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Although we are complex vibrational beings, we live most of our lives leading with our minds or our hearts. These ways of being often act as two separate doorways to existence, giving rise to a very different moment-to-moment experience. We can shift our experience with a shift of focus.
Our minds are important to us: the beauty of the mind is in its ability to focus, organize, categorize, reason, and problem solve. When we need these skills, our minds are helpful. The limitation of the mind is that it records all past experiences as fact, so it has a limited perspective. The mind does not exist in the present moment, but comments on the present moment from its knowledge of the past, often injecting fear and negativity into a current situation. The linear mind is judgmental and dualistic (the downside of its organizing and categorizing qualities). Fear, anxiety, and judgment live only in the mind.
We get into trouble when we listen to the voice of our mind and identify it as who we are. We are not our minds, but a much greater consciousness. Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now shows us how our egoic mind can be tricky, almost enjoying the negative pleasure of controlling us.
Since we need our mind, what can we do? First we can develop an awareness of the mind. We can take time to listen to the voice and what it is saying, then ask, "Is that what I want to be telling myself?" We can learn to quiet the mind, and enlist it only when we need it. Meditation is a good way to practice being without mind commentary. It is also helpful to give our minds a useful job to do-"Please follow the breath coming in and going out." Or, "Please observe this for me." When I was learning to do Energy Healing and my mind was very distressed about the impossibility of what was happening, I would kindly ask it to "just observe please". In these ways we develop a healthy relationship with our minds.
Another doorway to existence is through the heart. When we open our heart to love, beauty, gratitude we feel joy, expansion and inspiration. The heart is the doorway to Presence, Consciousness, or Being-the doorway to a spiritual realm beyond ourselves. This can even be the doorway to epiphany, miracle, energy healing.
In practical everyday life, most of us can access expansive heart energy by thinking of someone we love unconditionally (baby, pet), or visualizing a thing of beauty. If we focus on compassion or gratitude, our hearts open as well. Anusara Yoga, founded by John Friend, is a beautiful form of yoga that emphasizes the heart as the center.
Practicing Anusara fosters a way of living from the heart. We have a choice. When we find ourselves in a state of anxiety, fear, worry, or negativity, we can simply breathe, shift our focus and drop into the heart. Once we have recovered the sense of peace and presence, we might even give our mind the job of describing this wonderful feeling.
