“Your head or your heart-who’s in charge of you?”
If you are stuck in elevator, between floors, it's a great time to use your wits to figure out how to get the heck out of there. And, thankfully, in our culture today, we are encouraged to follow our hearts when choosing a mate.
But what about all the decisions in between these two extremes, when we are deciding what to eat, or when to exercise? How about deciding our career, or what we are going to say next?
Do we follow our heart, or our brain?
I am noticing how rarely in our culture we slow down, tune in, and listen to our heart, or our gut, in our decisions. Most Americans just seem to rush frantically from task to task without any consideration of how they are feeling or what their true needs are.
Women are a bit more prone to this, because of the way we deal with stress. We are less apt to recognize that we need to unwind when we are in fight or flight.
Rushing around with little regard to our true needs can have a major impact on our health. We may eat comfort or convenience foods as we ignore our body's cry for pure water or a fresh salad. We may stay in relationships or jobs that are draining our limited resources.
Here's an experiment: Dedicate one hour of your day today to really tune in to your needs before making every decision. Do you want music or quiet? Do you need a rest next, or some movement? Do you need to reflect or learn?
You may be surprised to find how much more at peace you are when you work in tandem with your body and spirit, rather than letting your gray matter run the show!
Would you like to gain skills in following your heart? Tune in to our podcast recording with the author of Heart Led Living, Sue Dumais, here.
Thanks for reading and please like, share or comment below!
~Bridgit Danner, LAc