Following your heart means different things to different people. For some, it means doing what you love. For others, it means doing what feels right. But what if I told you that 96 percent of people who claim to follow their hearts are actually not? What are they following, then? In this week’s post, I’ll share my answer to these questions, and share with you three simple things you need to do if you TRULY want to follow your heart.
According to Dr. David R. Hawkins, author of Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender, only 4% of people ever reach the vibrational level of love. This is because most people are left brain dominant and therefore operate not from love, but from a pre-determined set of beliefs about what they believe love is.
But knowing about love is not the same as the experience of love. One is mental, the other one, fully experiential. For you to fully experience love – not as a passing feeling, but as a way of being that is caring, nurturing and supportive of all life, it must be fully embodied. Embodiment is the key to being heart-directed. Without it, you risk following not your heart but what you’ve been conditioned to want.
Finding your Connection to Love
If you want to be more heart-directed in everyday life, you first must find your inner alignment with the vibration of love. In some cases, this can happen spontaneously. But it can also be the result of deliberately setting the intention or engaging in a series of practices.
In my experience, there’s no better, more effective framework to do this than Tej Steiner’s Five Ways of Being: being clear, present, real, connected and heart-directed. The Five Ways of Being provide a roadmap for living an emotionally and spiritually satisfying life that fully expresses what it means to follow your heart.
The problem most people have, however, is not knowing where to start.
How to Embody the Five Ways of Being in Everyday Life
“Inquiry into and cultivation of the Five Ways of Being are required for becoming more aware and heart-present. We must explore our purpose, quiet our minds, fully feel our emotions, come into connected love, and follow what we truly want.”
Tej Steiner
As Tej mentions above, the key to fully embodying The Five Ways of Being are inquiry and cultivating of a way of being with yourself and others that is connected to love so that we can truly follow our hearts.
Here are three ways you can do that:
1) Inquiry: Asking deep, meaningful questions
This process requires you set aside time to activate your heart/brain connection, and enter into a receptive state of mind where you can ask yourself the following questions:
- Being Clear: What is my life purpose? How does what I do in everyday life support my purpose?
- Being Present: How do I stop my constant thinking and become more still and fully present?
- Being Real: What am I feeling emotionally at this moment?
- Being Connected: Am I experiencing love and connection right now?
- Being Heart-Directed: Am I following what I truly want, or what I’m conditioned to want?
2) Cultivating heart connection and heart direction
Cultivating The Five Ways of Being requires engaging in practices that can help you be more present, real, connected, and heart-directed.
A great practice you can engage in regularly is Witnessing. This simple practice Tej jokingly refers to as “the mother of all practices” requires you to become fully present to your thoughts, physical sensations, feelings, and the energy behind them.
3) Sitting in a Circle with Others
Sitting in a circle regularly gives you an opportunity to practice being clear, present, real, connected, and heart-directed with others. The circle creates a safe space where you can learn to be more fully present, express yourself more authentically, feel more connected to others, and explore what it is your heart is wanting.
Tej Steiner’s book, Waking Up with Everyone Around Us, does a fantastic job describing how to facilitate Heart Circles – a circling process where people can practice The Five Ways of Being together. His approach has made such a powerful impact in my life that I decided to facilitate all my courses and seminars using this format. I highly recommend you read it and even start your circle!
In Conclusion
Ultimately, the key to following your heart is first becoming present and connected to love. Without this connection, instead of following your heart, you’ll be following what you’ve been conditioned to want by your parents, culture, or society.
Want to go deeper in this work?
If you feel called to go deeper in this work, a great way to do that is by joining our Heart Mastery Course. This introductory level course is for people who want to learn the foundational principles and practices of Heart-Centered Living, and learn how to follow their hearts. As a result of participating, you’ll be creating a life that is in perfect alignment with their core values, life purpose, and true desires of their hearts.
To learn more about Heart Mastery or to enroll, please visit the course’s information page.
From my heart to yours,
