Look Who's Talking

Mindfulness Myth #6: Listen to Your Heart vs Do Whatever You Feel Like Doing

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The Self is clutching the pen and stares at the blank paper.

She has to decide whether to move to the coast, leaving her childhood village behind. She’s been to the Coach’s place, but on the door there was a note for her:

I’ll be gone for a while, but you can write to me.

---

Dear Coach,

Writing letters is new, so bear with me, I may not be so good with words on paper. But then again, after our conversations, our partying, our mingling with people, this might be another way of learning.

I keep wrestling with this decision that’s been on my mind lately.

One part of me nudges me to go, the other urges me to stay. At times I tell myself to follow my dreams, other times I remind myself of everything that I already have. One part of me is fluttering with the excitement of the new horizon, another is asking me what would be left, once the novelty is gone.

Some people make pros-and-cons lists, and they claim it helps them. This is a rational approach, but for me, it doesn’t work. What if there are as many pros as cons? Besides, there might be one pro that weighs more than a dozen cons; the list doesn’t reveal what’s more important to me.

I know people say, listen to your heart. But what does that even mean? Listen to your heart meaning not to your mind, listen to the feelings, and not to the reason? 

If I were to go by my feelings: what if they are mixed, too?

My heart springs at the thought of starting something new. I’ve always yearned for the sea. It’s a whole lifestyle. There are opportunities. There’s the unknown, the open possibilities that might take me even further, later on.

But the same heart aches at the thought of leaving everyone I love behind. My little home, my garden. Everything that makes up who I am. What if the yearning for the coast is just an empty dream, an illusion? What if I get there to find no glamour, just another daily routine, but within an unfamiliar world?

Both are feelings. Who can tell me which to follow? 

Just like the pros-and-cons lists: I can review and classify them neatly, but they give no clue on what should come first.

Whatever listen to your heart might mean, it can’t be listen to your feelings.

Some time ago I was in love and fought for it until the last moment. Actually, long past that last moment; deep into obsession. I persisted, thinking I was listening to my heart, disregarding my other feelings that were telling me something was wrong.

I pictured that love in my imagination as complete, almost transcendental fulfilment — if only it came to materialise. That’s why I kept waiting, giving it time and offering it opportunities  to do so. I wanted it to happen.

It just never did, but got entangled more and more in ambiguities.

Maybe I simply wanted something badly, and that needn’t mean listening to my heart.

And now that I’m thinking, I realise the problem about our wants is that they sometimes are just so fixated on a particular image in our minds. I didn’t just want that love to happen, I wanted my image of it to happen.

Back then, I could have asked myself:

What makes you want this love to happen?

It would be unique.

And what makes you think so?

I can feel it.

You can feel it, but do you have some more clues? Does he act as if he feels the same?

He certainly would, if only given the time.

Is that what you wish to believe, or is he telling you this himself?

I wanted the love I imagined, and I was decoding every signal to fit that story. 

Listen to your heart, then, can be confusing. There are so many things we locate in the heart: yearnings, wants, fixations, emotions, fears, projections.

Should I simply choose to listen to my true voice? This doesn’t lead me to follow only what I feel, but leaves room for me to discern what might be right.

But — which one of the many voices I hear inside is the true one? Both the heart and the mind are yelling at me at the moment.

Don’t throw away what you have for some ghosts!

Follow your dreams!

Let go of fears!

Am I stuck yet again?

That true voice, could it be intuition? Something lurking behind the explicit thoughts, more like a message between the lines.

Gut feeling.

It’s just —

So often a gut feeling is how we disguise the justification to go ahead and do what we want to do anyway.

We tell ourselves, “this is what God wants me to do”, or “it’s meant to be that way”.

I did it quite a lot in that love story. I kept waiting and bidding, thinking that me and that man were meant to come together in the end. I had dreams at night that I was eager to interpret. I had chance encounters in the street with strangers that looked just like him, which I took as a sign that we’re bound together in another dimension.

