The Power of the Heart: Finding Your True Purpose in Life (7 page)
Read The Power of the Heart: Finding Your True Purpose in Life Online
Authors: Baptist de Pape
You start by listening, listening to your heart. Then you start to manifest it in the real physical world.
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.
ISABEL ALLENDE
We can connect to the heart when we are in silence. We live in the noise, and we are so busy all the time, there is no time, no space, no silence for the heart. That is why people meditate or pray, because they need that space, that moment, when you listen to the heart.
We tend to hurry through our days, sometimes feeling trapped and overwhelmed, other times feeling as if we’re sleepwalking through our routines. There are plenty of things that we cannot change or even influence: incurable disease, natural disasters, death. But many other things can slip out of our control or escape us because we can’t hear the whisperings of our heart above the noise of our mind. When you quiet your mind, you bring it into sync with your heart.
MICHAEL BECKWITH
If we don’t listen to the heart, we’ll listen to the chatter of the world, and we will end up walking lockstep in a society of
consumerism, of getting, of fear and of worry, and we will not have lived our life. We have a life to live. The heart has the answers.
Bring your attention to your heart and log on to that all-encompassing, universal server. Its vital information will help you make your life yours to live and allow you to see past your daily responsibilities and short-term goals to your greater purpose.
JANE GOODALL
If we take the heart out of our consideration, we are making decisions based on “How will this help me now?” and “How will this affect the next shareholders’ meeting or the next political campaign?”
Get outside your head in order 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.
PAULO COELHO
When you listen to your heart, you’re able to open the door.
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.
All who call on God earnestly from the heart will certainly be heard and will receive what they have asked and desired.
—MARTIN LUTHER
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 analyze them, but judge them by how they feel. The way to 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 this guidance?
You know when a choice is prompted by your heart, because it will feel right to you.
MAYA ANGELOU
Amazing! I mean you listen to the heart, listen. It may seem frivolous at first, but it needs you. It says, “Come on, I’ll show you what you really must do.”
If you don’t know what to do, do nothing. Don’t fill your time with trivia. Simply do nothing. Simply sit. Don’t do anything and you may be able to hear your heart.
Sit and Listen
Sit somewhere quiet to allow your body and mind to get in sync, to be in the same place at the same time. Take three deep, slow breaths in and out to quiet your mind. Bring your attention to your heart so that you can hear your heart, the seat of your soul. As you bring attention to your heart, you gain access to the heart’s intelligence. You increase its availability. Your heart becomes adaptable, flexible.
Focus your attention on your breathing as you breathe in and out. If any thoughts and worries come up, allow them to float away as you bring your attention back to your breathing. You are giving your heart space in which to speak to you. Focus only on your in-breath and out-breath . . . Breathe in and out . . .
When you feel quiet, put your attention on your heart. Ask yourself these questions to connect to your heart’s energy:
What makes me happy? What do I love to do? What brings me joy? What are my passions? What inspires me and makes me feel fulfilled?
Now ask yourself what keeps you from connecting with your heart:
What am I spending my time doing that does
not
make me happy, that keeps me from joy?
Now ask your heart,
What can I do to get beyond whatever keeps me from connecting with you? What small or big steps can I take? How can I feel inspired and fulfilled?
Open yourself to receiving your heart’s answer even if you are afraid of hearing it. Your heart will let you see the truth and help you find your way. Your heart has all the answers.
The present moment dies every moment to become the past, is reborn every moment into the future. All experience is now. Now never ends.
—DEEPAK CHOPRA
It’s really important
that
your heart beats, but it’s also important
how
your heart beats.
The Institute of HeartMath, a leading research institution on the heart and the effects that our hearts have on our lives, has demonstrated a link between your heartbeat and your emotional state. Your heart is much quicker to respond to events around you than your brain is because emotions are faster and more powerful than thoughts. Your heart also reflects your emotional state more than your brain. In other words, when you are scared, nervous, or frustrated, your cardiac rhythm is unstable and irregular. But when you experience love, feel appreciated, or are absorbed in creating
something, your cardiac rhythm shows an entirely different pattern. It is calmer and gentler. Scientists refer to this pattern as “heart coherence,” and when your heart rhythm is coherent, your body and mind are balanced and in the present. You are physically and mentally at your best, in the now.