What Does Your Heart Know?

The heart has its reasons that reason does not know.
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)

I’m beginning to wonder if the heart isn’t just as much a thinking organ as the brain. It knows so much, yet its information isn’t presented in verbiage. Have we lost its language? Is that why we can’t hear what the heart is trying to tell us?
—Mara Purl, What the Heart Knows

Your plane bounces through an air pocket, and your heart skips a beat. Your child brings you his brand-new drawing, and your heart opens. You fail to achieve a cherished goal and feel sick at heart. Your boss seeks you out to tell you how well you handled the meeting, and it does your heart good.

The heart: It is one of the central metaphors of life. And only by penetrating its deeper meaning can we get to the “heart of the matter.”

Some important things in life seem to come from outside ourselves. We might count among these our sense of duty, the discipline that keeps us faithful to our jobs, and membership in families and organizations. Yet do we not also sometimes feel overwhelmed by the commitments we have taken on, swamped by the schedules we seem to have agreed to while not quite in our right minds?

Could this be because we have failed to consult our hearts about these important matters? Another word for heart in this instance would be core, as in core values. How do we know when something is truly of central importance to us? Certainly conversations with those we respect will inspire deep thought. Still, ultimately, we will only know the true answers to this question when they resonate deep within. And this resonance can more accurately be described as a feeling than as a thought.

An Intake Inventory

Ask yourself, “How much of the vital information I process in my daily life comes to me through logic and from things I can tangibly see?” Then ask yourself, “How much comes to me through intuition and from things I may not be able to see?”

Here are some examples of tangibles you can see: the red light tells you to stop; the client gives a yes to your proposal; the tickets to the theatrical performance are available.

Now here are some examples of intangibles you cannot “see” in the usual sense: you get a very strong feeling you should call your friend Joe (later it turns out he was trying to reach you but had lost your number); while shopping for a gift for your girlfriend, one item seems to call to you, though as far as you know it is not on her list of desired objects (later it turns out to be the precise thing she was looking for).

Perhaps you have a critical decision to make. Protocol indicates the decision should be x. Yet your gut tells you to go with y. Our culture generally does not give high credibility to gut feelings. How are they treated? As anecdotal, “touchy-feely,” and of secondary importance.

Yet all of us have heard stories to the contrary: the woman who “for some reason” walks home a different way and avoids the muggers lying in wait; the police officer who checks behind a building for no reason and saves someone’s life.

Then there are the times we fail to listen to that inner warning. Have you ever said to yourself, “I knew I shouldn’t have accepted a ride from a stranger, but I didn’t want to be rude.” These are cases of the head overruling the heart.

Three New Perspectives

Now I invite you to explore with me three new, what we might call “heart” perspectives:
• one that touches your sense of self
• one that touches your sense of relating to others
• one that touches your sense of service to mankind.

1. What does your heart know that your head does not know? Might it have something to do with self-esteem? Does your heart tell you that you are talented and capable? But does your head tell you that most of your true potential is untapped, that you never really did as much as you could have?

Would you agree nothing is more energizing, encouraging, and vitalizing than discovering what your true purpose is? Would it not be like discovering the most precious secret to know your true mission in life? So this is the first point to remember: Give yourself room to listen to what your heart is telling you.

2. How can we use our “heart knowledge” more effectively in our relationships, be they personal or professional? Can you think of a situation where your heart knows something that your head is overruling? If we use “head information” to form our first impressions, what information are we getting: how the person is dressed; how well they speak; how much homework they have done before meeting with you. These are all good things. Now what if we use “heart information”? The person may not be dressed well, but they give the overwhelming impression of being sincere.

What if you were visiting Thailand after the tsunami and did not realize there had been a disaster? What if you saw someone dirty and barely clothed? Would you help them? The external appearance may not tell us everything we really need to know to be sure, or even to be safe. So this is the second point: We are very accustomed to consulting our head for information, and it does a good job. But nothing reports on the climate of feelings and the atmosphere of thought better than the heart.

3. How can we use our hearts to be of greater service? Can you think of a situation where your head says the situation is hopeless, but your heart says something must be done?

The head is tremendously good at cataloging the past. It keeps track of what has happened and how it has happened and trains itself that this is how things should always happen. So our tendency is to “plan forward” from the past. When it comes to creating a vibrant community project, might we therefore usually respond with “I don’t have time,” “I did so much last year,” “I shouldn’t rob my family of my time,” “I don’t have the expertise,” and myriad other excuses?

Now let us look at this from another perspective. The heart is tremendously good at what might be called wishing and hoping. But we could use clearer, more dynamic language to describe what the heart is really good at. We could say it is good at envisioning, imagining, and creating what has never existed before.

What if we were to live “into” that expanding sense of what we wish to create, rather than “out of” the past that tells us we cannot create anything more than what we have already created? Our heart is a built-in guidance system that can protect, inspire, and lead us into the extraordinary lives we wish to create.

Like any other muscle, the more you use your heart, the stronger and more reliable it will become. You have a wellspring of wisdom and inspiration within you. I encourage you embark on the great adventure to know what your heart knows.

** This article is one of 101 great articles that were published in 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life. To get complete details on “101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life”, visit http://www.selfgrowth.com/greatways3.html