How to follow your heart 🫀

To follow one’s heart is no simple, surface-level task. And though it will lead you to grand and gorgeous places, to dreams come true, it is so much more than merely following your superficial whims and desires.

No, following your heart is a gritty, glorious act of devotion.

You have to stay connected to your spirit. You have to keep your eyes wide. You have to stay open and ready to act accordingly. 

You have to stay close to the things, ideas, and values that matter most. Close to integrity, to justice, to what is right and true not just for us as individuals, but for humanity as a whole. Close to the heart of the matter.

This is what it means to follow your heart.

It is a practice moreso than it is a feeling or state of mind. It is a daily choice to turn towards the things that are true (justice, art, spirit, cyclicality, forest, river, service to others, reverence for the wisdom of those who have walked the path of creating a better world) and away from everything that gets in the way (consumerism, avoidance, bypassing, dishonesty, the illusion that our individual choices and actions do not shape our collective reality).

For many, it means to turn away from the ingrained impetus to be passive or defensive in the face of wrongness, the impulse to extract, the people and practices steeped in comfort, assumptions, and ignorance, and turn towards respect, humility, and a wide-eyed understanding of history and of our current reality. Because what good does it do to follow your heart only towards art, in the face of a world on fire?

It is aligning heart and action through what you read, listen to, purchase, say, participate in, give attention to. In who you love and devote to. In how you live your life in moments both big and small.

We live in a society that is constantly trying to take you out of your heart. To distract you, to extract from you, to lure you in to the trap of compromising your integrity for the next shiny thing. To compel you to stay quiet when harm is being done all around us.

 It is so easy to get distracted. It’s so easy to slip into comfortable yet destructive patterns. It’s so easy to pretend not to see what is happening around you, happening inside of you, in order to avoid conflict. But this robs you of your humanity. It cuts you off from your heart. It leads to a world where destruction is able to flourish, unchecked.

To follow your heart is to stay close and stay aware — not of sensationalism and outrage, but of truth. It is a practice of continual growth and opening. 

It cannot be passive. It cannot be done in stolen moments only. It is fundamental.

Ask yourself, what things do you need to get closer to? What things must you turn away from? What have you been afraid to let yourself see, to express, to do? When you get brave enough to listen, truly listen — what does your heart tell you? From there, you can follow. 

It is through this act of following your heart, of staying awake and alive to the heart of things, that we come closer to creating a world of harmony. A world where creativity and love can truly flourish. Where we can all be actualized and fully expressed.

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This is an excerpt from Notes from the Underworld, my bi-weekly letters on cyclical wellness for your body, spirit, heart & shadow.

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