The heart has reasons of which the mind knows nothing.
~Blaise Pascale
We over-dwell in the headspace. Our modern society has hailed science, data, and a logical/rational approach to life as the gold standard for us all to aspire to, even when most of us have a soupçonne that there is more to it than that.
What about the heart? The reasons we have for things that don’t correlate to something logical? What we feel and can’t explain, yet are compelled to move forward on? The things we can’t measure yet know are a deep part of our human existence?
We’re sold a reality today that is fabricated. Its cornerstone is the belief that we aren’t enough, and always need something more to prove that we are. There is countless research, reasons, and logic behind this “need,” yet the more we buy into it and and the more we fill our heads, hearts, and homes with “proof,”we find ourselves distanced from the spirit we need. That gives us our why for being here.
It’s disheartening to realize that so much around us today is not real. We can’t trust our eyes because what we take in isn’t reality. Which incites a desire within to discover what is real. To get curious, to question what we see before us, to not blindly accept and open our arms wide to let it all rush in and confuse us further. You know what I’m finding? The things that are real are closer than we think. It is us who have chosen not to listen, to see, to carve out time each day to recognize it for the balm, the peace we all so desperately need.
My heart is found in nature. In the wise old oak tree in my backyard, in the twists and turns of a hiking trail, the sunshine I feel on my skin when I step away from my computer and move outside during the day. My heart is found when I let myself fully focus on what my loved ones are saying to me, instead of thinking about my to-do list or the next thing I think I should do to keep “ahead of things.” My heart is found when I embrace newness and don’t default to habit or distraction as a way to live life. Laughter. Night time snuggles with my kids. Witty banter. A nourishing meal, shared with friends and loved ones. So many beautiful moments to connect with our heart, to feel its strident beating within our chests. Reminding us that we are alive, we are here, and nowhere else.
None of these things make sense to the mind. There is no study, no data, no metrics to share. In fact, the heart defies all of these things as it reclaims its rightful spot as master of our destiny, putting the mind in its rightful spot as servant to the master. The mind spins, the heart knows. The mind seeks to control, the heart longs to expand and be free. The two must coexist somehow, so all the more reason to accept Monsieur Pascale’s statement around mystery, the unknown, the ineffable as truth, soul truth. To ask ourselves what our heart wants and pursue its truth relentlessly, dropping the false, the fabricated, the grossly fantastical for what you can see, feel, touch, smell, hear…know.