The ability to listen to your heart is the most practical skill you can develop in this modern day. Your heart should guide you in all of your important decisions in your life (marriage, career, home, family, finances, etc). Your head can lie to you. Your heart can’t. Your heart speaks differently than your head. Both are important, but the heart should lead.
Most of us learned from our education and family systems to prioritize logic, and that following our hearts is foolish, yet success that comes at the expense of our happiness is an empty success. It’s not possible to have a joyful life if you are disconnected from your heart. No matter how much you achieve if you’re not doing what you love, you’re only surviving, not truly thriving.
Many people feel imposter syndrome, have inner critic voices that hound them, and are depressed about their lives, that’s because they aren’t being themselves and aren’t doing what really matters to them or living in a way that prioritizes what’s important to them.
One reason people don’t follow their hearts is because they’ve been brainwashed to believe that following their heart is selfish. Following your heart is not selfish. When you are happy others are uplifted.
Living from your heart creates a far healthier physiological state than silencing your heart or only living from your mind. The high rates of stress in our country today are rooted in a skewed sense of priority. A return to the heart, will correct that.
In the United States, where I live, we have gotten away from listening to our hearts. In the U.S. we have fewer vacation days and longer work days than other Western country. France has a 35 hour work week, Italy 39, the Netherlands 29. The UK gives their people 28 mandatory paid vacation days, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden 25 paid vacation days. The EU requires all member countries to provide at least 20 paid vacation days. The typical worker at a U.S. company gets only 10 paid days off and many are afraid to take their vacation days because they don’t want to get behind on their work or they worry that others will see them as less serious about their jobs.
Imagine what could be possible if we prioritized our lives and our heart’s desires and got companies to respond to our needs, not the other way around.
Our country has become more and more divided into two classes: a worker/servant class and a owner/master class. People are afraid to care for themselves for fear that they will lose their jobs, they’ve become slaves. We need to say “no” to this. We can no longer be enslaved to the corporations and the almighty dollar. We need to take back our power.
Trust that if you set the limits and decide you will no longer be exploited, the Universe will respond.
It’s like a frog in a pot of water. If you put a frog in a pot of boiling water it will jump out, but if you put it in and slowly turn up the heat it will stay until it’s cooked. That’s what happens for many of us in bad relationships. That’s what has happened to the workers in the U.S. We’ve allowed our employers to demand more and more from us with less and less compensation.
We need to stop being complicit in our enslavement. Don’t let corporate culture shape your values. You decide what your values are: health, family, quality of life. Don’t let them tell you that achievement, ladder climbing, and working long hours and overtime are the only or most important qualities. Don’t let anyone define your worth by your net-worth or your status.
If you’re daring enough to live from your heart, you will have to shift your priorities. Your heart will demand it. Living from and listening to your heart is a lifestyle change, it will reorder your life. It may disrupt life in the short term, but in the long term, it will be worth it.
Want to discover how you can live from your heart or get support in living more courageously from your heart? Check out my book It’s Never Too Late to Be Your Self: Follow Your Inner Compass and Take Back Your Life an contact me to set up a courageous heart coaching session at www.davinakotulski.com.