Heart vs. Head

My personality is such that I am ruled more by my heart than my head. My tendency is toward emotion, "gut-instinct", and intuition in many situations....I wear my heart on my sleeve and often react from an emotional place first, rather than a logical one.

In our society, these traits aren't necessarily valued as much as they should be. Growing up, I was labelled "dramatic", "emotional" and "over-sensitive". Listening to my heart was taught to me to be a bad thing. The message that I learned, very quickly, that my own instincts, my own feelings, were not to be trusted.

Now that I'm older, I still struggle with this whole head/heart dilemma. I am still very much more an emotional rather than a logical person. That's not to say that I don't still use my head....but when it comes to the important things in life, it's my heart that usually leads the way first. The problem is that I still have difficulty relying on my own perceptions of my experiences, my own feelings...thanks to a childhood where I was taught to believe that my feelings weren't to be trusted....and years of messages as an adult that my emotions in certain situations were actually wrong.

I still struggle with this -- looking to other to validate my feelings about any given situation. Constantly doubting myself (should I be feeling 'this'?) and looking to others to confirm or deny what I'm experiencing (is it okay to feel 'this way'?). It happened earlier today, in fact, when a phone conversation with a friend had me doubting my situation, myself, and my feelings ("Maybe this friend can see things more clearly than I can...even though she doesn't know everything about the situation....").

One thing I've figured out in all of this is that our emotions simply are. They aren't right or wrong, they just are. It's what's done (or sometimes NOT done) with those emotions that is the important part. I've spent too many years feeling guilty for my feelings, trying to feel a different way in a given situation. It's pointless. Our feelings are what they are...the best we can hope for is to accept them, nurture them, and make the best decisions that we can with what we've got.

I'll be the first to admit that living an emotionally sensitive life can lead to a lot of heartache. I can sometimes feel that heartache pretty intensely, in fact. But the flipside is that my ability to feel - and feel intensely - gives me greater capacity to feel the positive emotions, too....and my perception of the "good stuff" - excitement, love, joy....are such that they're worth wading through the garbage to get to.

What this all boils down to, folks, is that I'm tired of not trusting my own perceptions. I keep forgetting, over and over, one really important factor in all of this : This is MY life. I can't expect other people to keep guiding me and propping me up the whole way through it. I'm 34 years old, and it's time for me to start trusting me -- my thoughts, my perceptions, and most importantly (to me) my feelings.

One thing I do know for sure is that at the end of my life, I don't want to be on my deathbed thinking that I wish I had just listened to my heart a little bit more. I need to start trusting in myself....this is all too important not to.