6 Great Reasons to Align Your Head and Heart/Gut:
- To move forward, to avoid indecision and stagnation
- Inner peace and happiness (note: the definition of congruency mentions “harmony”)
- Emotional stability and confidence
- To prevent stress caused by overthinking or overanalysing things
- Feeling more purposeful, powerful, in-flow, unstoppable, fulfilled
- Improved understanding around your desires, thus improved communication and relationships with others
How to Align Your Head and Your Heart
The first key step to aligning your head and your heart is greater awareness, which takes some time to slow down, create some quiet time and space to focus on yourself. Here are four practices which you can embark on to help with doing some deeper “soul searching”, to awaken the areas which are more difficult for you to access.
- Self-reflection
- Spend some quiet time alone outdoors in nature, or in a relaxing space, self-focused and reflecting on things like: What do I enjoy? What brings me happiness? What is my heart calling out for me to do or explore? What does my gut say?
- Mindfulness
- Practise tuning into your thoughts, emotions, feelings and sensations. When something comes up, identify if it is coming from your head, your heart, or your gut. Over time, notice if you tend to receive (or pay more attention to) messages coming from one of your three brains (head, heart, or gut). If one is more dominant than the other, when it initially comes up, thank that dominant area (head, heart or gut), and then ask the other areas what information, input, or wisdom they have for you. What is your heart calling out for you to do or explore? What is your gut saying? What is your logical brain thinking?
- Meditation. Here are a few guided meditations focused on listening to your inner wisdom:
- Journal. Here are some potential journaling practices and questions to explore.
- Ask yourself, in the absence of any judgements or fears that I have, what would my bravest-self do or desire?
- Create a life inventory of all of the things you really want to accomplish or experience in your life
- Free-form write from each of the three places (head, heart, an d gut), or from the area(s) where you have more difficulty tapping into. What is your heart calling out for you to do or explore? What is your gut saying? What is your logical brain thinking?
- If you are struggling over making a certain decision with various options, imagine each of the options and putting yourself into those options, and see what comes up for each of the options, and write it down. For example, when I think about option #1 my heart beats with excitement, I feel warm, I’m breathing relaxed, I’m smiling, etc.. When I think about option #2 my gut is churning, my breathing is tight/restricted, it’s more difficult or uncomfortable to swallow, my foot is tapping uncontrollably, etc..
The first key step to aligning your head and your heart is greater awareness, which takes some time to slow down, create some quiet time and space to focus on yourself.
I highly recommend taking a few minutes to slow down and do a little soul searching. Focus on tuning into and listening to the wisdom from each of your three brains, especially your less-dominant influencers. There are several options provided above to assist with tapping into these key areas and messages, so do whichever you feel most comfortable and connected with, as the whole point is to get more connected with all of your inner wisdom and powerful messages, whether that be from your head, your heart, your gut, or all three. Sometimes we make decisions more aligned with our head and logic, and other times more so our heart or gut, but where the true magic and confidence flourishes is when we tap into each, get them aligned, or at least leverage the value of each to make the best decisions for ourselves aligned with our core values and beliefs.
Originally published here.
Stephanie Sullivan is a certified Life Coach, Health Coach, NLP Practitioner and founder of Elevate Your Life Coaching PTY LTD. After 23 years in demanding, high-stress corporate roles as a business consultant, then a corporate executive, she knows first-hand about stress and trying to balance career and parenting demands, along with personal needs and wellbeing. Now Steph’s purpose is helping people to make life changes to reduce stress, increase energy, and achieve their personal goals, career/life ambitions and wellbeing. You can connect with her on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, or send her an email at steph@elevateyourlifecoaching.com.au.
