We have all been there…… that one decision that pulls on our heart strings and makes us feel conflicted by the choice we need to make …Which do you follow your heart or your head?
Your mind is a fantastic tool for analytical thinking and problem solving, it’s your mind that allows you to review the “pro’s and con’s and to balance the good and the bad and achieve rational thought, However, as great as the mind is at assisting us to make decisions, it is also is where “fear” resides.
Our mind sometimes disguises fear as “rational thinking” and allows us to remember all the reasons why we should stay in our “comfort zone” by referring to past negative memories which can cause overthinking and over analysing, keeping us paralyzed by the fear of change and afraid of the worst as we fear “What will happen?”
Your heart is where you’re intuition lies or “your gut feeling”, I believe this is the primal driver of your emotion and your instinct, for example a simple way to illustrate this is to think about the first impression you get when you meet someone “Do you like them? Do you like the vibe they give you? How do they make you feel?” The energy impression you receive from them is basically your body and soul’s instinctual impression about how you feel without thought.
I believe the heart is imperative to follow when making decisions as it is an indicator of how we truly feel about a situation or a person. By following our instinct, it assists to make decisions which are in line with what we truly want from a soul level.
The main issue with making decisions purely based on emotion, is if we are out of balance, that emotion can take over our judgement and sometimes we can likely make decisions on impulse or based on anger which may not be in our favour, that if were calm and balanced would not occur. For example think about trying to reason with someone who is in a fit of anger, would that work? Not likely.
I used to previously always follow my logical and rational mind when making decisions, however after years and years of operating this way, I ended up feeling empty and regretful in some of the decisions I had made as I never followed my intuition, for example. “My gut instinct told me “I don’t like that person” I disregarded it and used logic and gave them “the benefit of the doubt” to only realise that they would hurt me later down the track, this happened time and time again. Had I followed my instinct the outcome may have been different. I now look at my “gut feeling” or “intuition” as my warning indicator or radar for what feels best for me and aligns with my heart, I then use reason and logic to help me make balanced and aligned choices which are not purely based on raw emotion.
A visual that assist me to navigate between both is thinking about my mind and body as the car and my heart as the driver, for example my heart decides where and which direction it wants to go in and my mind helps me to arrive to my destination safely. Either way I just wanted to highlight this as something to think about as to me there is nothing worse than the thought of getting to a later stage in life and having lived a life full of regret, than a lifetime filled with happiness which is in alignment with your soul.