Follow Your Heart—It Will Take You Where You Need to Go

Sometimes we spend far too much time overanalyzing every aspect of our lives. Since the day we are born, milestones for our life are predetermined. Take your first steps by the age of one, tell stories by four, think about the future by 13, have a degree by 22, have children before 30, retire by 60. Our lives are on a timeline, and oftentimes we do what is expected of us.

The truth is we live in a world where possibilities are endless. You just have to do one thing. Follow your heart. When you follow your heart, you are following that feeling of what feels right.

But why isn’t it easy to follow your heart? What stops most people from doing this is fear. Fear and the comfort zone are cousins, and this is where dreams go to die. We do not leave our comfort zone because it causes a great deal of anxiety. When anxiety is experienced, the body undergoes biological changes, secreting stress hormones, increasing blood pressure, and causing nausea, headaches, chest pain, diarrhea, constipation, and worry. Nobody likes to feel these things, and making a life change often times causes some level of stress.

Choose to follow your heart anyway.

Here’s the thing: We were not born with all the knowledge of the world. Rather, we had to learn and trust our caregivers until we could make decisions for ourselves. The problem is that we stop trusting once we start seeing the bad in the world. We start seeing that being logical is what keeps us safe. We no longer take risks like we did as kids, jumping on beds and climbing trees. We stop doing these things because fear is embedded in us. We are often told not to think with the heart because it leads to heartbreak. From experience, I have learned that following your heart leads to a development of skills such as problem solving, resilience, trust, and adaptability. These are skills I have built up from my own experiences. I used to live in Florida and was living a life meant for adults at a young age. It was not until I followed my heart to California that I made a better life for myself. This happened because I trusted my intuition and it forced me to learn and grow.

The more you practice using your heart as a tool you build self-love and trust, the more you open up a new world of opportunity. Deep inside you, you have the greatest interests in mind. You just have to trust yourself to see it. When you allow yourself to listen to your heart, you gain a different type of knowledge. One that is spontaneous and unconcerned with outcomes. What you concern yourself with is the experience and the lessons you learn. These lessons are what you need to rise to new levels of self-discovery.

Our human nature tells us to remain in routine, but by doing so we neglect the best parts of ourselves. Stepping out of our comfort zone builds up new skills and allows parts of us to heal that we didn’t know needed healing. Everything you go through truly has a purpose for your divine self.  After all, isn’t it self actualization that we are after, or is that just Maslow?

Following your heart will always teach you a lesson necessary for growth.

So take that new job, move to a new city, don’t be afraid to love, speak your mind, and do what your intuition tells you.