Lifiving a Fulfililing life: A Guide to Following Your Heart

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1. Align your heart with the right direction

If you have a compass, you need to be sure that it points to the right direction. To do that, you should ensure that there is no magnetic field around that can alter its direction. Similarly, you should ensure that your heart points to the right direction. Prevent other things from deviating it.

In my opinion, this is where spirituality comes into play. Spirituality helps you align your heart with the right direction. So hone yourself spiritually. Depending on your belief, you could pray, meditate, or read spiritual texts.

2. Trust your heart

This step is essential. Without trusting your heart, it will be difficult for you to follow the next tips. After all, how can you follow your heart if you don’t even trust it?

This step, of course, is not easy. Many people trust their mind more than their heart. But somehow your heart knows what is right, while your mind often just rationalize things to meet your or other people’s expectations. There is a huge difference between them.

The first tip above (align your heart with the right direction) plays a big role here. If you know that your heart is well-aligned, you will have a strong reason to trust it.

3. Forget your plans (at least for a while)

To follow your heart, you should not let your mind get in the way. One manifestation of your mind is your plans. So forget your plans, at least for a while. This way you free your mind to listen to your heart without being limited by your current plans.

4. Open your mind to new possibilities

Continuing the previous tip, to follow your heart you should open your mind to new possibilities. Often your heart will tell you something that is beyond what you can currently see. If you do not open your mind to new possibilities, you may not be able to perceive it. Even if you hear it, you may soon discard it because it doesn’t make sense.

5. Calm down

The voice of your heart is often just a whisper, so you need to first calm the other voices, especially the voices of your mind. You may want to close your eyes and take a deep breath to calm down your mind. Or you may want to meditate.

6. Listen to the small voice within you

Now that you’re calm and your mind is open, you can listen to the small voice within you. What does it say regarding the decision you want to make?

A sign that it’s the voice of your heart is you know it is right. You may not be able to explain why. You just know that it’s right.

7. Be careful of rationalization

The perpetual enemy of listening to your heart is rationalization. After you listen your heart says something, your mind will soon try to rationalize things. It may give you reasons why you should not do that or why you won’t be successful. For this reason, the first glimpse or impression you get is usually the right one. The later ones might have been polluted by rationalization.

8. Build the courage to follow your heart

After you know what your heart is saying, the difficulty lies in following it. Often following your heart takes courage to do something unpopular or even irrational. You might not have the courage to follow your heart right away, especially for big decisions in life. That’s fine. You could practice with smaller decisions. Just build the courage to follow your heart over time and be careful not to let rationalization comes and distracts you.

BS. Rationalization the enemy of listening to one's heart?
Moreover, is there any (even remote) connection between this BS and autism/Asperger's, you wannabe poet?

I agree, I found it a vague read in parts, it didn't seem to be written in a very applicable or practical manner but a good attempt and intentions nonetheless.

I think he's saying we should follow our true selves or desires regardless of societal pressures and demands and that we can come to distorted conclusions and perspectives of ourselves and the world based on a rigid thinking pattern. For example, we can start over reacting towards certain events and rationalize it to meet our own attitudes or distorted perceptions of ourselves and others. For instance, if someone believes they're a failure, they tend to focus on their mistakes and overlook achievements and successes, this leads to the person thinking they're a failure.

That's true but more a matter of selective perception as a mental function, than the heart vs. mind slobber. The mentioned compass is a result of logical rational thinking as well. All important inventions, e.g., computer, are a result of brilliant thoughts, not feelings.

I feel that what the OP has written is very good advice and I follow that advice a lot. But on the other hand, I've never really been the rational type, either.

It's not about "following your heart", whatever that's supposed to mean, but constantly seeking to better yourself. You'll be of more value to both yourself and others if you can reach your full potential in all areas of life.

I lost the ability to "follow my heart" roughly at age 18. For most of my high school years, romance and dating were out of the question, due to the relentless bullying I was experiencing. Plus, to date in my high school, a guy had to have a car, which I didn't have. So, all that made me very jaded and bitter when it came to romance.

My senior year, I softened up a little, after some positive experiences the summer before, when I worked at a park district pool; close hugs were the maximum I got, but that felt like a gold mine compared to nonstop rejection earlier. That school year, there was a girl in class who showed romantic interest in me, through playful banter during class (the teacher had a very liberal talking policy) and talking to me outside of class. So I asked her out. But there was a problem: when I was telling her where I wanted to go, I had to tell her I didn't have a car. I was willing to pay for a taxi, but as soon as she found out I had no car, she rejected me.

Somehow, that flipped some sort of a kill switch in the part of my brain that controls romantic feelings, and ever since then, I never had a crush on a girl who I wasn't 100% sure liked me back. Even more so, when a girl who liked me stops liking me, any romantic feelings I have for her shut off automatically. In fact, when I tried my luck at dating my freshman year of college, I automatically started liking a girl who I thought was romantic interest, and instantly stopped liking her when I found out that it was really friendship interest.

So all in all, "following my heart" is a moot point. In fact, back in 2005, I confided to a co-worker about a girl I was dating at the time, and the co-worker told me "do what your heart tells you". I responded with: "well, it's telling me to cut back on saturated fat, but how is that relevant to my dating life?". Similarly, when someone talks to me about chemistry (the romantic kind), I come back with "the only chemistry I believe in is C2H5OH" (the formula of alcohol).

I follow my heart, on a fundamentalist level my heart, has never lied to me what I feel in my heart, I follow with a passion.

I learnt to trust my feelings more when I was in my late teens. But it's all about balance - if I followed my heart all the time, I'd never get anything done!

I fell in love several times when I finally figured out which gender I was supposed to be looking at. Actually, I fell in love several times before that and didn't know what it was. My first relationship lasted a month. My second barely counts as it lasted a fortnight. My third lasted a month and a half before he disappeared on me. I recall my landlady was playing music on her stereo at one point, and something romantic came on, and I just broke down in tears.

From that moment I decided - I wasn't going to do this any more. I stopped following my heart and started following my head instead. I slept around a bit, generally enjoyed myself more and then met someone I eventually moved in with. We were together a year, and living together after we broke up for most of another year before I met my current partner. That relationship is now ten years old and still going, and it didn't start with love. It started with a hookup for fun and friendship and to see what happens.

Hearts have passion and add spice to life, but they make bloody awful decisions.

My heart is what fuels me my passion is what drives me.

I love it when you sweet talk me it has a connection to Asperger's to me Lad I always follow my

And I love to write poetry Chere

Demonic possession will be thy guide

Then its not a guide because it leads you down the wrong path against your will.

That's the way I roll. I live a life of rampant hedonism and Satanic worship. Works for me.

I think for some people following their heart is a good thing

It depends on what is in your heart

Even then.....

ask Spock, he knows what I mean.......

I was watching some buddhist monks feeding ducks
I mentioned to them that bread upsets their digestion, and makes them too heavy to fly, it attracts large numbers, who then pollute the water way, with their excessive and toxic bread poops.....killing other life and making life difficult for other creatures. Uneaten bread in waterways also settles to the bottom and creates salmonella poisoning

They just gave me a dumb (heartfelt) look