To say nothing of the voices I sometimes heard clearly, whispering with conviction: This is just a trial for you to stand through, and in the end you’ll find each other.

I took all that for intuition. There’s a certain appeal to acting against the reasonable, as if that alone was some sort of heroism which would claim its trophy in the end.

Either intuition is just as treacherous as feelings and wants, or we’re not defining it right.

I need to put some order in these thoughts.

• The heart, or the true voice, is not by all means what we feel, or want, or think we want.

• It’s not the gut feeling we think we have, when we’re merely seeking confirmation of what we already believe

• It’s not just any voice yelling, or whispering, some ready-made dictum, just because it sounds so well crafted.

I’m sure now that the true voice doesn’t always align with strictly logical arguments, but it cannot be entirely split from the reason either.

There must be a deeper-level rationality, a sweet spot where reason meets intuition, and the mind meets the heart.

A heart-mind.

A certain rationality is called for when I look into my heart, when I try to discern which wants to follow; just as my reason needs a certain connection with my deeper wants, to align the pros and cons with what’s important for me.

Maybe this all-round rationality is the true voice. The voice that is offering me the best choice, for my own good. It will rely on logic, intuition, and my wants.

Just how to identify it?

I suppose I must do something about these yelling voices in my head. They all sound so self-righteous.

I must ask each voice: what do you actually want? And why? What are you afraid of?

I’m picturing myself at your place, Coach, sitting by the fire, while all the so-called wise voices are knocking at the door. 

follow your dreams; don’t let fear guide you; don’t rush into anything; don’t make choices you’ll regret later; you can be who you want to be; let go of the past; don’t let illusions cloud your judgement; appreciate what you have rather than chasing ghosts…  .

I’m going underground and zooming in on how it feels down there. Then, I’ll let these voices in, one at a time, and question them.

I’m unsure whether the impulse to move away is coming from a disguised fear.

Could it be the fear of missing out on experiences that would enrich me? Perhaps people whose company would help me grow? Routines that would be more rewarding?

Or is it the fear I’m not doing enough with my life by living in the same, small place? And this way, the fear of disappointing — some higher instance — or myself, in time? Am I afraid I might reach old age and regret the wasted time?

But choosing to stay could also be coming from a disguised fear. Maybe of failing? Of not being good enough, and going to a big place but not making it there?

Could it be I’m afraid of the unknown I’d have to explore and adjust to? Afraid of discovering where my limits are, where my talents end? Looking back and finding that I’ve traded being someone for being no one, that I’ve come out worse off than I’m now?

I must review these fears: some of them are justified and I’ll need to consider them; one or two I might choose to assume; and the rest I must dismiss.

And then I must zoom out and take in the big picture.

If I choose either to stay or to move away, is it aligned with other choices I have made? Is this who I am -- or who I want to be?

Am I the adventurer, the explorer, the one who leaves certainty behind in search for a new meaning? I’ve never done anything adventurous; I’ve spent half my life here, being friends with the same people, doing my work every day; do I have what it takes to change this?

No, rephrase, it’s not about whether I’m capable; it’s about who I am. Am I the right person to go exploring? Will this make me happy?

The answer is — I don’t know. I might be wrong about the many opportunities awaiting me there; it might be just what I want to believe.

But I want to try it out and see. I think trying it out is more important to me than staying with what I have. What may come of it, I cannot be sure.

Maybe I was never an explorer.

But it might be who I want to become.

---

And you?

Do you have a way of exploring your impulses, to decide which is the “true” one? Can you explain it in words, or does it feel as if what you put in words can never do it justice?

Does any of the maxims / memes / expert advice out there help you? if so, how did you settle for it, instead of others?

I certainly feel that the more polished the meme sounds, the more cautious I have to be; it might appeal to me simply because it’s well said, or it sounds “cool”, or “profound”.

I had the Self do her own reflection in this story, for a change. Whether you put it in writing, or not, do you ever do such an exercise of questioning your motives, and questioning the answers you give yourself? Can you remember a specific time when it brought you out of the tunnel of your dilemma?