Only quite recently have I become aware that I used my mind to protect myself from letting people into my life.
I’ve been a master at saying things that I thought sounded great and really sophisticated, but they were not coming from a heartful place, rather they were designed to keep people away. In other words, I didn’t really want to connect with people and show who I truly was on the inside. It was quite ‘effective’ and very few, if any, dared to question me; which sounds quite horrible when I say it like that, but that’s how it was. It feels quite ‘yuk’ and it also leaves you in a state where you are quite lonely.
However, this is slowly changing and it feels as if I’m shifting something big here. It feels as if I’m on the cusp of a new era for me in how I relate to others.
I’m willing to let go of the protection I have had around people and I’m willing for others to enjoy me for who I truly am, in all the imperfections that I have – however, not making them the focus, because I am pretty awesome when I allow myself and others to feel it.
So you could say that I’m slowly shifting myself from being mind driven to becoming more impulsed by my heart, and the (not so funny thing actually) is that having been mind driven for a long time takes a toll on your body and can leave it quite empty and vacated.
It’s as if you leave for holidays and you forget that your flowers need watering and you come home and they are all not looking so great. Sorry for the dramatic picture, but that’s how it is in a way. The mind doesn’t nurture the body but the heart definitely does. So the heart incorporates the whole body, while the mind is pretty much just interested in itself. Like having a staff meeting, but the boss has not invited the rest of the staff. No real joy and harmony happening there, is it?
So the heart, the precious heart, incorporates in all its humility, the whole body, which we could say is a whole body intelligence, whilst the mind brings with it a mind that is full of itself, or it could be translated to being mind-full. So mindfulness is not the big saviour everyone tends to think it is: heart-fullness, on the other hand, is. It could be likened to having presents on your birthday – one gives you everything you’ve ever dreamed of and beyond, and the other brings you an empty box, or at best, presents from your last birthday.
Said with a newly found appreciation for how important it is to have a love filled relationship with my body, which as a result, brings true intelligence. For what intelligence is intelligent, if it leaves the body in a mess?
By Matts Josefsson, Student of Behavioural Science, Stockholm, Sweden
Further Reading:
Vulnerability: opening the way for healthier relationships
Learning to Find Me and Live My Life
The Body’s Intelligence
710 Comments
Isn’t it amazing how much promoting there is for the mind to be the ruler of our hearts, when the mind can be a dark and desolate place, whereas the heart never ceases to love.
Mmmm this is a big one isn’t it. I am sure a lot of people can relate to this … I certainly can! ‘I didn’t really want to connect with people and show who I truly was on the inside.’ I am starting to do this more and more (let people see the true me and let people in) but can still feel I need to let go even more of the energetic barriers I have put up to keep people out fall away. What I am feeling as well is am I prepared to be truly deeply loved as there has been part of me within where I have not fully accepted this.
We can be extremely good at coming up with all the ‘right’ words to make it sound like we’re being open, friendly, nice and polite, when in fact we’re hiding behind these words and using them as a wall of protection. Understanding who we truly are and having the courage to just be ourselves can only come with a lived consistent connection to our body and what we can feel. To be ourselves means to know and love ourselves.
Our bodies are always asking us to be more, our cells deep down know we are all one, it is the brain run by the sprit that keeps us in behaviours that are always separate to the whole.
And the beautiful thing about letting people into our life is that we open ourselves up to meeting new people perhaps people we wouldn’t have normally socialised with and we learn to develop relationships that once were uncomfortable and thought impossible. In letting go of the protection we begin to make life about people first.
‘So mindfulness is not the big saviour everyone tends to think it is: heart-fullness, on the other hand, is.’ I don’t know mindfulness very well, the only thing I observe is that it seems to be a hype and the answer on all our woes but we have to care for our entire body and let our inner heart lead the way as there is where our true intelligence is based.
Yes you can be a mindful drug addict but it doesn’t help the body to be the temple of love we need to feel the harmony we all are looking for.
Recently I realised that even though I thought I was more in my body and heart than in my mind the opposite was true. The mind is very good at getting the attention on everything and anything other than our body and heart even if the thoughts ‘sound good’ and loving it can still be coming from and ideal or belief of what is good and what is not good. The other this I found is that it is a constant deepening in being more and more present with our heart and body. There is no end in this.
I agree, what was once a pretty decent level of being aware and connected with our body becomes yesterdays news when we deepen even more. Like you say, there is no end to it, only a forever deepening.
True intelligence and a love filled way of living and being in and from our body and with others from there is beautiful and a real offering of the different choices we can make and the choosing of love innately that we all are.
This sounds all to familiar – using the mind and being fooled by thoughts that when we stop to read them truly from the body are not ours.
Its so funny how we can calculate with our minds what we should say and sum up how we can get someone on side when in reality when this happens, everyone loses out.
Yes and the beautiful thing is that even before we open our mouth everyone has already felt how we are and what intent we come with so we cannot really lie, only get confused when someone says something that doesn’t correspond with what we feel they are really saying.
There is nothing more real and true than when we share from our hearts, from the truth of our bodies and our lived wisdom. And when we are ourselves in this way I find the joy supersedes anything that changing who I am to fit in or to be accepted offers.
Totally agree with you Carola.
Using mind driven intelligence at the expense of the body is a very effective way of protecting our hurts, as in the arrogance it generates it tells others that we are superior and that there is nothing you can have over us. The investment we have in being perceived as intelligent keeps us from feeling the innate love and wisdom we all naturally hold and can all naturally express.
Its so crazy the amount of stories we tell ourselves that give us the perfect excuse not to connect, unfortunately the whole world is suffering because there is too much story telling and not enough feeling.
Quite astounding to admit that if we, and that includes me as well, talk from our head, we actually keep people away.
Great to re-visit this blog Matts – letting go of protecting the heart in order to let love out and share who we are with the world and then allowing others in is key in our return to the truth of who we are – LOVE .
“So you could say that I’m slowly shifting myself from being mind driven to becoming more impulsed by my heart, and the (not so funny thing actually) is that having been mind driven for a long time takes a toll on your body and can leave it quite empty and vacated”.