My journey from my head to my heart

Inspired by Debbie Ford's book, The Dark Side of the Light Chasers: Reclaiming Your Power, Creativity, Brilliance, and Dreams

The analytical side of my brain is fully aware of its perception that the "heart" cannot feel emotions, cannot speak to me, cannot give me clarity, or cannot help me access my intuition.

My analytical brain believes that my heart is a very important organ in my body, and its job is to pump and cycle my blood through my veins—as a result, it keeps me alive.

However, the creative side of my brain, the side that allows me to think beyond what’s obvious or strictly scientific, imagines my heart to be more than just an organ.

Throughout the centuries, numerous times, the heart has been written about. Ancient sacred texts from the Bible and the Koran both offer us insights into how and why people should pay attention to their hearts.

If for centuries, wisdom texts have told us over and over again about the power and need to ‘follow our heart’, to ‘listen to our heart’, and to ‘guard our heart’, surely we shouldn’t dispose of it because the analytical side of our brain is confused or uncomfortable.

And so, I write about my journey from my head to my heart.

I just came back from a cool walk with my dog. While out on the country roads, I listened to Ford’s book. In it, she talks about this head-to-heart journey.

In a nice cadence, swaying side to side with my white pup, Ford started talking about people's internal division. I’m paraphrasing, but she noted how from our earliest memories, humans begin categorizing our behaviours into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ buckets.

Omitting moral and ethical notions, we do divide our behaviors into the good and bad categories, and as such, even as adults, we continue to. But here’s what happens: while as children we begin to "fill" these "good" and "bad" behavior buckets, we initially don’t hide them. They are for all to see—front and center. But then a shift happens.

As we age, somewhere along our adolescence, we begin to realize or tell ourselves the story that, if we show people what’s inside our "bad" bucket, whatever is in our ‘good’ one ceases to exist, or at the very least, it becomes pitiful.

We go through life masking, covering, or fortressing our ‘bad’ bucket from people, and if some happen to see it, well god, we’ve just outed ourselves as the dark demonic figure we know ourselves to be.

However, simultaneously, while we hide our ‘bad’ bucket from others, we passively or humbly show our "good" one, especially to the people that "matter".

Any of this ringing true?

So what happens when we mask a large part of ourselves and deny that’s who we are, but then pretend to be humble while wishing people saw the whole of our "good" bucket?

It’s called internal confusion, and we do it for one reason: to be accepted—it’s a heart thing.

Humans are interdependent beings. It’s an evolutionary bi-product of our conditioning. Whether people want to acknowledge it or not, we need to be in a relationship with another.

Thoughts like:

“If people saw that I am a jerk I’d lose my friendships."

"If she knew that I am a bit** she’d never hang out with me."

"If he knew how selfish I am he’d leave me."

"If she knew how lustful I can be, she’d leave me."

"If my parents knew how greedy I am they’d scold me."

"If my boss knew how judgemental I am, he'd fire me.”

The list goes on and on. Put whatever word and circumstance in that applies to you. The truth is, we hide or do our best to hide our "bad" bucket contents out of FEAR of loss, fear of being alone.

Woah. Isn’t it interesting how we subconsciously conspire with ourselves to maintain human relationships?

But stop here and think. If we hide our bad, and barely show our good to others, who do people around us think we are?

They think we are who we think they will love.

The jig is up folks.

The real bedrock opportunity for us is to see our two buckets are in fact one, and in order for people to receive our new BIG bucket, we need to embrace all that’s within it.

But before they can receive it, we have to start a new conversation with ourselves.

We are seriously our hardest judge. Just think, would you ever talk to others and hold them to your own incessant standards, and would you have a friend afterwards—definitely not.

Our first step in showing acceptance to our bad bucket contents is to see how each one serves us. That’s right, just because you have named some of your behaviors as "bad" doesn’t mean that they are useless.

Here’s an example from the book. Ford, for years, struggled with knowing she was a bit**. One afternoon she found herself at a conference deciding to stand up and speak at the mic. After sharing, the speaker confronted her and said, “You’re a bit**.”

Followed by this statement, the speaker asked, “Rather than making your bit**ness wrong, in what ways does it serve you to be a bit** sometimes?”

Stunned and in shock, the speaker answered for her. “Imagine that you are 3 months behind on your home renovation, over budget, and your work crew is taking extra-long lunch breaks, it might serve you well to bring out your bit**iness a bit, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” Ford said.

The speaker continued to make up other anecdotes to paint the picture that our "bad" behaviours, in fact, can help and serve us.

Now, if you’re anything like me, you’re already going through your own list with, “Well, mine is worse,” or, “Yeah, but when I do ‘x’, that can’t possibly serve people.” Ah yes, but notice, this exercise is not about how we can better serve others, right now, it’s about how we can effectively and accurately understand and love ourselves.

Now, that’s not to say we should not be looking out for others. The point of this exercise is not to get you to open up a can of nasty on the world around you, but rather, like all things, when used in the right circumstance, all of our behaviours in our BIG bucket can and should serve us.

Granted, I’m no expert. But as I went down this rabbit hole in my own life, I started to think about my "bad" behaviors.

What don’t I want people to think when they think of me: Selfish; greedy, envious, entitled, asshole, manipulative, arrogant, proud, wimp, or a hypocrite. Yikes, who wants me to love this… ☺

Today, as my dog and I were finishing up our walk, I started thinking through circumstances in which these behaviors could serve me. I could see it. Are they fuzzy, warm, and puppy cuddly situations? No. But they are situations where, if I had to use them, they could help me. Odd.

Why am I doing this work, why am I choosing to enter into my heart and see what’s disconnected? Simply, because I want more out of life. Selfish? Maybe, but for now, I’ll own that.

If I can imagine a life where I love all parts of myself, the "good" and "bad" and I don’t act like a villain or narcissist, and show up authentically, and am still loved by others, then life becomes seemingly effortless.

Where do I go from here? I am interested in further investigating how to love the "bad" parts of me, what it practically looks like in life when practiced, and in the process, one phrase that is expanding the light and hope within myself is this:

Without light we would know no darkness, without evil, we would know no good.

Without going to the ancient philosophers, maybe there’s room for both the good and bad in our lives, but the challenge lies within how we hold and use them, not whether they can occupy the same space.

***After reading this, can you think of so-called ‘bad’ behaviors and describe how they could potentially serve people vs. being useless or just destructive. Unpacking this stuff can really help people with investigating their own "bucket".