Wednesday, March 9, 2011

What?! Who said that?

I had a long talk with my heathen sister about listening to myself and trusting my instincts.  All those times in my life I was trying to listen to "the spirit", what was it I was really hearing?  Assuming it was really some part of ME that was talking, what was it?  When have I made good decisions and when have I not?  Were those decisions made with my brain or my heart?  Maybe my kidney or spleen put in their two cents?  Or perhaps some other body part?   Have I made ANY good decisions in my life?  Maybe I've just gone along for the ride and let other people decide for me so that 48 years later I can point the finger at them and say, "It's YOUR fault!"

You can tell this spiraled down to an unproductive rant and much angst.  My sister is very patient.  I'm pretty sure she was playing a game on her computer while I spouted.  It's no wonder she gets those enormous scores on Zuma.

But I still have no answer as to how to "listen to myself".   It seems reasonable to let the brain rule.  It's smart, right?  It looks at the pros and cons of things and makes the intelligent choice.  The heart, maybe not so much.  It can sometimes be very, very stupid and easily led.  But the heart takes feelings and people into consideration. Without heart, we'd just be robots living the letter of the law and forgetting about the spirit of it. Been there, done that.

As for some other body parts, well, they just need to shut the hell up.  I'm going to try and listen to my brain this time.






 

3 comments:

  1. When I figured out I'd been lied to (by the cult) and my feelings had been so exploited for so many years, I shut them down and quit listening. I know longer trusted them.

    About a year later I came full circle. When I thought back and looked at all of my major decisions in life, I realized my feelings were always dead on. Mistakes were made when I ignored those feelings and did what I thought I was "supposed to do" rather than what I really wanted to do.

    Of course we have use our brains. But. Your feelings are spot-on, JZ. They are your intuition and your intuition is you. They've just been muddied a bit by years of indoctrination. Strip that away and you're good to go.

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  2. Second sentence. "know" should be "no." I'm only on my second beer.

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  3. CD, I am jealous of your beer. And I don't even like beer.

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