When I think back in time I could have never planned my life the way it is today — Everything has worked out better than I could have imagined.
Ending up living on the other side of the world, next to the ocean and finding the love I had been looking for here.
There’s something about just being in the moment, enjoying life and taking the next step that occurs to us without knowing where it will take us.
Not concentrating too much on the ideas we have how we think our life should be and what we should do next. But instead, enjoying life as it is and allowing our hearts to take the lead.
Doing what feels good to us.
This is something that I’ve personally learned to do more and more over the years, and I’m still in the exploration of seeing more — And something I personally wanted to explore more in this post, simply because of the joy of it.
Following our ideas vs following our inspiration
Why do we want to follow our hearts and inspiration instead of following our rational thoughts? Well, there’s only so far our ideas of ourselves and the world can take us.
But when we open ourselves up to seeing something new and following our inspiration we also open up to a whole new world of possibilities.
Following our personal ideas means going through life and what we are after with the ideas we have learned in the past. We are trying to work things out with the kind of thinking that may not be relevant to our current situation anymore.
Following our inspiration instead opens us up to fresh thinking that is always in the moment responsive — It’s perfectly designed for the moment we live in.
It opens up doors and possibilities we were not able to see before from our old habitual thinking and always gives us a fresh perspective.
When following our old ideas puts our whole faith on our own ability to go forward and work things out, following our hearts and inspiration recognizes the deeper part within us — The part that is bigger than us.
Recognizing this part of us — who we are — makes it easier for us to see how we can allow the wisdom behind life to do the hard work for us.
Allowing your feeling to be the guide
How do we know whether we are following our hearts or the old ideas we have of ourselves and the world.
The feeling is different.
Following our personal ideas and going after what we want in life feels like hard work. We are always pushing through and easily feel drained after the experience.
When following our hearts on the other hand, there’s a certain feeling of lightness and joy present. We truly enjoy what we are doing. Instead of it feeling like we have to push through, it feels more like we are flowing with the river.
We are inspired, following our heart’s calling — whatever it is in that moment — And often feel more energized than drained afterwards.
Your Inner Knowing
In other words following our hearts means following your inner knowing.
We have this knowing within us when we simply know.
In my life one of the clearest times when I have felt this inner knowing was when I learned to see how my experience was always coming from within me when it came to my relationships.
I had always been in search of love and when I didn’t see it coming, I felt frustrated. Until I learned that my experience of other people was coming from within. After that I simply knew that I would find the love that I had been looking for.
And couple of months later it did stand in front of me.
We all have this inner knowing within us. The quieter we get and less concerned we become when it comes to our personal thinking, the more easily we are able to hear it.
The difference between an Impersonal and personal thought
There’s a metaphor from George Pransky that goes something like this.
Our personal thinking is like these drums that play on the background and our inner knowing or wisdom is a flute. The flute is always playing, but depending how loud is our personal thinking it might be hard for us to hear it.
When our thinking is going 100 miles per second, these drums are really loud and it’s hard for us to hear anything else than our thinking. On the other hand when our mind is calm, we are more easily able to hear the flute, our inner wisdom.
When our personal thinking is on our way and we are thinking about ourselves too much, how are we doing, it’s harder for us to hear the impersonal — our wisdom. Yet, the impersonal is always there.
If we get less interested when it comes to our personal thinking and more interested about the wisdom behind life and where our heart is guiding us, it’s easier for our thinking to settle down and we are more able to hear the impersonal.
Letting our hearts to take the lead
Following our heart’s guidance can be anything from taking a step towards a completely different direction we are used to go, to noticing it’s time for us to take more time for ourselves and rest.
Personally for me one of the hardest times to hear and listen my wisdom has been when I have been wanting to achieve my dreams, but my heart has guided me to slow down and become more grounded first. I have learned that everything has it’s timing.
I’m not suggesting that we have to leave all our thinking behind. Following our hearts doesn’t mean that we forget our common sense — No.
Following our heart’s guidance includes the common sense. Following our heart’s guidance means following what makes sense for us to do us in the moment.
Instead of rationalizing and thinking too much we follow our wisdom in the moment. And when we do this not only are we able to experience the pure joy that follows, but also unexpected things happen.
Things that only get revealed to us when we allow our hearts to take the lead and listen to the tones of the wisdom and inspiration within us.
With love,
Heidi
