Tapping Into Your Heart Space (What Does that Even Mean?)
When you’re looking for answers, where do you look? Do you rack your mind for what’s logical? Do you try and search for what makes sense?
I understand logical, yet sometimes being so logical is what’s so limiting. Our logical minds want things to make sense, and often, things that are really beautiful and surprising in life don’t make much logical sense. Logic will be there when you need it, although I want to speak to how something, someone or somewhere makes you feel.
Keep in mind that you feel from your heart space and you think from your brain space.
How something makes you feel gives you information that’s so unique and personal. Your feelings about something are speaking to you, whether you pay attention to them or not. Your feelings have the potential to guide you, while acting as your unique personal compass.
The more you pay attention to this internal instrument of yours, the more it will strengthen and help you make good decisions for your life. It can be very valuable for you to become more aware of how you feel about things rather than how you think about things.
“We remember 10 percent of what we read, 20 percent of what we hear, 30 percent of what we see, 40 percent of what we do, and 100 percent of what we feel.”
If you’re looking for answers, what would it mean for you to start practicing the art of feeling? Your practice can start by putting more attention to how people, places and things make you feel. Get familiar with where certain feelings sit and how they feel within your physical body. For example, where does anxiety lie in your body? Where does excitement sit? As you start paying more attention to how these emotions feel in your body you will strengthen your mind/body connection, which will be an invaluable asset to you as you go through life.
FOLLOW YOUR INTUITION EXERCISE
“Wait for your intuition to lead you somewhere, to do something or to reach out to someone. As you do this, one thing after the other will start to unfold. Within this unfolding, remain open allowing yourself to continue to be lead vs. controlling the direction. (Think of having a partner lead you as you dance: two people can’t lead. It’s important to follow and allow for this to work.) Your initial intuitive action will gain momentum as you continue to act and move forward without resistance. As you keep going, in time you’ll be able to look back and see how specific situations and coincidences have lead to your current reality. ”
Following your feeling or intuition is all about noticing the urges and desires that are calling you to act. Your intuition will never fail you if you trust it and stay in the game. Staying in the game requires you to be led and follow, rather than taking control by leading while using your logical mind. Your desires will lead you somewhere interesting and unexpected, that’s for sure. They will lead you to a very different destination then where your logic will take you as you “try” to “figure things out.”
Your intuition will take you to places that you can’t think up. This is why the unexpected moments and random coincidences in life can be so moving; these moments are not planned, you often don’t see them coming, which causes them to be surprisingly refreshing and extraordinary.
Your intuition is fueled by excited, new energy. Energy that is stripped from any routine or knowing. Tap into how you feel about things rather than how you think about things. Play around with this and see where your feelings lead you. I have no doubt that it will be really interesting.
*Above Image take by photographer Amy Lynn Bjornson.
How to Recognize & Hold onto A Good Thing
Good things come and go, correct? Such is life.….
Do we accept that this is how it goes, or do we actively work to tap into our inner knowing so we don’t let those good things go?
Becoming more in tune with what a good thing looks and feels like can help us ditch what’s not so great in our life, while holding onto what is.
Life will offer us a bit of everything, so how do we know when a good thing is right in front of us?
In the land of plenty, how do we know what’s the right thing, person or situation for us?
How do we know when to hold on and how do we know when to let go?
At one point or another, we all have to come up with our own answers to these questions. Life will present us with a varietal of opportunities. Our decisions to go toward or away from these people and situations will pave the path of our life.
No pressure, right?
I remember a time in my life when I spent years in an indecisive place about love.
Is THIS it? Is HE it? Is SHE it? Are THEY it? Are WE it?
I mean, how are you supposed to know what’s up from down in certain situations?
Will we ever? Can we ever?
Here’s what I know.
Going toward what makes you feel good consistently is always a good choice. Move toward what feels good consistently, not sporadically. Sporadic energy tends to feel chaotic. Consistency breeds trust.
Lots of not so great things and people can make us feel good temporarily. A temporary fix tends to be more surface and short lived. Some of us rather take something rather than nothing, yet that’s where many of us get stuck. When the foundation of anything is unstable and ingenuine, it will eventually show its cracks. This is true both figuratively and literally. Whether we’re talking about relationships or a building.
Side Note: * Nobody is perfect, nor is perfection the aim, although unhealthy and destructive people and circumstances do not need your energy friends *
Here are some descriptions on what a good thing usually entails. Hopefully, this can help you evaluate your current experiences in order for you to find clarity around whether you should hold on or let go.
A good thing has a clean paper trial. “History Repeats Itself” is a cliche for a reason.
A good thing feels good (in a healthy way.) Period the end.
A good thing is stable, trusting and accountable.
