When I don't follow my heart, I suffer. I may not even realize that I am not following my heart, but I will still suffer. My heart's desire may seem impossible, foolish, unlikely, ridiculous, impulsive, impractical, or childish. And my mind will instantly begin dismissing this desire for all those reasons - having already made up its mind that there is no way we're gonna indulge or even consider it any further. Then, there is emotional response and bodily feeling - the reactions that result from ignoring the heart's desire, and then choosing to dismiss that truth for things far more reasonable, practical, possible. Choosing what makes sense over what makes my heart sing.
And now, I sit here in the cool morning air, hearing bees buzzing by my window, and birds calling to each other in the trees, and I know that the whole world out there only knows living from truth, from the heart. Birds sing because that's all they know, and bees fly by because it's what they do. Trees stand up tall to the sun, leafing out in lush green, because it's why they are born to this world. The whole wide natural living world lives from the heart - living Love, Truth, Peace, and Joy as a natural state. There is only that way. Even in the natural world when there is killing and dying, there is only following nature's directives for survival and need.
Sometimes I think the words "I think, therefore I am" are some of the most destructive words ever spoken, and yet, they are revered as one of the most fundamental basics of being human, and embracing philosophy and higher mind. I used to have a bumper sticker on my car that read "You don't have to believe everything you think." I loved that one, and when I bought it, I wasn't completely clear on what it meant. Over the years, though, I saw it daily, and began to get it. By the time I crashed my car last November, I got it. I really got it. And yet, I must have got it only conceptually, because now I see just how many ways that my mind has been controlling me, owning me, below the radar of my own carefully cultivated watching.
I wonder how many people who are afraid of mind control - conspiracy theory people who fear the government and the hidden agendas and the aliens, etc - are actually just not aware that the deeper aspect of their fear might just be that they are controlled by their OWN minds - and feel the fear that comes in the belly as a result of living in fear. I mean, I am sure that there are plenty of things that go on beneath the surface of appearances in this world - and that the media are biased in what they choose to tell us, but I have too many things to keep me busy than to spend my days in fear of the government, the aliens, the corporations, the secret societies, whatever. I know that I have a lot of choice in my life, and at this point don't feel any fear about those kinds of things. But I digress - I wonder just how much of the fear that people experience and label "mind control" is actually literally MIND control, being controlled by a mind that is not disciplined, and not rooted in following the heart at all costs.
There is no fear in the heart. There is only fear in the mind. The heart knows. But there is so much chatter in an undisciplined mind - so many voices, so much chaos, so many beliefs that come from the self, the childhood, the family, the culture, the education, the media, whatever - that it is often hard to hear the voice of the heart, the voice of that inner truth. It's in there trying all the time, communicating and not feeling heard. This, I now see, has been the very story of my own suffering for so long now. I have struggled so hard with not feeling heard - it has been one of my primary issues in all that I do, and in every relationship. And in this moment, I am seeing for the first time that I have been longing to be heard by others in such an intense and demanding way, but what I have actually been longing for is to really hear the longing of my own heart, to listen within and truly hear what is being asked there. My heart has been ignored for a long time.
The small pleasures of my heart have gotten through on occasion. In creativity - cooking, painting, arranging my home and my altar, in being in nature, in the books I read, in the things I choose to wear, and in surrounding myself with color, in the music I listen to, even in the spiritual mantras that I post around my space. There have been many ways that I have created a soulful life. But in this moment, I am seeing how these little things are simply small heart pleasures. The little stuff that makes me smile, that creates the world I want to live in in the most cursory way, that makes my life a living work of art. But these things are so small - really superficial, honestly. When compared with the yearning of my deepest heart, which I am finally in touch with in a profound way, these things are merely candy. They may be sweet and fun, but they do not sustain me. If I am going to live from the heart and follow my truth in a profoundly authentic way, I have to go way, way deeper than that.
I have been making choices from somewhere else most of the time - from my mind for sure, with perhaps glimmers of my heart's song trickling in, little by little. But I now see why my life has been feeling meaningless for these last six months, why I have been so desperately afraid of my own death coming before I have truly lived. In order to truly live, I need to honor the truth in my heart, I need to embrace my own authenticity with utter solidarity. It's funny - these are things I have already been aiming to do, and thinking I WAS doing, but I now see how it was only conceptual before. There was a smallness to the truth and authenticity I was following, and it was appearing in my life as "just okay" and "quite fine" and "good enough" and I was complacent and stagnant, in a holding pattern. I have been in a holding pattern for a long time now. In my work, in my social life, in my love life, in my art. I mourn all that time now - all that time when I didn't quite know what was wrong, when the low-grade fear filled my belly, and my heart felt collapsed, and life felt two-dimensional, and I wondered what the point of living was.
I was sitting with the question, "what is the point?" for the entire winter. It was almost a mantra. I get it. My heart WAS collapsed. There was no point, and is no point to living a life that is rooted in following my days with halfheartedness, half-life, half-devotion, half-inspiration, half-clarity, half-passion, distrust, indecisiveness, flatness, gray-space, and complacency. There is no point in living that life. And the fear in my belly was my heart's message that things couldn't go on like that. My winter of anxiety was my heart's desperate plea to find a new way. Now, it is early May, and the way is being revealed.
I don't honestly know how my heart feels about a lot of things. I thought I knew, but I didn't. I know how my mind feels, for sure. But my heart is full of wonder and discovery, and in this moment, I feel totally new. My heart is finally going to be given space to express its voice in my life. There is still a sinking feeling in my belly - fear that the change that is coming in my life will bring more pain. But if I trust the truth of my own heart, the letting go will hurt less and less. It will be soothed by a balm of honesty and authenticity that is full of freedom and peace. If I follow my heart every day, then I will be able to fall asleep at night without any fear, and I will be able to die to my life when the time comes without any regrets.
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