In my Trust Your Heart Support Group today we talked about how to follow your heart and trust your own path. You really can find the best answers and the best way of doing things for you. Many times we look at others and think we have to do things the way they’re doing them, when we’re supposed to march to the beat of our drummer.
Trusting your own path often requires quieting all the voices that tell you that you should be doing something different or that the way you’re doing things isn’t good enough. Sometimes those are real voices of the people in your life, telling you that you’re doing it wrong or that you should act or think differently. But, often the voices are internal. If you’re busy looking around at how other people are doing things and comparing yourself to them, you’ll start to second guess yourself and your unique inspiration.
Sometimes the voices of the past haunt us. Parents, teachers, old friends, or old lovers are the voices that haunt us, telling us we’re not measuring up or that perhaps we never will succeed. These voices can haunt our present, sabotaging even the most beautiful of circumstances. We may be totally supported and loved for who we are in our current relationships, but still hear the old voices tearing us down. It’s easy to overlay these old voices onto the new people in our lives.
Some of us have a tendency to alter ourselves to try to impress others. For example, if you really want to impress someone, you might alter yourself to fit what you think they want you to be. Many times the other person isn’t wanting you to change at all. It’s just your perception that they want you to change. You may be assuming that because this other person does things differently than you do that your way isn’t measuring up to their expectations.
I know there are people in my life whom I dearly love who do not think or act the way I do. The last thing I would want them to do is change to impress me. What impresses me most is someone who has the courage to march to the beat of his own drummer.
In Order to Follow Your Heart, You Have to Hear It
Whether it’s our own self-criticism or that of others, moving forward requires putting those voices to rest and listening to our hearts. The heart speaks softly. It doesn’t compete with the voices. It quietly and softly assures us that we can trust ourselves, that we can trust our inspiration, that our voices do matter. It’s easy for that quiet, assuring voice of the heart to get drowned out by noise and negativity.
In order to hear your heart, it helps to have a daily method for connecting to it and hearing what it has to share. In my Trust Your Heart Group today, I gave participants a bit of homework that I’d like to share with you here. I hope it will help you slow down and listen to your heart and what it has to say.
Get a notebook or a journal and at the end of each day, jot down 3 things.
1) 1 thing you can celebrate that you did well that day. You may think you haven’t done anything right some days, but you most certainly have done something right — even if its only that you parked between the white lines in the parking lot!
2) 1 miracle. Look at the “coincidences” and realize they are your miracles. For example, whenever I hear someone say the word “roasting” to describe how hot it is, I think of my mother because she’d often say, “It’s roasting in here… turn the air on.” When I hear that rare phrase, it’s just one of the hundreds of little reminders that Mama’s still here with me, looking out for me. Notice the little things. Document them with observant gratitude.
3) 1 thing you learned each day. What is something you learned about yourself, about the world, about life? No matter how small or insignificant it may be, what did you learn today?
Documenting these three items doesn’t have to take a lot of time or require a lengthy journal entry. Simply take a few minutes to reflect on your day.
As you make this a practice, the biggest shift that will happen for you will be in your perspective. When you know you must document these three things, throughout the day your eyes will be more open to see the little miracles. You’ll more easily see the things that went right and the things you learned.
By embracing the good, more good will come to you. Life will become sweeter and more connected to the divine. Thus, answers and insights will begin to flow more readily for you.
