The shift from MIND to HEART
The belief is now that businesses, and the whole human race, can no longer survive, let alone thrive, on the intelligence that was once held to be supreme in the mind.
Author and film-maker, Baptist De Pape, was once of the belief that the mind ruled the heart. He graduated from law school and received a lucrative offer and employment contract with one of the world’s most prestigious law firms – but decided not to sign.
The prospect of joining a prestigious law firm and travelling the globe to advise multinational corporations no longer seemed right for him. A breakthrough has begun within him. He was making a shift from a purely mind-based decision and decided to listen to his heart.
Subsequently, he decided to travel the world on a different mission, and decided to speak with eighteen of the greatest teachers of the world’s spiritual traditions. These teachers have long been asserting that the heart is the source of true power and understanding.
What Treasures are buried in the HEART?
There is an entire stream of untapped intuition buried in the heart that is often ignored.
Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, has said: If you think ‘How can I make lots of money, let’s bring the accountants in, we’ll work out the business plans,’ it’s just the wrong way around. You get one set of accountants who will say, ‘Yes, you can make lots of money’ and another set of accountants with exactly the same input will say, ‘You will lose lots of money.’ It’s got to be from your heart and do something you’re passionate about.
The heart has an endless source of ideas, inspiration, and plain old gut-feel that should be the first place of inspiration. Then go the mind and say, ‘ok, let’s make something of this.’ But the mind should never over-rule the heart.
When you open your heart, you can access a lot more than the highly-valued logical intelligence. You get access to things in your intuition. You can access a new level of sensitivity and the ability to discriminate between things and see things with more clarity.
Steve Jobs, has long been recognized as being ahead of the pack when it comes to creating new and innovative products. He has said: Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.
At the very centre of the heart is creativity. Without creativity, all else stays the same. Creativity is sourced in the heart, in the realm of intuition.
The future of business, and indeed, the human race, comes down to the ability to trust and access the source of intelligence through the heart.
We live in exciting and challenging times. But the challenges of the future will not be overcome if we continue to simply use the mind, or left-brain thinking. We must evolve beyond that to truly thrive into the twenty-first century.
It has been said that the longest distance in the world is from the head to the heart, all 14 inches or 40 centimeters of it.
The heart often speaks to us quietly and with common sense. The mind tends to rationalize our desires and reactions. To help you distinguish between how your mind might sound vs. your heart, here is an example of Suzanne who operates from the mind and Maria who operates from the heart in the same situations:
At Work
Suzanne: Who does she think she is? It’s not fair she gets the assignments and I’m left with crap — makes me furious! He’s always sucking up to the boss. There’s no way to keep up — that damn printer keeps jamming! (Slam and break the printer tray.)
Maria: Things are tough. Everyone’s running fast and trying to just keep their job. I need to keep my cool and not drain my energy, not get into the backbiting, make sure I take my breaks. My intuition says it would be a good idea to sincerely get to know some of these people better, maybe have lunch once in a while.
At home.
Suzanne: Why is this place such a mess? He just doesn’t care! Can’t stand those kids not picking up. They don’t give a damn about me. Where’s the remote? Why isn’t dinner done? Don’t look at me like that! (Blow up.)
Maria: I really don’t like the house messy. We need a better plan for keeping the house in order. Let me arrange a talk with Steven and the kids after dinner. No TV or distractions until we’ve created a plan with consequences if one of us doesn’t do what we agreed to and rewards if we do. It could be fun if we do it together
In the Mind examples, judgments and reactions are in control and Suzanne feels justified being judgmental and angry. The Heart, though, is decidedly different — softer and simpler. It might took Maria courage to listen to her heart because what it suggests often seems too easy. It might say, “Just let it go” or “It’s no big deal,” and she may be afraid she is going to let someone get away with something or that the other person is going to walk all over her. It’s like two different radio stations, the mind and the heart. When you tune into the heart station, your attitude adjusts and you find responses that are much more satisfying to you and better for the whole.
That doesn’t mean that Mind would not be inactive or unused. It would grow much more powerful, because it would be in right relationship to heart—to the source of being, and to creation. If we stop operating from an ego-driven, mental consciousness, we stop striving for meaningless things that gratify only the smallest part of who we are. We stop wasting our mental energy and can start directing every ounce of our hearts and minds to the highest outcome.
