I believe, like many of you may believe, as well, that the struggle between heart and mind is ongoing and long. And only those who recognize what is happening can win the battle. But not every battle can be won, nor should they be. Because I believe that it is precisely these struggles that serve as the teachers…the lessons themselves.
Also like many of you, my struggles are intensified by the fact that I have an especially active mind, as well as an especially expansive heart. And either one may win a particular battle at any given time. To the victor gets the spoils, but at the end of a struggle between my heart and mind, when one or the other lay bloodied and beaten on the battlefield while the winner looks on with smug pride, I often find myself wondering what was accomplished or gained, if anything.
And why can’t they just get along, anyway? Why is it that they are at odds so often?…
Hence, I am an eternal seeker of alignment. I am on a continual journey to find communion of heart and mind, and I feel an incredible sense of peace when I find it. To help me get there, I look to the experiences of my past and the wisdom of the present for guidance, and in doing so, I inevitably stumble upon clues that to me, represent the “puzzle pieces” for the overall path. I pick each up, one by one. I am not anywhere near the point of possessing the entire collection. But my hope is that someday, maybe I’ll find them all….
Sending Out…an S.O.S.
One particular day, I felt an unusual sense of alignment and it resulted in a very calm, deep feeling of peace within my soul. But I had suffered to get there. Oh, had I suffered. I was facing a particularly challenging situation with a friend, and I was stumped as to what to do about it. The details of the particular challenge I was facing aren’t as important as the struggle I was going through, itself – so that is what I’m going to focus on with this account. My mind was telling me to turn my back on this person – to move on and forget. My heart was telling me to keep listening, keep perservering…to not give up on this person. (Has anyone been there?) It felt like I had a battle raging inside me, and it was quite literally zapping me of my energy and perspective. And because this was not a new battle, but one I had been fighting for months, I was running out of ammunition to fight it.
After facing another night of pondering about the situation, I no longer felt like I could “do it myself” in terms of figuring it out. I needed help. Whether you want to call that help God, Buddha, the source, or the universe – I no longer really cared what it was, I just knew that I needed it. I had kind of asked for “help” or guidance in the past…but it was always for a specific purpose….a very detailed request for a specific kind of help. This night, I shut my mind off and let my soul do the asking. What came next surprised me. It was a plea that seemed to come from the very depths of my soul, almost without my knowledge or consent. I felt myself speaking – please, just let me know that help is there. I asked that the weight be taken off of me and to receive help whatever way was possible. I no longer tried to define the type of help that I needed, or the problem, or offer possible solutions. I just asked for a way to know that I was heard. And I promised that I would gratefully take whatever was given.
And right then, I had a physical reaction to my emotional request. I quite literally felt the pain and tightness in my heart and mind “settle” down into my soul. It descended slowly and softly, and the pain immediately subsided. Through that physical experience I had learned to accept the struggle – the good, bad, and ugly – into my being. I brought it inside…I brought it home. And it was then that I knew I’d be ok – I’d find a resolution to the problem. Because the fighting was over. Now that I had fully accepted it, it was part of me. I had chosen to love it instead of fight it, and there was a feeling of peace that washed over me that is almost indescribable.
I didn’t find an immediate solution to the problem, and I realized that I may never find it. But, at least I no longer felt the battle so intensely inside of me. I accepted it as part of my experience – whatever I was to learn from it, I was willing to accept, and not fight.
I kind of equate it to a difficult child. Sometimes when a child is acting up or fighting you on something particularly hard, what they really are clamoring for is your acknowledgement – and your love. If you ignore them, the fighting rages on. If you take time out to truly look at them, try to understand them, and love them – it subsides.
So, I’ve made a conscious choice to try to do the same for the challenges in my life. I’m going to stop trying to figure out the answers so hard, and instead, let them settle. In my soul.
And the answers will either come, or not come. But this way, at least I know – it’s ok.
Copyright © 2010 Jill Farrand. All Rights Reserved.
Jill thanks for sharing your story. It reminds me to own my experience fully. I have experienced something like this too and I too felt much better “owning” it rather than feeling like a victim to it. I think people are often afraid to step into their experiences fully like that. It may reveal we’re partially or fully responsible, but in my experiences with this kind of thing, the ownership of it, freed me as well. Thanks for reminding me. It makes my heart smile.
: ) My pleasure. I did feel better owning it than feeling victim to it, as well. To fully engaging in life and all of its spectrum of experiences!
Thank you Jill for sharing so openly. It is a blessing when we pour out, just letting it go. “In acceptance lieth peace,” is an old saying, and you have just described the truth of those words. The war between the flesh and the spirit; the ego and the spirit…what a battle. It’s something that I too am learning and your sharing has helped immensely.
For me I’ve likened what I do, when holding on to any feeling (good or bad), to produce on a conveyor belt in an assembly line. If I stop it to examine it for too long, I’m going to cause a build up, hold up the line and a blockage will occur (a traffic jam). The same thing with my thoughts, when I linger too long, I could be preventing the solution to the problem that I am “wrestling” with from getting through to me. I need to just let these things flow, take their natural course.
