I have been on a journey myself to discover what lies underneath that skin of mine and what kind of infrastructure I hold down beneath what I know and conscious about and what I don’t know and live unconsciously with. The findings are astonishing. And here I will share what possibilities you also have when you begin your discovery!

First, you want to come to a realization that everything you do, and the person you represent is not by any chance an independent individual or a standalone entity from your core family: Your parents; your siblings. That family dynamic has formed your experiences and the most emotional and phycological intimate parts of you. If you have a coach or a therapist, this is key for them to investigate if you want to “find yourself” or “recenter” yourself and lead your life from your heart.

What does leading your life from your heart really mean?

When you are faced with a situation, at home, at work, on the street… the first thing that comes to you from your heart is your heart’s reaction to it, whatever comes next (and you mostly act on it) is your intellect. Although, your intellect is important, it might seem to be influenced by your experiences, traumas, and your adapted version of yourself to these experiences and traumas. However, your heart always knows what your purest forms of feelings and reactions are and can guide you towards re-centering yourself.

Where does this intellect reaction come from?

Over the years, we are shaped by countless number of experiences (some of it traumatic) and molded to behave in certain way by our family (and extended one), school, friends, society… This mold represents what is expected from us on how to behave. As children, we might want to fit in and adapt to these molds that are premade for anyone to fit in. What this mold does, is that it overlays our heart’s truest nature. We learn how to eat with a fork and knife (simplest example). We learn how we ignore our feelings and not speak about them in our family. We learn how to adapt to physical, emotional or mental abuse and the implications it has on our personality… and so on… these are all adaptations and in certain instances they are needed for our survival. But when you take your car to work, you park it in the parking lot to go to your office. It becomes impossible to do your work if you intend to drive your car physically to your office space rather than the parking lot.

Where does leading from your heart come from?

Before I dive into answering this question, let me ask you this: Do you feel numb by your daily routine? Do you feel like you have lost or never had your life purpose? Do you feel that whatever you do is meaningless or not of impact? Or that you’re on autopilot? These are all signs of leading solely from your intellect. Becoming absolutely dependent on your intellect decentralizes you and drives you away from your core essence. Leading from your heart is always leading from a place of love. Realizing that you deserve to be loved and happy by yourself and making decisions that represent this realization but also looking at your outside world (family, friends, colleagues…) with that exact lens, is realizing your core sense of existence (all the needs to analyze, plot, strategize… when interacting with others subside…)

Leading from your heart gives you the opportunity to suffer.

When you are leading from your intellect, you will find all hidden passageways or shortcuts to overcome any suffering. And this is a natural human thing to do. We have learned this inherently from our ancestors through our evolution. Bypassing suffering means ignoring feelings that come up in hopes that we wouldn’t have to deal with it and carry on living. But what happens when the bucket is full? Would it really be living your fullest life? Or would you be surviving? And is surviving living? When you lead from your heart you begin to realize that the path to a full life that unleashes your potentials cannot bypass feelings generated by past experiences that have affected you and your closest family (parents and siblings). You start to deep dive into these feelings and allow them to exist, in a way to deal with them and set them free. Little by little you start to liberate yourself from them, and peal off the layers of adaptation, circumstantial behaviors and patterns, defense mechanisms that overlay your beautiful self.

To liberate yourself from all of this, you must go through your life’s suffering, accepting the suffering as it is, living with it and then liberating yourself from it in due time, will help your lead from your heart.

There are no shortcuts to living.

There are no shortcuts to living. There are shortcuts if you want to survive. And the decision is always yours to make.