I attended a programme during this past week and it was the most emotionally draining experience I’ve had to date. I arrived home on Friday night exhausted and possibly slept for over 12 hours. The experiences that we went through and the journeys that we walked through other people’s eyes was the most enlightening and emotionally provoking possible and my wish is that everyone, at the right time in their lives, attends a similar workshop.
On a more personal level though I realised that sometimes I tend to think too logically to stop myself from becoming too emotionally caught up in a specific situation and I thus do not truly experience the moment. In most cases this would seem like a good thing – what is better than being objective? Flexibility is better. Knowing when to be objective and knowing when to just feel seems to be the answer but how? I read many articles and stories about people thinking more with their heart than their head and this allows them to find their passion in life. But how does one think more with their heart than their head? At what point does one say, “Head, enough now, I want my heart to think and make a decision with this.”
I remember one delegate becoming emotional during a particular activity and observing her I felt this tinge of envy – why can I not express myself like that? I immediately stopped being vocal and stopped pushing my logical thinking onto the group and stepped back completely. I even admitted openly to this particular delegate that I was envious of her ability to be so expressive and needless to say, she looked so confused.
How can something so natural be so difficult to some?
For me those “thoughts” from your heart come through your mind so even if people say that they listen to their hearts their minds are telling them what to do anyway, right? Or is it about making a decision and having no self-doubt so that no matter what others say you know more than anything that what you’ve decided is completely correct for you. I tried thinking about this a different way so that I could understand it better. For me, a simple change of words, like “following my intuition” as opposed to “listening to my heart” makes more sense for some reason. My mind understands that feeling of “intuition” a lot more but then I almost feel like I am robbing myself of the emotional connection once again.
At some point during this programme I was left completely emotionally raw and uncertain of what to do with all these feelings that no matter how I describe it or who I tell it to, no one will fully understand what I am going through. I was made to look deeper than before and possibly see a side of myself that I do not fully comprehend yet. But hopefully this simply means that I am on the right path and that one day I will have the ability to be just as expressive.
So now, I’ll leave you with two items to think about. The first being the question of how do you listen with your heart? And the second a quote – “Listen to your heart. It knows all things, because it came from the Soul of the World and it will one day return there.”1
1. Coelho PThe alchemist Thorsons Publishers 1995.