How to let your heart guide you when you’re unsure of what to do.
Have you ever heard of “circular thinking?” It’s a concept I come back to often since I first learned it; it’s when our mind repeats the same thought patterns – things people said, things we wish we said, negative self-talk, horrible or favorite memories. The cool thing is that we can break our circular thinking when we practice mindfulness and catch ourselves when we’re spinning in it. One way to do this is to listen to your heart.
For a few years I’ve been experiencing a hurtful cycle of thoughts involving someone I used to be very close to. I was telling myself the same story about the events that led up to the dissolving of our relationship, and I was telling the same story when confiding to friends about it. I literally repeated myself about the things that were little, big, not said, said, insinuated. I asked, “Am I wrong? How can I make this right again?”
I got a lot of the same feedback. There wasn’t just a single “happening” that hurt the relationship. For me, the issues came down to his politics, my boundaries, his lacking both respect and forgiveness, and his wanting to have control. I didn’t do what he wanted me to do, and that made him mad; I think from his point of view, the issues came down to things like loyalty and tradition.
I couldn’t let it go. I couldn’t heal from it. Every time I reached out, there was the potential to reopen the wound or cause or receive a new one. I wanted to make it alright, to get our relationship back to the way it used to be, but I didn’t know how.
One of the things I’ve learned through my yoga practice (off the mat) is that if you’re not sure what to do about something:
Consider, how would it make you feel if you did the thing?
How would it make you feel if you didn’t do it?
How would it make others feel?
This is where listening to the heart is important. Our mind tells us one thing, but if we listen to our heart, we can almost never go wrong. Think about it – when is a time that you didn’t listen to your heart, and how did that make you feel? What about the times when you do listen and follow it?
I was at a roundtable discussion during a retreat recently, where I sat with four random strangers and we talked about anything that was on our minds. One person asked: What’s something you need to let go of?
When it was my turn to speak, I said that I had something (which is the situation I wrote about here), but that I didn’t want to talk about it because I would just be repeating the same quotes, the same “he said” and “I felt,” and that part of my letting go is to stop talking about it altogether. It was a slow process, but I’m realizing that he has changed, I have changed, he doesn’t owe me anything despite our history and relationship, and I can’t make someone else forgive or accept me.
Oof. That’s a lot, and it was difficult to come around to. It’s still not easy.
During the roundtable, I did say that I wasn’t sure if I should call him on a special holiday that was approaching. What did my heart say?
It said that if I really didn’t want to call him, then I wouldn’t be questioning it as an option. It said I wanted to call, that it was worth risking shortness from him, or a new unexpected comment that would send me into another cycle, because if I didn’t call I would regret that even more. It was a peace offering; it always is.
I called. I kept it light. I said hello, and listened to the casual comments about the happenings of the morning, I answered the usual questions that come up when you don’t see someone often, and I said goodbye when the conversation came to a natural end.
My heart felt lighter, or the same, but not heavier because if I didn’t call, it would’ve increased the wedge between us, and that isn’t what my heart wanted.
You’ll notice that even though I’m writing about the situation, I’m not going into the details because the details are what I’m letting go of. They’re history. My hope is that this might help you right now to let go, and to listen to your heart.
Do you have a call to make? In what tangible way can you listen to your heart to create more inner – and possibly outer – peace?
Until next time,
CherieDawn
Upcoming Retreat
If you need time, space, and guidance to work on your novel, join me in September for a one-of-a-kind retreat at EarthJoy Treehouse Village in Bracken County, Kentucky. [more info on this writers retreat]
LifeSoup by Cherie Dawn Haas 
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