Velma, thank you. I really like your analogy between holding on to feelings and a conveyor belt — what a perfect visual for a complex inner struggle. Most of the time, I am fine with letting things flow. But when my heart is particularly invested, it is harder. Thanks so much for your comments; they have helped me as well! I wish us both luck on our journeys. : )
Heart – Hear(i)t. it is a difficult thing; my heart has pained in the past and continues, and it’s okay, for I remember the blessing moments of the one I am missing and difficult as it may be, try “not to long for the good old days” any more. It is difficult for me this very moment, for instance, as I lost my father 3 years ago…and for whatever reason the Christmas we spent with him, it’s like we knew it would be the last and my large family gathered from the 4 corners of the earth to be there. He passed 3 months later, no warning…I got the call at 4 in the morning. This year I sent off cards to family members made up of the photos I’d taken that last Christmas. It still hurts and I am saying thank you for having someone who loved me so much, who enlarged my ability to love deeply, entirely and it seems eternally.
Love never dies – and when we speak of the heart, do we not speak of love?
I am sorry to hear about your father and it appears to me that your ability to say, thank you for having someone who loved me so much, is the best approach to both helping heal the pain as well as demonstrate exactly what he taught you about love. That’s beautiful!
We do speak of love when we speak of the heart. It’s just hard to determine when to let go and when to hang on, when you’re faced with a difficult situation involving parents, friends, or partners. But what I’m learning is, it doesn’t matter what real or imagined “traps” there are for the heart in the future; the only thing that really matters is the fact that you care, now, and that it comes from an authentic place within you. And if you focus on that alone, then you can truly let go and know that no matter what happens, it’s ok.
True love, in whatever form, knows no bounds, and it doesn’t need situations to adapt to it in order for it to be true.
I am sitting here in amazement. So much wisdom, so much heart and this is from no self proclaimed experts but from women wise from living life! Thank you!!
Amen Sista….. It took me a long time to realize that I did not have the power to change my family. It is up to them to find their way, I can only shine a light at the end of the tunnel. The rest is up to The Creator..
Absolutely!…. we only control ourselves. So we trust the universe to bring us to the higher good. : )
I’m wandering through previous articles…and I really appreciate your expression of the struggle, and what it feels like to stop struggling. So easy to say, I accept–so simple, yet so challenging to move into fully, especially in the midst of the struggle. I have been a first-rate thrasher on this journey but I am learning to move with a bit more grace and let it settle, as you say, in my soul. I like that because I haven’t heard it expressed quite like that, but I can feel it. That is my favorite part, about the settling. Thank you!
You’re quickly becoming one of my favorites, Sharon. : ) I love how you express exactly what you liked best and why. (BTW I have read just one of your articles and I loved it! I haven’t yet had time to comment on many of them.) What I especially appreciate is your ability to express how what is written makes you feel, in terms of energy. I didn’t consciously recognize the link until I read your feedback. I think I am always trying to express a feeling, or the energy around things, when I talk or write. Maybe we could discuss your energy work sometime, because I am definitely a “feeler.” : ) Thanks for your input!
Energy work has been the most profoundly transformational work in my life–and the most profoundly challenging. I would be happy to talk about it more. It is deep work….What do you mean about the link?
I’m glad if my feedback was helpful to you. I was in a writers group for a brief period, and what stuck with me the most was the feeling of affirmation after reading a piece I had written in that supportive environment, and then hearing my work reflected back to me, and hearing what others saw/felt in it that I may not have even thought about when I wrote it. There is great potential here at Holistic Ground for that type of exchange. It is a very supportive and open-hearted place.
I just mean, I didn’t really realize that I was expressing myself in a way that makes the reader feel something — and that you helped me realize that this is something that I commonly do. I try to describe through words how things feel, in my writing….because I am a feeler, myself. : ) And that’s why writing is harder for me at times. It’s hard to document how something feels.
Jill, this was a great read for me. I wish I knew why it’s so easy to forget to ask for that divine intervention or sign of right path choices. Every time I remember to ask, I receive what I ask for. Every time I forget or neglect to include the universe in my endeavors, I find myself immersed in suffering, maybe not great suffering but struggle and strife where there may be no need for such effort. Thank you for crystalizing this again for me.
This is a biggie, and you deal with it with such grace and clarity in your writing! The one thing I have had to learn in the midst of a kundalini awakening has been the power of surrender (uo until that time it was sometimes a struggle). I think that when we let go of most of our stuff what remains is an expansive sense of self that is pretty darned perfect. And lovely. And great. To me the “hard work” is in doing one simple thing; letting it go. And the great thing is that more and more people are discovering this powerful tool or way of becoming. It also moves us out of a mental state and into our feeling state, the part of us that has the ability to wrap itself around our lovely cosmic self! Oh and that little bit about intentionality and manifesting Michele mentions is right on! Gotta keep that on my list!
So, Jill, thank you for such a great article and I look forward to more great stuff from you and this site!
Thank you, so much. Asking for what we need, as you said so clearly, Michele — helps us to remember we are not in control of everything. That is so, so important. It removes a large part of the weight in and of itself. Then, learning to truly let go and trusting that whatever will be, will be, is indeed the second part. I love how you illustrate how letting go moves us from the mind to our feelings, Parker. I hadn’t really thought of that connection, before. Que Sera, Sera….. : )