By Angela dunning
It’s that age-old human dilemma: Whether to listen to your head or follow your heart? Do you think, reason, and apply logic to our choices, dilemmas, and conflicts? Or listen to the quiet whisper deep within your heart? How often do we get stuck in this dilemma, seemingly never learning from our own experiences and the positive results that come when we follow our hearts?
It’s a conundrum that ties many of us in knots and leaves us stuck, unable to decide, or acting in haste by following the rigid route that logic and reason like to pin us down by.
We also have to battle with the enormous pressure from our culture, which favors the head over the heart and logic over feelings and intuition. Every corner of our lives is pressured into this very left-brain way of thinking and behaving. Emotion, feeling, and gut instinct are still relegated to second place and seen as inferior, often in derisory ways still linked to the diminishment of women and the feminine in our society in general, despite all the progress we seem to have made.
Men and women still struggle to find the courage and learn the wisdom of listening to their gut feelings, intuition, and heart’s desires, let alone act on them and particularly when it may seem illogical, counter-productive, not financially viable, or socially acceptable.
And yet, there is now much evidence to suggest that the heart holds its own vastly intelligent wisdom. It also contains a brain, and thanks to the research and work of the Institute of HeartMath, we now know that it’s the heart that leads the brain, not the other way around. The heart has also been deemed “an organ of perception,” meaning that it plays a significant role in our interactions with others and the world around us too.1
On a more personal and professional level, I can certainly attest to this. Every time I have made a decision where I followed my head, reason, and logic, things never went well for me, and I would end us stressed and regretting my choice, often backtracking on decisions. On the other hand, when I followed my heart, things flowed smoothly and effortlessly.
For many of the clients and myself, I work with, it’s the wisdom of the heart that shines through time and again. Not only that, but my equine partners always seem to back this approach up too, as evidenced by them turning AWAY from someone or indeed myself when we approach them and our interaction together from a logical head-place, but turn TOWARDS the person when we connect to and listen to our heart. Every single time without fail, this has been my experience with horses.
I believe this is because when we’re solely “in our heads” and relying on our rational brain to guide us, this causes tension in our body, including in our muscles; our breathing is shallower and more restricted, and our heart rate is faster. All of which the horses feel from a few feet away. However, when we take the time to gently drop our awareness down into our heart center and make a connection to ourselves and our true feelings and desires, then our body automatically softens and relaxes. Again, the horses feel this and respond differently, usually through approaching, touching, and making a deeper connection.
Whenever I take the time to tune into my own heart, carefully listen, and then ask for guidance regarding a direction or decision, the response is irrefutable. And here’s the thing: I almost always know which direction or choice I really want to make. It’s just that my trickster mind often takes over and tries to persuade me to go in a different direction entirely. When I fail to listen to my heart and intuition and follow my mind’s urgings, I always end up unhappy and uncomfortable. Whereas when I do follow through on my heart’s intelligent whisperings, I calm down inside and reach a state of equilibrium again, and my actions seem to flow naturally with ease.
So, whenever we want to connect more fully with ourselves and/or those in our lives, whether with our pets, partners, children, colleagues, or clients, it’s far better to do so through the soft warmth of our heart, emitting love, compassion, and kindness in the process. Everyone responds so much better this way, yet it’s easy to forget and fall back on facts and reason instead.
Further, by learning to heed our heart on a more regular basis, we start to develop greater emotional intelligence, meaning we are more connected to our emotions AND that we act accordingly to help the emotion simply move through us without keeping us stuck and blocked. As my teacher Linda Kohanov is fond of reminding her students: “You have a brain in your heart; please use it!”2
Ultimately, as Jean Shinoda Bolen says in the quote at the beginning, if our heart is not in something, it’s likely not to lead to fulfilling outcomes. That is certainly my experience: if my heart is not in something, I struggle, and it leaves me feeling dissatisfied and empty. It’s the inherent warmth that emanates from our heartfelt choices that lead to richer connections and experience, and I, for one, would rather take that any day over the cold harshness of logic and reason alone.
References:
1. Stephen Harrod Buhner, Spirituality, and Health article: The Heart as an Organ of Perception, March-April 2006.
2. Linda Kohanov, Way of the Horse: Equine Archetypes for Self-Discovery, p.60.
