Living From Your Heart

Eleven years ago, when my lights came on, I started therapy. I loved therapy and I loved my therapist. I spent a lot of time with my therapist, looking, inspecting and dissecting. I listened to my story and then I listened to her interpretations. I looked at how my situations at the time and how they mirrored the old. I could see the patterns that I created. I began to understand that I was not a victim, I was volunteer. I began to understand that when I reacted to so many situations in my life, they were from a very old place.
What a gift it was when my therapist taught me that when I react to something with a very high volume and the situation was not calling for that, it meant that I was reacting from a old place. It was more easily identifiable and that felt comforting to me. I now had a better idea of how to integrate all that I was learning because I had a "cue".
She then explained something I think she got from a book that was also very useful. An equation that went; I over E. This meant that when I was reacting emotionally that my "E" was over my "I" or my intellect was overriding my emotions. I needed to then find a solution to flip it the other way around. I used this practice for a long time and it served me well. I started understanding that I could feel all that I need to feel and still behave in a way that was not toxic to me or those around me.
Years later, however, I realized that I was spending a lot of time in my "I". I so enjoyed the benefits of not blowing up over stupid things, I enjoyed the more placid life experience this gave me and I also enjoyed control that processing gave. And where was my heart in all of this?
While I believe therapy gave me a solid foundation because of the way it allowed me to look at, as an adult, things that were still running my life. It created a safe space for those wounds to heal and a road map for me to integrate what I was learning and really practice here in Earth school. I also believe that I was not taught to distinguish the difference between my emotions and my heart. I had no idea that my heart was yearning to have a stronger voice as it continuously got covered up by my processing and compartmentalizing. Through this practice, I did not learn how to trust my heart, which for me is the center of my truth. Source speaks to me through my heart. Much of my intuition about my own life speaks to me through my heart and I had shut it down. I have learned that emotions are feelings and reactions due to experiences and perceptions we have. And the intellect processes the data like a computer. The heart however is where the purest piece of who we are resides. It is not reactionary. It is strong, trustworthy, it is pure and not swayed by all of our "shoulds".
It has been some time since I first understood this about myself. I have since been on the path of going to my heart when I am going through something. I do not always have to call a friend right away to "process". That does not mean that I do not call for support. What it does mean is that I count on my heart first. My heart does not have opinions. My heart honors me even if something does not seem logical. My world began to open up as soon as I realized and then leaned on the power of my heart for support. I sit with my heart and cry, write, meditate and THEN I call a friend!!