Moving away from the head and into our heart

Being productive is moving away from our head and into our heart.

You probably know what being in your head is like. Its were we spend most of our time at, thinking, worrying, over analysing, telling stories, giving meanings to events and so on.

But what does it mean to be in our heart? Harward psychologist Susan David, PhD, describes it as reconnecting to our bodies, to go back to the breath and start from there.

When there is an uncomfortable emotion, we tend to go back to our head to try to solve the "issue", to fix things. But how often does that work? How much do we suffer trying to argue ourself back to sanity, to calmness and being centred? between stimulants and response, there is a gap, and in that gap, we have the freedom of the choice

How to create the space

1- Gentle acceptance: all emotions are allowed. One of the issues with Positive thinking is the expectation of always having positive thoughts and feelings. This actually a misinterpretation of the concept. We do not have control over what thoughts or emotions arises within us. we do have control over how we interpret them and the actions we take. With gentle acceptance, we allow any and all emotion to rise up in our body, without judging them. by allowing these emotions to come and go as they please, we loosen their power over us and our actions. There are no negative emotions, they just are.

2- Emotions are data: but not the director. Observe them wisely, but don't let them drive us. Emotions are an aggregated way that our body informs us something about whats going on in or around us. This information is a complex combination of many factors including our values, beliefs, and environment. The usual route is to disconnect from our body when there is an uncomfortable emotion such as anger or frustration and go into our heads and tell stories. The alternative suggested here is to breath and reconnect to the body and ask what am I feeling right now? can you label it in the most specific way? For instance instead of labelling it as " I am feeling stressed" we could opt into " I am feeling tired and frustrated" then we can ask ourself, what does it mean? what is happening that is causing these emotions to rise up. Whatever your answer, now you are in an active state to use the data to serve you best, instead of letting the emotion dictate your actions

Noticing our thoughts and feelings as what they are just thoughts and feelings. So instead of saying I'm angry, over-identification with emotion by saying "I am the angry", we can switch to "I am noticing that I am feeling angry. This simple act creates 2 steps between you and your feelings. The first step is the removal of identification. Instead of "I am angry", "I feel angry". The second is stating that you are observing what is going on within you.

These two simple steps help you to change your story.

With these two simple steps, you can create the gap between the stimulus and action, creating for yourself the freedom of the choice. There is no secret, there is no shortcut, but with awareness, we can create different results in our life. Start with the emotion, distance yourself from it so you can accept it gently, then ask yourself in a compassionate tone: "What is this emotion telling me?" the answer, even if it is not accurate, guides us to our own truth more than the default storytelling route we take.