Lessons in Living from the Heart (Nov 4, 2008)

If I've heard it once I've heard it a thousand times.....

"Leigh! You are too analytical."

But I never really understood it.....

......until this past Sunday afternoon.


I mean, some things you have to analyze, right?
If you don't think it through you can't truly own it.
It doesn't become part of you.

Yes, ok.

But now I see there is a place where you go too far in thinking.
Something may be a part of you but you are not living it from the heart.
You're still stuck somewhere in your head.
Trying to get it right, or perfect or whatever.... so you have control.... or so someone does not get hurt ....or so you do not get hurt..... or whatever the issues are.
And then it is a living from the head.

I think I finally get it.
God has been taking me through a process of learning to live from my heart.
Trusting what He has placed in there.
Trusting what I have learned.
Trusting myself for goodness sake.
My instincts, my own judgment, my likes and dislikes....just trusting that what's in me is not evil.

And what was the final push that got through?
Well, fencing class of course! ;)

I was learning to do something.....well....ok....going through something I had already learned.
And I kept glitching. I was frustrated. I was tired. I didn't know why but I felt I couldn't get it right and knew that I should be able to.

Kelly, also appearing frustrated, stopped letting me go through the motions slowly and really started pushing. I got it all right at that point and was completely shot through from exhaustion. I remember standing there trying to catch my breath and off comes Kelly's mask, she looks at me and says "Stop analyzing this. You cannot think this through." And a few other words to that affect.

It went through me like an arrow to its mark: "Oh my gosh. I am not playing with my heart. I am playing in my head which is screwing up my reflexes. That's what it means to be overly analytical."

I got it.
On a thousand levels.
It cleared up a handful of fencing questions to be sure.
But more than that it cleared up alot of life questions.

I have quit allowing myself to live life from the heart.
My relationship with God, with others, with life itself has become boring, grueling, shallow, fraught with fear and concern and every other yucky thing....because I am so cerebral about it.

Relationship cannot be lived from the head. It must be lived from the heart.
Relationship with God.
Relationship with others.
Sure, you need a good foundation that you have thought through.
But that's the foundation, not the actual living. the walking out.
And, yes, living from the heart is messy and scary....but it is LIFE....it is being fully alive.

Life, in all its aspects must be LIVED from the HEART.

I get it.

Now let's see if I can let go and allow myself to do it. ;)