The Heart: Why Is It Hard To Listen To Our Heart?

In today’s world the primary focus is on the intelligence and knowledge of the ego mind; the heart is often ignored and dismissed. It’s only in the recent years that it has been considered by the mainstream as anything other than just an organ.

So here I will give my current opinion on why the heart has been largely ignored in the today’s world.

The Beginning

From the moment one is born, one is taught to listen to the advice and recommendations of other people. And at such a young age this is important in the development and maturation of a child. If this external support was not there a child would not last very long.

And after these formative years of being informed by others about the do’s and don’ts of life, one will then go onto experience the same from teachers, peers and from many societal influences.

What this naturally creates is a tendency to look outside for what one should be doing and what one shouldn’t be doing. If this is what one has been brought up to do and has not been taught to do anything else; why would one do anything else?

Point Of Focus

Through the conditioning that had started from the time of birth and that has gone onto ones present life; there will be the tendency for ones attention to become fixed in the mind.

And perhaps this is because we are not taught that we are not our mind and that we are the observer’s of our mind. So it is only natural that we have come to identify with our mind.

During these early experiences the ego mind comes to form ideas about what is safe and what is not safe. And through this external feedback; one is likely to feel safe through looking outside of oneself.

Why Is This?

What will go a long way to defining whether one feels safe to look inside or not, will depend upon the types of experiences that they had as a child and in there proceeding life experiences.

For example: if one only felt accepted or approved of when they did what their caregivers asked of them, then this will naturally create associations of fear around doing what one wants.

And if their feelings or emotional expressions were denied or dismissed, this will also go a long way to cutting them off from their heart.

Trauma

As well as being conditioned to only feel accepted by pleasing others; there is also trauma that one is likely to have experienced to some degree or another. For some people this might have consisted of numerous extreme experiences and for others this may have been the odd unpleasant experience.

Regardless of this, we all human so it is investable that we have felt pain and have been hurt at some point in our lives

Frozen In Time

And what will make all the difference here is awareness or the lack of it. If one has not looked at these past experiences or has not processed this original trauma; their unconscious mind will have become trapped in these old patterns and ways of perceiving life. And this means that their conscious mind will constantly be drawn to these unconscious memoires.

It will not be possible for one to see life through fresh eyes or to experience the different parts of there being. The original trauma and fear will keep ones attention stuck in survival mode.

Ones awareness will be drawn into the body and the ego mind. There will be very little awareness of one’s heart or that one can be aware of their whole being and not be trapped to any one part or expression.

The Traumatized Heart

What this trauma will also do is make it extremely hard for ones awareness to connect to the hearts intelligence. Not only will this unprocessed pain be lying dormant in the body, it will also reside in the heart itself.

The traumatic experiences that one has had with their caregivers and in later life will be felt here. These can be felt as: rejection, abandonment and emptiness for example. And as anyone who has experienced these things during life will know; the heart often closes up and retracts as a result of these experiences.

It does this to protect itself and during this time ones awareness is brought to the ego mind and the ego minds main priority is to keep one safe. So again we can see the focus comes back to survival again. And one can no longer operate from every aspect of their being.

The Ego Mind

This trauma then makes it hard for one to tune into their hearts intelligence and knowing. And when one identifies with the ego mind, there will be the likelihood of regressing to the inner child.

And all the ego mind knows is the past and what is known, it cannot operate from the new and the unknown as the heart can. The ego mind can only regurgitate what has already been done; creativity does not begin in the mind. We can see that the mind sees the world though duality and has important abilities to offer, that include; organising and planning.

It has its uses of course, but to completely live from the ego mind will leave one enslaved to it. And ones whole attention will be focused on the external world.

The Heart

However, the nature of the heart is completely different experience.  The energy field of the heart has recently been found to be exponentially larger than that of the mind. This might be news in mainstream; but it has surely been known for many years on some level to people who are in tune with their heart, that there is a massive difference. 

There is an inner peace that exists in the heart space.  It does not see the duality or the separation that the ego mind does. Ones inner calling can be found here and although inspiration is often required, it is not relied upon. Inspiration works as a catalyst; so that what already exists within can be expressed. 

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Oliver J R Cooper
http://www.oliverjrcooper.co.uk/