Self Application
Train our brains to listen to the heart by clearing out the mind from all the noise and interference from the world by silencing our mind and ego, and focusing on the voice of the truth. Communication between the heart and mind is created through stillness contemplation, gratitude, acceptance, patience and love. Build the conduit by slowing down and experiencing life in a new way. Smell the roses. Notice the beauty that surrounds you. Begin doing that thing that feed your soul and nurture your emerging self-hood.
Bring to mind a situation or problem in your life or someone close to you is experiencing.
Now begin to operate from the MIND and ask yourself the following:
Let’s now move into the zone of the HEART and look at this same situation. To begin:
Step 1: Shift your attention to the area of your heart and breathe slowly and deeply.
Step 2: Activate and sustain a genuine feeling of appreciation or care for someone or something in your life.
Step 3: Radiate these feelings of care and appreciation toward yourself and others for five minutes or longer.
Step 4: Bring to mind the fullness of the situation but this time, as you do connect the images to your heart center.
Step 5: Visualize the entire situation and hold it within the energies of your heart. Once you sense there, begin to feel this situation from your heart.
When you catch your mind wandering, simply refocus your attention on the heart area and reconnect with feelings of care and appreciation or other heart qualities. Notice how this extended radiation of care has affected your body, emotions and thinking. Be receptive to your heart’s intuitive guidance. Is there anything your heart would like you to know in this moment? Write down whatever you quietly sense.
Once you are done notice the difference between the two approaches.
Self reflection:
- What was the difference between the two states?
- How did your feelings and emotions vary with each?
- Were you challenged in any way to operate from either of those States?
- How do you think the experience varies with each state we Embody?
- What new awareness related to life arises from this practice?
- Where do you see opportunity for growth or movement into a more heart operating approach?
Coaching Application
It follows that when the heart intelligence knows, there is a corresponding right action that flows from the knowing of what is true and good for us.
Our work as coaches is to develop our client’s ability to access the heart center as a mean for revealing what right action is in any given moment or situation.
Our role is to partner with our client to discern which intelligence he is using, and to support developing access to the heart intelligence. While we will gather ideas and insights that flow from the thinking and emotional intelligences, we are most interested with what is (or is not) coming from the heart intelligence what our client knows he needs to do. And the way to best discern that is by listening from the same place within yourself.
Let’s take an example:
Daniel is a successful business man and has been brought up in a family having strict and rigid rules of discipline. His wife has noticed that his relation with his 3 children is not doing fine because they complained to her about feeling that their dad does not understand them and that there is no bonding between them. She told him about the situation and he has decided to go to a Coach to see “Why his children are are acting and feeling this way”
Daniel explains to the coach that he doesn’t understand why his children are feeling this way while he loves them and he is trying to show them his love all the time by providing their basics needs such as the best education, financial security, the best trips and he is trying to be physically present at home as much as he can.
After a discussion, Coach figured out that his motivator was repeating the pattern of how he was raised. And the coach wanted to make him feel that his childhood experience is not serving him with his children anymore.
Here the coach takes the client to his heart intelligence by making him feel the situation from his heart and emotions.
Keep in mind that focusing on the pathways and capacities of the heart does not preclude using the mind. There will always be times when, in service of meeting a client where he or she is at, that we coach from the mind in order to talk issues through in a more objective, reasoned, analytical way. The mind is not to be disregarded or discarded; rather, we acknowledge its purpose and place within the greater scheme of life progression. But what we consciously do is maintain conduit to the heart so that the heart may feed into the mind that which is supportive of higher self awareness and realization.
It is nature’s design that you get your Mind in sync with your deeper heart intent. You can find a new type of fun in listening to your heart as your command center. The fun is gaining back your power not to go back to the mechanical way — the old way of the Mind. When you do fall back, you replace feeling bad about it with feeling compassion for yourself. Compassion will quickly shift you back into coherence. You stop wasting your energy judging yourself or others. You stop those painful feelings churning inside. You release your own energy and power to do the things that matter most to you. You preserve your health and promote happiness in your relationships. While things still will happen that are extremely unfair or unkind and cause painful feelings, you choose how you are going to handle your emotions. Your choices make all the difference.