Head vs. Heart
For most of us, we suffer through a never ending dilemma.
Over a lifetime, we battle between the two.
In some instances, our head knows best.
While in others, our heart wins.
How do we know which one is right?
Have we trusted logic instead of intuition?
There are moments in life when we need both.
Times when we must listen to one versus the other.
But that’s easier said than done…
Other times, one gets pushed so far back, we forget its there.
That was me.
My head was my guide
Growing up, I knew nothing about being connected to an emotion.
In some ways, I guess you could say my childhood was very “business like.”
It was practical and made sense.
No decision was made without the notion of having evaluated it first.
Logic was my guide.
It was the path I followed.
However great it did its job, I lost trust in my heart.
When confronted with emotions that would show up from time to time, I would quickly run from it.
I never became vested in anything (or anyone) that allowed my heart to be seen.
Even by me.
No, I kept it hidden.
Until I met my husband…
I knew 6 months after meeting him that I would marry him.
Falling in love at 17 wasn’t part of the plan.
But that was just the beginning…
Circumstances required me to show emotion.
To tap into my long-forgotten heart.
When our sons were born.
Unconditional love was present in so many ways.
Pride became an emotion you can’t describe.
I watched our boys grow into the wonderful young men they are now.
The planner in me wasn’t dead yet.
Highlighting every event on the calendar kept me sane.
Kept me from missing anything important.
The stuff that needed to get done.
We made it to every choir performance, every guitar lesson, every baseball game.
It wasn’t enough.
Holding on was keeping me safe
You see, as much I shared my love with my husband and our sons, something was still missing.
I wasn’t in love with life.
Without realizing it, I had shunned my heart and only left it partly open.
Enough for them.
I was friendly with the women who helped at the school.
Smiling at the parents we saw casually at a local restaurant.
I’ll admit it…I wasn’t fully vested.
I didn’t know any better.
Forgetting to feel alive was not part of the plan.
Something amazing happened when I finally stopped letting reason be such a HUGE impact in my life…
I began to trust what I was feeling.
My head served me well…and it continues to do so.
In certain situations.
But life isn’t meant to be logical and practical.
Most of life doesn’t come with a blueprint or with an architectural design.
We have to make it up as we go along.
But in order to do that, we have to rely on something connected to our heart…
We must remember to feel
When I finally out the walls down and embraced the amount of emotion waiting to pour out of my heart (even now), it surprised me.
It was like opening myself up to a world I had never known before.
One full of the loudest of laughs and the tiniest of tears.
Connected to this life and everything in it became one of the most beautiful things I had ever experienced.
Good days became better days.
Better days became the best days.
Words carried meaning and moved me in ways my mind never could.
Random events became magical, along with the chance meetings that became symbolic of something much bigger yet to come.
Watching the sunrise became a blessing for each day and the beginning of my participation with the world.
I became an observer of the little things…the things we forget to see every day.
Things that make me smile…years later.
Compassion for those in need…showing kindness because I can…giving more than I should…and loving so deeply, some might consider it reckless.
Gratitude beyond comprehension…inner peace where calm and serenity exist.
Even in the quiet, I found a feeling of purpose I had never felt before.
My mind had taken me as far as it could on its own.
Now that I have both working together, the magic found in the emotions felt deeply in my heart allow me to fully assimilate to the life I’ve been given.
Someday, you are going to wish you had stopped hiding your heart.
Authenticity only happens when you trust what you feel. And act on it.
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Give in to it. Believe in it. Embrace it. Let it take you places your mind never will.
Michelle A. Homme 2017 ©
