the only tool and certainly not the best tool for every occasion.
You wouldn’t use a screwdriver to hammer a nail into a wall, would you?
Be aware that, like with many things in life, learning to listen to your heart is a process.
But with time, you’ll not only get better at trusting your heart but your overall life satisfaction will increase.
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If you liked this article you might also like my article on how to develop your intuition.
“At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.”
– Lao Tzu
Luka
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