Lessons learned about listening to my heart

Years ago when I was looking for answers I was told I'd find them when I looked within my heart.

Back then I quite literally had no idea what that meant. My mind would simply short out. And I had, and have, a sharp and keen mind. But my mind was lost when it came to looking within my heart.So I made an effort to understand, to figure it out. I explored and I asked around.I practiced meditation, seeking, looking for my heart. But I was never sure how I'd know when I found it.One person suggested I gaze deeply into a candle and focus deeply on hearing from my heart and I would hear its guidance. I tried it once and I didn't hear a thing.I never found my heart in these ways.Later, I realized I was seeking my heart with my mind, and since they each speak on two different channels that just wasn't ever going to work.I am grateful to have found my heart, with the help of amazing mentors and guides. And persistence.Today my work comes from my heart - quite literally.

Here's what I learned about listening to my heart:

It's a relationship, not an event.

The first time I found my heart it was in bleak times, so bleak I was no longer listening to my mind. I sat in the shower, water falling, in my own self-designed ritual that was part prayer, part meditation, part grounding and part inner-sensing. And when I sensed my heart, it was nowhere near me. It felt 6 feet over my head. But in that inner-space it could have been a galaxy away.That was my first moment. I have since had many more, a bit like the journey to deep friendship. Learning more, coming closer, trusting deeply, hearing clearly, caring intimately.

The heart speaks softly.

My mind is loud. Daily life is loud. My ego - guilt, shame, judgement, inadequacy - is loud. The life I see and touch is loud.My heart speaks in the inner quiet spaces. The space in the dark behind my eyes. In the liminal space before full sleep.The heart speaks softly in the spaces I did not go to often. The spaces that often felt difficult to make time for, difficult to quiet the loud for.

The heart's wisdom draws from the wisdom of the universe.

Once I found my heart and listened, what it offered was a wisdom perfect for me and equally perfect for all of the relationships around me and dear to me. There are times when I respond to my heart's guidance with emotional turbulence, doubt, dislike, disbelief, because in the moment those responses are so very human and appropriate.But my heart has a wisdom that knows beyond my mind. It is my heart that has offered me (and my clients) possibilities and potentials that the mind simply could not see or grasp. As someone who learned early and well how to lead with her mind, reasoning felt strong, personal will felt powerful, and outcomes seemed linear and safely predictable.And in time each of those perceived strengths from which I drew comfort withered away to nothing strong, powerful or predictable.Instead they've been supplanted by listening to and leading from my heart. It feels vulnerable most times. Crazy at others.What the heart gives instead is a genuine power and true fulfillment, in an ever-deepening relationship.And the just-right answer to your questions. To your seeking.