Get out of Your Head and into Your Heart

“One of your life lessons is to move from your head to your heart” I was told recently. It’s interesting, for someone as empathic as I am, who feels so much, to hear truth in a statement like that. In essence, while highly sensitive to others’ feelings, I tend to intellectualize my own.

Conversely, when I was reading about Attention Deficit Disorder recently, I became aware for the first time that someone who is insensitive to the feelings of others can be highly sensitive in their own experiences. I think I’d sort of pegged people as either sensitive or insensitive, including myself, in a much more universal way. So this new lens opens up a fresh perspective.

That said, I’m not oblivious to the pattern I’ve played out in my own life many times, experiencing strong emotions in private while presenting a mask to the world, then talking about it with others only in retrospect once I’ve reached a place of calm or resilience.

While that isn’t necessarily unhealthy, especially in the context of the infinite intelligence and love I’ve discovered within these last few years, what is unhealthy is the role I assume in taking on blame for these emotions. I am guilty of looking at what is wrong with me or what I did that was wrong, instead of treating myself with the same compassion I’d show others.

Back in the days when I was much less conscious of my thoughts and feelings, if I experienced trauma like a relationship breakup, or a run-in with a colleague at work, I would just chew myself up with thoughts about it all. I’d experience feelings about the lack of fairness, I’d get angry and defensive and I’d negatively obsess about the whole thing for days, weeks months or even years.

As I’ve become more consciously aware of my thoughts and feelings, and of the way our world works in terms of attracting our own experiences and why we attract them, I’ve become kinder to myself in the sense of trusting it’s all part of a broader picture and that everything always works out. Yet I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m compassionate towards myself.

Compassion would require working more in my feelings, my heart, and I’m acutely aware that is not where I’m generally focused. I like to work my way out of any negative feelings as soon as I can, distract myself from them, rather than actually take the time to feel them; especially those that have really triggered old hurts.

But I am finding myself drawn towards the healing that occurs by integrating all parts of the self, including those parts I view negatively, and it is time for me to take a more compassionate approach. I understand that everything I feel is serving me in some way and I want to dive deeper into that. 
To be truthful, I tend to gloss over positive experiences too, playing it cool instead of milking the feelings for all they are worth.

That is why it’s important to me to have more experiences where I’m not in my head.  Have you ever noticed that you are driving or walking somewhere and you suddenly realise you have not been paying attention? That is an example of being distracted, lost in thoughts, being in our head.

What I’m talking about here though is about being present to my internal environment; specifically being with my feelings rather than my thoughts and noticing the relationships between the two.

Instead of getting into the narrative that goes along with certain feelings, and getting bogged down in the right and wrong of the here and now thoughts, I am more interested in gaining a new perspective on the feelings themselves. It might sound cliché, but everything that triggers us has its roots in our childhood somewhere. I can’t change the past, but rather than replaying an old tape, I can record a new one.

For example, probably like most of you, there are many times in my childhood I felt powerless. My life depended on adults in my home, at school and in the various other activities I was involved in, so I often had to do as I was told with or without question or debate. As I became an adult and got a job, the same thing applied.

Now that I am free of those things, I still have to contend with my own children’s school and that brings up a lot of those old feelings. Life continues to present situations that make me feel powerless, as I wrote about in Build a Healthy Self Concept, so I am diving into those feelings and starting to understand them and their origins from a more mature and empowered perspective.

I’m finding myself practicing more and more the process I wrote about in Change Unhealthy Reactions. Being with my feelings is a tricky thing to do without wanting to fix how I’m feeling. Yet I know if I can just sit with them, in next to no time at all, their intensity seems to lessen. I find it really is the case that the more I try to push something away the more it persists.

It’s not that I even want to observe the feelings, which also feels like a distraction, I want to feel them. I want to remember – rather than bury – where I first felt the feelings and gain a fresh perspective on the pattern that has played out since. I want to learn and to grow into a more whole human; that being what it’s all about of course.

Whether your journey is to get more into your heart and out your head like me, or vice versa, it’s all part of our expansion and growth. And as we are expanding and growing, so is our collective experience enriching and expanding in ways we couldn’t anticipate. That is what I want to experience while centred in my heart, what about you?

For those who are heart centred, you may want to read Why the Big Questions Are Important. If you would like a fresh perspective on a situation in your own life, feel free to contact me with an outline of your circumstances or click here for further information, I love to help. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog