Feeling with your Heart by Jessica Reinsmoen
When life hits you, do you tend to overthink? Or just feel? What guides you? Your mind or your heart? Or do you listen to both?
I struggle with this in everything I do – I tend to listen to my mind more than my heart. My insecurities tend to come to the surface and logic wants to overwhelm my senses. I’m not perfect, not everything is in alignment, but I know I can get better if I practice.
For me, I think of my heart as my moral compass.
It tells me when the situation I’m in is right or wrong. No matter what my mind may be telling me, I can rely on my heart to truly tell me how I’m really feeling. I’ve only gotten to this place with myself after years, so don’t feel frustrated or sad if you’re not at that place either.
To understand what it means when listening to your heart, I’ll give you an example of how I figured out when to listen to my heart versus my mind.
When I was 18, I was dating this guy for a few months. We had been friends beforehand, and while the relationship was good, we just weren’t right for each other. There was a point a few months in where my heart was telling me that I needed to break up with him, but my mind was telling me the opposite.
I ignored my heart for weeks on end.
My mind would go into these ramblings of thoughts whenever my heart started to get too loud.
Is anyone ever going to love me? Who am I going to talk to if he’s out of my life? I’ll never find a guy who will like me like that again. I’m going to be so alone without him. I’ll lose him as a friend. We won’t go back to how it was before. He probably hates me. If he doesn’t hate me now, he’ll hate me after I break up with him.
There was a day though where my heart was speaking louder than ever, and I knew I really needed to sit down and just listen.
Here’s an exercise that you can follow with me as I once did during that situation, and one that I still use today.
Put your hand over your heart and take a few deep breaths. Try to clear your mind the best you can. Try to ground yourself – think of what you’re being connected to. Are your feet on the floor? How are your toes feeling? How’s your body feeling?
Now focus on your heart. Is your heart rate fast or slow? Is it thumping in a steady rhythm, or does it feel off? Now really listen to your heart. What is it trying to say to you? Ask it how it feels when it says yes. Ask it how it feels when it says no.
Truly listen.
Don’t get frustrated with yourself if this doesn’t work the first couple of times you try this.
Everything comes with practice.
I remember when I started with this exercise, my mind was so overwhelmed, and I couldn’t hear my heart no matter how hard I wanted to. It will be okay, and it will take time.
I eventually did end up breaking up with my boyfriend at that time after truly listening to my heart. I realized that the relationship was not benefiting me anymore and that eventually, I would be happier in the long term. There was a sense of relief once I did that. Of course I was sad, but everything was back in alignment. My mind and heart were once again on the same page and I felt content in a way…well, maybe not right away, but eventually I did.
I’m sure you’ve encountered situations in your life where you’ve battled between your mind and your heart.
Can you think of anywhere you’ve turned a blind eye to your heart? Or perhaps there’s a time where you’ve undoubtedly listened to your heart and your mind didn’t get in the way at all. What happened? How did you feel during that situation? Did you feel a sense of relief, or did you feel something else?
Listening to your heart is important in getting your mind-body to really connect.
When we are in that state of alignment, anything can seem possible.
You’ll also probably feel like you can rely on yourself more because everything is communicating in sync. Maybe you feel that way now but remember that different life circumstances can throw our mind-body connection off, so it’s always wise to practice listening to your heart. In the end, working on our mind-body connection improves our resilience and when life comes our way, we’ll be ready.
Additional tools for when you may be in crisis:
U.S. Crisis Text Line: 741-741
Ohio Mobile Response and Stabilization Services: 1-888-418-MRSS (6777)