A good thing says what they mean and means what they say.
A good thing cares about you and it’s obvious.
A good thing is not confusing.
A good thing is not that hard to spot because the right “good thing” for you will stand out amongst the crowd.
A good thing tends to be A DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH, for if it wasn't, it wouldn’t be special to your experience. Unique things stand out and are valuable for their rarity, which makes them such a gift.
If you’re still looking for your good thing, keep looking. It’s out there. Don’t settle. Don’t think it “should” be here already. Respect IT’S timing. Look at all the contrast that you’re receiving in your life now as part of the adventure, for one day the adventure will be over and you will be consumed with your good thing.
Lots of love. Cheers to Good Things.
The above image was taken by San Diego based Photographer, Amy Lynn Bjornson.
The Art of Letting Go
As much as I believe in talking something out, I also believe that there’s a time and place where, in order to stay balanced and healthy, a pestering issue needs to be laid to rest. Overly talking about and ruminating over an issue, can easily become more the issue. Meaning, too much attention on the perceived problem becomes the problem itself. Trying to figure out the problem. Trying to understand the problem. Worrying about the problem. Talking in circles about the problem.
This bad habit causes suffering and leads to absolutely nowhere.
Being a natural over analyzer myself, I’ve personally found that after enough healthy introspection has been done around a specific issue, turning toward what’s light, inspiring and fun is an important step toward moving beyond something. When you’re going through something difficult, you have to be reminded that there’s joy on the other side of the issue. You need proof that you can feel good again. You can only find this proof when you allow yourself to be in the space outside the worry.
The other day, I randomly grabbed a magazine to read at the local library. I happened to turn right to an article that impacted me and was the source of inspiration for this blog. It was titled, It’s Time to Graduate From Self-Defeating Habits and Begin Your Glorious Future, by Martha Beck. I thought about the glorious future that I’m going toward and decided to read on.
I loved the simplicity of the author’s message when advising about how to get over a hardship. It was free of any sort of psychoanalysis and headiness, which is an approach that I very much appreciate and believe in as a therapist myself.
Here’s what she said:
“I want you to pick a day when you’ll be over this. It can be in a week or a year, but that will be your graduation day. Once it comes, you’re done with this subject.”
That’s right. Just decide and accept that “it’s done” and let it go. Graduate from the burden of your worry and just decide it’s beyond you. Hell yes! Process your stuff. Feel the emotions and then, please, learn to put it behind you.
Believe me, I get the “How the hell do you even do that? How do you let something go that was so significant, hurtful and the source of so much pain?” I write this post with conviction because (I was-SLASH- can still be) the girl that struggles to let a painful hurt go. It’s been one of my major life lessons that I continue to hone.
With no clue of how to let something go in my past, my over thinking and circling around a painful topic in conversations with friends or in my own head became more my issue. The issue wasn’t what had happened that initially caused me pain, it was how I was coping with it. Attempting to move forward while bringing my past crap into the present put a residue on every new situation. For example, when on a date with a hot new man, it was too bad that all I could think about was my hurt from my past relationship that was also on the date with us. A total set up for a crash and burn outcome. It was like carrying around stinky laundry everywhere I went. I freshened up all I could, but no matter how cleaned up I became, I always had the stink of my past with me. It put a damper on every new possibility.
To give you a picture of my inability to “let pain go,” I remember feeling really pissed off when friends changed the subject on my pain or didn’t hold the space for me to talk about it for the 100th time. I was convinced that, “They don’t care” or “They don’t get it.” Now, if this response from my people occurred when I initially went to them to seek support, these thoughts would have had more validity. However, after months and years of struggling with being caught in my own head, I see how their lack of attention to my perpetual need to talk about what had happened was their loving attempt to help me move forward. They didn’t want to give my obsessive thoughts more energy.
We have all experienced the person who appears to be continually stuck on something or someone. I’m all for processing through an issue so it can sit somewhere within that is more settled, although there’s a tipping point where there’s no more to say or do and it’s time to let go.
Think about what you’re still holding onto and pick a graduation day. Commit in your heart that when this day comes you will be graduated from this problem, meaning it will be officially behind you. The cool concept about graduation is that when you graduate from something, there’s no going back.
“We graduate every time we step forward without moving back.”
You can’t go back to high school because you have already graduated. You can’t redo something that’s done. So be done. Do what you need to do to work through your emotions and give yourself a specific date for the issue to be put in the past with the door firmly, yet comfortably closed. You deserve to walk into your future with light and love in your heart. In order to do this you need to free yourself of the heavy pains and burdens that you’re carrying with you into your future. It’s shading your light.
Free yourself friends by letting go. Your life will improve if you do so.
Above image is by photographer, Amy Lynn Bjornson.