I spend a lot of time thinking and listening. It’s become my favorite thing to do during my days. I have been thinking a lot about the heart and its importance in my life recently. I have always believed that the heart was integral to living a good and authentic life. A person can live their entire life in their head justifying, rationalizing, and analyzing. It’s a never-ending cycle. When you are living from your mind though, life becomes dull. It becomes full of statistics and probabilities and logic. On the flip side of this, living life solely from the heart can create a rollercoaster ride of emotions and feelings. A person can spend their days being pinballed around. One moment happy the next moment bitter and resentful. I think it’s important to integrate your heart and your mind.
When the heart and the mind are working together many good things can happen. You can use the logic and rationalization of the mind in conjunction with the feelings and emotions of the heart. If you are having a conversation and someone triggers you, your emotions can take control and inflame the situation. Living from the heart alone in an argument can be detrimental to any relationship however, living from the mind alone and not having any emotion at all during an argument can have negative consequences as well. I think Viktor Frankl got this right on the money when he says in his book Man’s Search for Meaning, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” This incorporates both the heart and the mind and from this place, we can create better outcomes.
When I think of my favorite books related to the heart the first one that comes to mind for me is, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, and the second that comes to mind is Wild at Heart by John Eldridge. Both of these speak to and about the heart and have had a profound impact on my outlook on life. The first, tells the story of a boy, not so different than many of us, who goes on an adventure to realize his personal legend. It talks about life, love, and believing in something greater than ourselves. The second takes a more biblical approach to the heart and brings to light three things that are written onto the heart of every man in the world. Something core and fundamental to a man. Something that once you understand, will change the way you look at life and yourself.
The Alchemist touches a place within the heart that longs for adventure and an understanding of purpose in life. It starts in Spain with a boy and a dream. What is to come is the adventure of a lifetime and the journey of a boy into a man. It takes him into Africa, and through the desert to an oasis. It shows him love and takes him through a war where he has to battle for survival. When he finally reaches his destination and returns home to Spain, he is a completely different person. He has lived in many places, seen many faces, experienced the world in all its wonder and terror, and, most importantly I think, he has learned to live with and from his heart. Every time I open that book, I learn something new from it. It’s incredible. I’ve read it more than any other book and it still has more wisdom to share. This same thing happens with the second book.
Wild at Heart will go down in my history as being one of the most influential and eye-opening books I’ve read. I say this because it has changed the way I look at myself, life, and others. The book aims to reclaim the masculine heart that is within every man. It talks about there being 3 things that are written onto every man’s heart. A battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue. These 3 are what every man longs for. On top of these, he also discusses how many men in the church today feel lost and separated from their hearts. He highlights that every one of us is set up to fail and have a loss of heart because of our original father, Adam. He asserts that every man has a question to be answered by his father and that if/when that question isn’t answered, a boy takes a spear to the heart. Even though we have lost heart though, our way forward is through an intimate relationship with God.
One of the things that I love about Wild at Heart is that the author approaches the topic by suggesting a more intimate relationship with God as well as a small fellowship. A group of people you are close with and can talk about God and the bible with. I like and appreciate this way of looking at religion because you are going straight to the source. I personally, never felt very close to God in the Church. I understand and appreciate the traditions in the church but, it seems very scripted and cyclical. It seems to lack a personal relationship and intimacy with God. I felt closest to him while I was adventuring in the wilderness. I felt closest when I was high up in the Rockies, when I was exploring the Highlands of Scotland, and when I went kayaking down the Brule River. I felt closest to him when I was living with an open and wild heart.
Everywhere I go, and everything I learn leads me back to the heart, and leads me back to faith. Living from the heart is an adventure and it asks all of us to take a risk. Living from the heart can be terrifying because it is easy to get hurt. While this is true, living from the heart is also one of the most incredibly gratifying things a person can do! I am reminded of a quote in Rebirth: A Fable of Love, Forgiveness, and Following Your Heart by Kamal Ravikant. He is talking to Ron, a man he meets while on the Camino, a pilgrimage across Spain, and as they are parting ways for the night, Ron leans in and says “Two partners.[…] Fear and faith. The one you dance with determines your life.” Wow! There is a lot of wisdom in those words. Which one will you dance with? It’s a question I ask myself almost daily. Will you live from your heart with faith or will you shut down your heart and live in fear? The choice is up to you but, I hope you decide to open your heart and live a life full of adventure!