And neither can I.
The truth is, none of us can handle our hearts.
The very instrument that plays the most melodious, joyful notes, happens to be the thing that strikes the deepest, darkest chords within our souls. And for some reason, we're only willing to listen to the happy parts.
A wise being once said that the mind is the place the soul goes to hide from the heart.
This is a very deep statement, and it's also very beautiful.
We, the soul, have trouble experiencing certain emotions that come up through our heart. Fear, anger, jealousy, deep sadness - some of these are just really hard to experience. So, what do we do?
Rather than being willing and able to sit with the temporary discomfort, we go to our minds and say, Fix it! Fix this terrible feeling I'm having now. I don't want it anymore. Get it away! Figure out a way for me not to feel this, now!
Of course, the mind goes to its memory bank and says, Aye aye captain. You weren't feeling this when she wasn't in your life. You weren't feeling this when you were on vacation. You were doing great when you had that other job.
And you take that information - yes, the very information your mind just spewed back to you without you doing anything - and you say, Wow, that's right, I need to get her out of my life, or I need to go on vacation, or I need to get a different job.
That's what we actually do. We literally listen to the neurotic part of ourselves - the mind that thinks it has the answer to our problems - and we take its advice. We follow what it says to a T.
When we're not willing to experience the deeper, darker notes of our heart, then we go to our mind for guidance. In turn, our minds tell us all they know, which is how we got away from those experiences in the past.
The problem is, this is a severely limiting way to live.
Now, your mind is telling you that only a tiny sliver of outcomes can happen - oh by the way, only outcomes that you've already had in the past - for you to be okay. Otherwise, good luck, because life is not going to be easy for you.
We can't handle our hearts, but we have to learn how to be able to.
If not, we'll forever be stuck in the destructive loop of: I'm in here, something outside happens, my heart plays an uncomfortable note, and now I go to my mind to figure out how to fix it.
Rather, we ought to use our deeper wisdom that the feeling will pass if we give it space, so we don't need to go to our minds every time there's discomfort. Instead, we can just watch it, appreciate it, realize that it's equally a part of being human as is the joyful stuff, and take that seat of awareness.
Freedom lies on the other side of the discomfort our hearts produce.
Live with substance!
Gabe Orlowitz
