Mind vs Heart

Well, things have settled down since being home from my vacation. We had a very adventuress and wonderful time. I am telling you we made so many memories and laughs to last a life time. But I have to tell you, I had a few challenges that I told myself I would address when I got home. These were what I thought were thoughts and feelings that I kept to myself, but my sister noticed them and she kindly told me at one point…..”Girl for all the talk you do and all the healthy life style you preach, it sounds like your mind and your heart are at a war with each other.   You know what? She is absolutely right. Completely right. I didn’t think it was so transparent but apparently it is. At least to someone who knows me real well, as she does. I figure it’s time to get a few job descriptions to figure out what the "mind and heart's" responsibilities are.

I need to get my mind to do its job and my heart to do its job and stop the confusion between the two of them. In order for me to make good decisions and feel good about those decisions and when I make bad decisions, not to beat myself up internally. Life is too short and frankly at my age I thought I had this all figured out. Every day is a challenge and I thought I would get to a point where life would become a breeze. The thing is I feel I can do a better job at taking care of myself and sometimes I just need a tune up to get myself back on track. I think I will do a better job if let my mind and heart know what each of them are responsible for doing. If we clear that up maybe I can rest and just let them do their own job.

The main reason I don’t always feel good about the way I look and feel after all my hard work of living a healthier life is because my mind and heart are thinking and feeling in opposite directions, I think I have mistaken the purpose of heart and mind. The heart is like a compass; its purpose is to guide the direction our lives should take. Our heart takes a bird's eye view on our life and says “this is where you are and this is the direction you need to go.” Our mind, on the other hand, isn’t made for making purpose-driven decisions. The nature of the mind is that it conceptualizes, organizes and compares information. It does this as best it can and says “here are the facts, here are both sides of the story.” If we compare our mind and heart to a courtroom, our mind would be the defendant and the plaintiff (both stories) and our heart would be justice or the judge (the right direction). The reason we’re so troubled by this conflict of "Mind vs. Heart" is that the mind is not only playing the prosecutor and the defense, but has taken over the role of the judge as well. The mind should never be the judge. The mind's job is to compare and contrast. To sort things out and say “this is what I’ve got, do what you want with it.” But more often than not, our mind isn’t doing that. Our mind is making our choices.



What’s worse, is even when we don’t need our mind to be at work, it’s still going. Comparing and contrasting everything. Brooding, mostly. Have you noticed that when this is happening, your mind is getting in the way of your experience? Just a few examples of this that come to mind are: watching a sunset, or being with family and friends. A mind really doesn’t need to be thinking while doing these things. Sometimes I feel like my mind is going in so many directions and it's hard to calm it down. There’s no point at all for the mind to be doing this. Your heart should just be in the here and now.                 


I figure that my mind needs to give me all the facts that it has, or get the facts and give them to my heart. Then I need to listen to my heart. My heart will know what to do to. I need to trust my heart but more importantly I need to listen to my heart. 

While on my vacation I needed to listen to my heart and ease up on myself. My heart only wants the best for me.  I am not in my thirties any more.  I am almost fifty years old but sometimes my mind thinks I am still a kid. I just thought this tug of war with myself would be over by now, but I suppose as long as I am on this earth I will always be dealing with some internal challenges.  I need to listen to my heart, and yes sometimes listen to my sister too.  Thanks Debbie for making me look in the mirror and tell myself I am beautiful no matter what size, shape or what age I am.  You are too and I love you.  Divas…..we really need to stick together to pull strength from each other.