The Heart’s Intelligence

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart. - Helen Keller

Without even realising it, we pay more attention to our minds and thoughts in day-to-day life than we do to our hearts and inner guidance. We’re often locked inside our heads, having programmed ourselves to reign in the emotions and dismiss any inklings or intuition as inappropriate, scary, or strange. More often than not, when faced with an important decision, we weigh the pros and cons and decide that the rational choice is the best one.

But how often have you thought, after making a rational decision - whether or not it worked out - if only I’d listened to my heart? Have you ever found at least one reason not to do what your heart told you to do for fear of someone else’s reaction? Or come up with excuses not to do what deep down in your heart you want to do most? When we ignore the heart’s messages, we bury our dreams and extinguish our inner fire.

When you are completely out of touch with your heart, you feel uncomfortable, as if you are living on the surface, missing out on something. Whenever you are disillusioned or frustrated, ask your heart to connect you to your deepest emotions - they are the spark of divine energy that is vital to living with purpose.

Your heart communicates to you the meaning in your life and of your life. It connects you to a greater source of knowing, to which you cannot gain access with your mind. Philosopher Blaise Pascal could not have put it better when he said, “The heart has its reasons that reason doesn’t know”.

Steve Jobs, cofounder of Apple, considered the heart to be the source of inspiration and fulfilment. He ascribed his achievements directly to the power of the heart: “The only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking and don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And like with any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So, keep looking. Don’t settle”.

Through your heat, you understand your greatest desire and passion, and through heart you find the spontaneity and creativity to break through the everyday restrictions on your life and imagination - to live fully engaged. When you open your heart, your entire world changes - it opens up around you. You see yourself as part of a friendly universe, one that is full of possibility, one that is generating and regenerating a positive energy.

Your heart allows you to link up to an enormous server: the universe. The server is omnipresent, even when your own connection has a glitch. When you are logged on to the energy of the universe, you gain access to the bigger picture, the interconnectedness of your life with the lives of others. Your heart knows what will make you happy.

Your heart sees your life as if it is following the course of a river - from the source down to the sea - whereas your mind cannot look beyond the next bend. Your mind is busy with a thicket of immediate concerns and short term goals that can block your view of your larger purpose. Your mind keeps you rowing along, stoke after stroke, your back to where you’re heading, so that you see where you’re been only after you’re already gone past. So, when you hit a snag or need to change course, you get frustrated.

But when you open to your heart, you discover that your heart knew what your mind was preoccupied to notice - there were rapids ahead and you had to be prepared. Open to your heart. Its higher consciousness will whisper to you, warning you of signs of turbulence. It will speak to you through intuition, not reason.

In order to listen to your heart, make time to find peace and quiet. When you’re constantly connecting to others by phone, text, or email, you don’t give your heart a way to message you. All your circuits are busy, and your inner voice can’t get through. You’re distracted by work or worries, and your thoughts get divided into many little bits.

Get outside your head to hear the voice of your heart. Take time to sit quietly so that you can pull together all these different thoughts and impulses into a single focus. Then you can train your attention on what’s important and see yourself and what you’re meant to do, where you’re meant to go.

Your mind and attention are like a muscle. Every muscle needs exercise and the kind of exercise your attention needs is quiet focus or mindfulness. This conditions your mind to focus, not fragment. Breathing, walking, or sitting with mindfulness strengthens your awareness so that your mind gets in sync with the beating intelligence of your heart.

Sometimes what your heart tells you may sound  strange or illogical - at first. But don’t dismiss these messages out of hand. Sit  and listen to them. Try not to analyse them but judge them by how they feel. The way to the heart is based on feeling. Inspiration from the heart is based on feeling. Inspiration from the heart feels organic and natural. Allow the voice to show you what it means. Ask yourself “How do I feel about guidance?”. You know when a choice is prompted by your heart, because it will feel right to you.

With kind regards,

Dr Kevin Ivins