Success and happiness are in the heart

Success and happiness are in the heart

Tim Connor

The heart is the most important organ in the body.  Yes you need every other organ to function correctly but when the heart stops – well it’s over. Few people grasp that the heart is more than an organ that just pumps blood every minute of every day.

You’ve heard it – what does your heart tell you?  Does this mean the heart has feelings, emotions, can give you guidance on important matters or questions or is generally an insignificant aspect of life’s decisions, outcomes or behaviors?

Everything I have read over the years tells me to listen to my heart and not just my brain when considering challenges or opportunities.  For, years I accepted this guidance but didn’t really know what it meant or how to do it.

How can the heart think or feel?  I thought these were brain functions. Let me ask you – have you ever made a decision that you justified but it didn’t feel right? And the outcome or consequences?

Years ago I read in a powerful book, that said, “The most important thing we need to do to be happy and successful is to take the 18 inch journey from the mind to the heart when we need to make decisions, take actions or just learn to live life.” When I read those words frankly I didn’t know what they meant let alone how to take this journey but over the years it has become much clearer.  Let me explain.

The human body is a very complex organism and its trillions of actions it takes every second are carefully crafted and coordinated.  Research has proven that every cell has memory and this includes every cell in your heart.  What does this mean when cells remember?  Or better still can they do more - that we just haven’t discovered yet?

These are questions I have pondered for many years as it was my early life goal to be a neurosurgeon (just never made it).

The body is far more complex than the best researchers or physicians realize.  It does things every second and we haven’t figured out how or why, we just know that these functions give us life.

So, one has to wonder if the cells in the heart are better equipped to help us make wise decisions than brain cells?  Evidence is beginning to surface that say the answer is yes.

Scripture says in multiple locations that we need to live form our heart.  Psychologists are beginning to understand that when actions are taken just from brain memories we often go astray.

I’m not qualified to question the research in either area but I know when I have made decisions only from my brain, things have always tended to turn out badly or even wrong.  Why?  Did I fail to honor feelings or urgings from my heart and did I mistake these heartfelt feelings or emotions and assume they were coming from my mind?

How can we really know where this council is coming from especially if we don’t have the appropriate backgrounds or benefits of years of research?  We can’t.  But what we can do is pay attention, listen and heed.

Often heart messages feel like they are coming from our gut.  We feel anxious or nervous when we feel we are heading in a wrong direction.  Been there?  Of course it’s part of our makeup.  The question is – what do we listen to – our thoughts, memories or mindsets that have developed over the years or from feelings, emotions or urgings that we can’t identify or often ever grasp or understand.

Our soul or spirit wants us to be happy, at peace and content and its messages guiding us in this direction come at us constantly even if very subtly.

The ability to come at life from the heart is not difficult if we will just pay attention and listen to its guidance, but most of us over the years have been trained to look at everything from a mental or mind perspective justifying, acting and deciding based on previous experience or thought patterns (what many refer to as our our mental maps).

True success and happiness requires that we do both – think and feel if we want the best possible outcomes and that we use the messages from both the heart and the mind when making decisions or taking actions.  But the real life success will only come when we let the heart lead and the mind follow.

“The key to success is for you to make a habit throughout your life of doing the things you fear."

 Vincent Van Gogh