Introduction

In the old days, the heart was thought to be the seat of emotions, where noble and gentle traits such as kindness and compassion were stemming from. Ancient philosophers and scientists such as Aristotle and the Roman physician Galen considered the heart to be the seat of thought, emotion, passion and reason. whenever a person suggests to you “listen to your heart” it basically means that you should try to listen to your feelings and emotions (that the ancients believed to stem from the heart); becoming overly emotional or sensitive, hence suppressing any logic of the intellect and using reason, allowing panic and animalistic behaviour to take over.

This is not what “thinking with the heart” is all about; quite the contrary. It has nothing to do with panicking, becoming unreasonable or irrational and the like. Instead, it is all about calmness, inner peace and the tapping into the “universal wisdom” that is located within each and every one of us, allowing it to guide you through life. We have become accustomed to finalizing a decision by using the rational tools our brain provides, namely logic, reason and rationality. it’s the root of brilliant scientific theories and the origin of inventive solutions for complicated problems. But, the mind is also caught up within the boundaries of this physical life and the drama and fear that come with it.

Therefore, not every decision that is based on logic has taken the importance of your personal wellbeing and happiness into account. Au contraire, logic and reason can fool you into believing that a particular decision is the best for you, leaving your heart outvoted. Just imagine the severe consequences for a person that changes jobs in order to increase his salary (rational and logic thinking), when his heart clearly knows that it will require him to leave his beloved family, go abroad and work overtime daily. The heart doesn’t care about money, luxury and the collection of tangibles. But it cares a lot about your (and your family’s) well-being, happiness and your personal/spiritual development. Listening to the wisdom emanating from deep within, you will begin to experience unexpected but supportive synchronicities… a concept, (first explained by psychiatrist Carl Jung) which holds that events are meaningful coincidences if they occur with no causal relationship.

Messages from the heart do not come down the path of the red carpet; it’s a profound realization or spontaneous but grounded thought emerging from deep within, providing a greater understanding of a given subject. The language your heart chooses to speak makes itself felt as a subtle hunch, gut feeling or stomach ties up in a knot, or a sudden thought concerning a given event, a person or your life. Following one’s inner guidance comes with a state of peace and tranquility not with pressure, pain, anxiety or a burden. The rational mind can be seen as a parasitic frequency that hampers the process of tuning into your intuition. Intuition can be best described as the knowing of something, without knowing how you came to know it. The rational mind distorts, hijacks and – most important of all – it judges the messages emanating from the heart, as it has a strong bias against these advices, labeling them as irrational and illogical. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essentially invisible to the eye.”

Without the intellect, you couldn’t understand the messages emanating from the heart, without the intuition (or emotional aspect of the mind) one cannot utilize the full potential of the intellect. Creativity is the expression of the soul; the gateway to imagination, creativity, inspiration and sensuality: a realm of life that is way beyond the intellect. Your body is capable of translating the intuitive messages that are sent to you from the heart. I’m sure every one of us knows the feeling when a spontaneous thought pops up that makes us all excited and energized about a certain idea. But a couple of minutes later, doubts begin to surface and – from one moment to the other – the rational mind has regained control of the situation, by giving you a dozen reasons why you shouldn’t follow where the intuitive thought would have led you.