Our hearts are imprisoned for just one reason: The only language they can speak is truth. Unlike the mind, which can be persuaded to accept the most bizarre ideas ("Look, it's the Hale-Bopp comet! Time to kill yourself!), your heart tells it like it is, without bothering to be tactful or socially appropriate. Free hearts rock boats, break rules, do things that disrupt the system—whether that system is a dysfunctional family, a bloated bureaucracy, or the whole wide world.
As a result, few of us speak the truth out loud. All our lives we've been hearing things like: What you are thinking/feeling/saying/becoming, etc., is stupid/rude/scandalous/sinful/depressing/ridiculous/unoriginal, etc. All the infinite variations on this theme convey just one message: Silence your heart or you will be rejected. Rejection hurts our little social-mammal hearts so much that just the threat of it convinces most of us to cooperate with our enemies. This is a two-step process: First we go dumb, learning never to speak our deepest truths. Then we go deaf, refusing to hear our own souls.
To release your heart, you simply reverse the two-step process by which you locked it up. First you begin to listen for messages from your heart—messages you may have been ignoring since childhood. Next you must take the daring, risky step of expressing your heart in the outside world. It's lucky this process is so simple, because it's also terrifying.
People with captive hearts often spend years thinking very hard about things like reawakening their passion or discovering their destiny. This never works, because such information is stored in the heart, not the brain, and is expressed by feelings, not thoughts.
Not to worry. Paying attention to any feeling unlocks your heart, and if subtle emotional nuance eludes you, physical sensations will do nicely. Try this exercise : Write a detailed description of everything you're feeling in your body. If you do this for more than ten minutes, you'll find that you've also started describing your emotions.
Think of This As "Shock" Therapy:
Once you begin listening to your heart, I guarantee it's going to say some things that shock you—otherwise, you wouldn't have locked it away in the first place. You may discover that your heart wants to spend your paycheck on flowers or wear purple spandex to a board meeting. You don't have to act on these impulses, but you must not judge or repress them.
Treat your heart like a tired, hurt child: Accept its tantrums, revenge fantasies, and pity parties, but don't get stuck in them. Say kind things to yourself: "It's okay that you love your goldfish more than your in-laws" or "Of course you want to stab Billy's third-grade teacher with a meat fork—all the moms do." When you acknowledge your forbidden feelings calmly, you'll find that you actually have more control over your actions. It's when feelings are repressed that they burst out in dangerous, unhealthy ways.
The more you tune in, the deeper the truths your heart will tell and the more intense your emotions will become. You may feel great pain about times others have hurt you—and, worse, times you have hurt others. But as this pain flows through you and begins to dissipate, you'll find something beneath it, something astonishingly powerful, something one philosopher called the "all-pervading radiant beauty" of your heart of hearts.
Treat your heart like a tired, hurt child: Accept its tantrums, revenge fantasies, and pity parties, but don't get stuck in them. Say kind things to yourself: "It's okay that you love your goldfish more than your in-laws" or "Of course you want to stab Billy's third-grade teacher with a meat fork—all the moms do." When you acknowledge your forbidden feelings calmly, you'll find that you actually have more control over your actions. It's when feelings are repressed that they burst out in dangerous, unhealthy ways.
The more you tune in, the deeper the truths your heart will tell and the more intense your emotions will become. You may feel great pain about times others have hurt you—and, worse, times you have hurt others. But as this pain flows through you and begins to dissipate, you'll find something beneath it, something astonishingly powerful, something one philosopher called the "all-pervading radiant beauty" of your heart of hearts.
Defy your inner jailer:
At this point you'll begin to realize that your heart is telling you where to steer your life. You'll know the next step because you will begin to long for anything that connects you to it.
When desire really comes from your heart, deciding to act on it will bring another strong sensation. You'll feel an extraordinary clarity, the sense that something inside you has clicked into place. Of course, your Inner Jailer might not agree. You may be flooded with reminders that your heart's instructions are stupid or boring or rude. Don't listen. Run.
When desire really comes from your heart, deciding to act on it will bring another strong sensation. You'll feel an extraordinary clarity, the sense that something inside you has clicked into place. Of course, your Inner Jailer might not agree. You may be flooded with reminders that your heart's instructions are stupid or boring or rude. Don't listen. Run.
Spread the word:
Toni Morrison said that "the function of freedom is to free someone else." This is the final step necessary for keeping your heart at liberty, and you do it in just one way: by telling your story. However you do it—a journal, an artistic creation, the pictures you hang on your walls, or the way you raise your children—telling your story demolishes the barriers between your heart and the outside world. I won't lie: This means that your heart will be exposed and, yes, broken. But it's important to remember that a heart is imprisoned not by being broken but by being silenced. There will be people (often the people you most want to please) who won't like what you say. It's going to hurt—and it's going to heal.
As you learn to live by heart, every choice you make will become another way of telling your story, calling your tribe, and liberating not only your heart but the hearts of others. This is the very definition of love, the process that makes all-too-human people and societies capable of true humanity. It will chart you a life's journey as unique and authentic as your fingerprint; send you out, full of hope and breathtaking exhilaration, onto paths you never thought you could travel. It is the way you were meant to exist. If you stop to listen, you'll realize that your heart has been telling you so all along.
