How do we connect with the vision and guidance of the heart?
Everywhere we turn in popular culture, we are told to “follow your heart” and to manifest your dreams.” Woven into songs, movies, television and Facebook, it is inescapable. While we instinctively relate to the essential truth of this, few of us have ever been taught how to follow our heart. Nor are we guided to distinguish between the authentic vision of the heart and the fears and attachments of the ego-mind. Born of a sense of lack and fear, these mind-driven concerns often underline our intentions and masquerade as our ‘dreams.’
Once we achieve these dreams emerging from lack of and fear, they don’t truly fulfill us.
The key is in revealing and unfolding the authentic guidance of the heart. Once this process is in alignment with the Divine, it brings us the true fulfillment and joy we are longing for.
But How do we Follow the Authentic Guidance of the Heart?
Here is a simple process to help connect to the wisdom and guidance of the heart without becoming distracted by the ego-mind and engulfed by fear.
1. Become Aware of your Experience
Use your breath to draw your awareness inside. Observe. What are you experiencing right now?
- What sensations do you have in your body?
- What emotions are you feeling?
- What dialogs or images are playing in your mind?
Simply notice and accept whatever you are experiencing without needing to judge, resist or fix it. Practice bringing a simple, compassionate awareness and curiosity to what’s going on inside. Don’t be seduced by the mind’s desire to judge your experience or to work out why it’s there.
2. Connect to the Heart
- Begin to explore all that you are grateful for in your life, both simple and profound. You may also think of a person or an animal you love dearly.
- As you get in touch with the feelings of gratitude or love, notice where the feeling stems from in your body.
- Center your awareness on the area of the heart. It may help to imagine that you are breathing in and out through your heart. It may help to place your hand over your heart.
3. Listen to the Heart’s Knowing
Ask your heart any of these queries:
- What do you know about my life right now?
- What are you calling me forth to do in my life?
- What do you know to be the next step for me?
- What do you know about this situation I find myself in?
Listen deeply to any guidance you receive. This may arise as a voice, an image, a feeling, a sense of knowing or of being inspired. The heart may also offer the gift of stillness, silence, peace or joy.
Don’t ask “what is my heart longing for?”.
Your heart isn’t longing for anything. It is already connected to the joy, the wisdom and the freedom of Divine Awareness. Your heart is neither broken nor longing. It is waiting for you to listen and be nourished by its presence.
4. Honor what the Heart has revealed to you
Your heart may reveal an inner state of being or an outer direction, path or step to take. Allow yourself to step fully into the dream of the heart. Align your thoughts. Engage your emotions and you’re your senses with the state of being or direction the heart has shown. Allow yourself to fully feel what it is to step into the dream of the heart.
5. Surrender the Outcome
Congratulations, you have done your best to listen to the guidance of your heart. Now you can step out into the world. Embrace this state of being or perspective that was given to you, or move in the direction that you were shown. Observe how the living world responds to you as you move in this way.
Your mind may want to grasp for a particular outcome in the future but allow yourself to let go and leave the outcome in the hands of the Divine. What you really yearn for is not a specific outcome but the state of joy and connection to the heart and that is available to you right now.
If you would like to be guided in this process of connecting to your heart, along with beautiful music, you may like to check out “The Heart Awareness Journey” audio. And if you would like to dive deeply into the experience of connecting to the heart consider coming to the The Sky of the Heart” summer retreat in the beautiful Smoky Mountains of Western North Carolina. Find out more.
As an initiated Marakame or shaman in the indigenous Huichol tradition of Mexico, Prema Sheerin is a healer, spiritual counselor and teacher. Prema has worked with individuals, couples and groups for 25 years, supporting people to reveal the knowing of the heart, bring forth balance and healing, and find their path in the Divine play of life. She offers workshops internationally and has a traditional healing and life coaching practice in Asheville, North Carolina. Prema offers various programs for the Sacred Fire Community
