6 Keys to Trusting Your Heart

by Julianne Kulosa

Julianne is a Spiritual Intuitive and WayShower, guiding the way to living a life of miracles and magic through trusting the power of love.

Taking action on the desires and guidance of your heart can be scary and confusing.  This kind of guidance resides outside the norm of time and space, where we plan, research and use our logic and intellect to make responsible decisions.  When we follow our hearts, there is no apparent safety net, no rules or time-tested measurable results we can count on.
 
Our hearts call us to make choices that bring us closer to our true divine nature. 
 
We didn’t grow up being taught about our true divine nature.   In fact, as we grow up, we become more and more separated from our natural ability to live in the moment and experience life through the eyes of our divine selves and the higher dimensions.
 
We are taught that we cannot trust our hearts, for it is our hearts that have led us astray in aspects of our lives like relationships and finances.  Someone says they are following their heart, and we see how they are about to crash and burn.  The experiences you have witnessed, in others and yourself, where following your heart led to pain, is a misinterpretation both of the heart and of pain. 
 
Taking action from a heart desperate for love, for fulfillment, for joy and connection, actually blocks your heart’s natural ability to inform your mind of the next step to take.  The desperation or frustration you feel is informing you that you are not actually in your heart in that moment.  Desperation and yearning are forms of lack, of not enough.  We want something we think we cannot have right now.  Your heart lacks nothing, filled with a depth of love that connects you to an unending stream of joy, connection, abundance and peace.

Keys To Trusting Your Heart’s Desire
 
1. Cultivate Heart-Based Emotions
Your heart is your power source, plugged into unconditional love and radiant light.  You get to strengthen that power by connecting more to your heart, or weaken it by unplugging your heart from your mind and ego.
 
In order to follow your true heart’s desire, you must practice living in your heart. 
 
Take some deep breaths, and imagine your inhale going into your heart and your exhale coming out from your heart.  This begins to anchor your awareness in your heart, allowing it to inform you.  The easiest heart-based feeling to cultivate is gratitude and appreciation.  This can be for anything: any person, any item in your room, any experience that you can authentically feel gratitude for in this moment.  Other heart-based emotions include peacefulness, calmness, joy, and harmony.
 
2.  Build Self-Awareness
 Following our hearts without self-awareness is often what people think of when judging others who follow their hearts as irresponsible and dumb.  A lack of self-awareness results in following your heart blindly.  Love does not make us blind.  Our lack of practice in knowing our thoughts, motivations and fears do. 
 
We’ve all had friends who say they are “following their hearts,” and from your view, you see they are being foolish and know the end result will be bad for them.  This seems to happen most often around money and relationships.  What’s up with that?
 
They say love is blind.  On the highest level, it is; for love does not judge and sees all as divine.  But as you know, the saying “love is blind” usually implies choices made that result in negative outcomes.  Blindness comes from unwillingness to take an honest look at yourself or simply a lack of education or experience in being self-aware.  Self-awareness naturally extends to awareness of others.
 
When you make choices or take action without taking a look at your motivations, beliefs, doubts and fears, you are using more wishful thinking than your heart’s guidance.  You want more prosperity, so you invest in something that in the end is a scheme or doesn’t work out.  You want more love, and wind up in a relationship that is manipulative or abusive.  What is happening is that you are actually being guided by your ego, the one who wants what they want and wants it now, the one who is so painfully lacking the experience of love, attention, abundance, and vibrant well being you want now.  
 
Getting to know yourself is a path of compassionate awareness.  You might take on a practice such as meditating in the morning.  Remember that self-awareness isn’t just those 5 minutes or an hour you set aside.  That is your “practice” time that enhances your ability to have that awareness 24/7, any moment you remember to, with an attitude of loving attention as opposed to if you are doing it right or wrong.
 
3.  Be Committed to Opening Your Heart
When we begin to cultivate heart-based feelings, often all the excuses, feelings and experiences that are not of the heart surface.  Normally we try to push those aside, especially when we are committed to a spiritual love-centered path.  Even when our goal is to be positive and loving, it’s easy to think that our job is to remove, destroy or ignore anything that is “not” that.  Your fears, pain, doubt, guilt, anger, grief and frustration do not go away when you push them aside.  They surface to ask for the loving attention of your heart.
 
It is the brave warrior that is willing to open her heart and say, “Yes!” to what is presenting in the moment. 
 
Notice the ways you escape what you are being called to notice and love, such as through eating, watching television, shopping or drugs.  Be gentle on yourself, especially in challenging and stressful situations.  Know you really are doing the best you can in the moment!
 
As we open our hearts, what we are really doing is melting away the blocks of protection we’ve put over our already-open hearts.  You might feel palpable sensations in your heart, whether pressure, chest pain or changes in your heartbeat.  Always seek medical attention if you are drawn to, and also be open to the possibility that your heart is simply opening.  
 
In my personal experience when confronted with my own fears, worries or doubts, there have been times when I feel I can’t breathe.  I feel pressure on my chest as if my lungs are closing, my throat feels blocked, and as like I'm going to have a panic attack.  I think, “I can’t stay in this body! Let me out!”  Each time this has occurred and I choose to stay with my experience, breathe into my fears and trust my process, my heart has opened to love more than ever before.
 
Please remember that what you do for yourself you do for the entire collective of people on the planet. While our experiences are personal, they are also a part of what is happening to everyone and we are feeling it all.  I acknowledge and thank you for being brave, for being committed to love despite your fears, and for transforming the entire world through your own practice. 
 
4.  Examine Your Heart’s Desire
Being willing to be honest about all your thoughts and feelings will give you clarity about your true heart’s desire.  Take a piece of paper out and make two columns.  At the top of the left column write the words, “My Heart’s Desire” and at the top of the right column, “My Fears”.  The more you’ve practiced cultivating heart-based emotions, the easier it will be to know the difference between your heart and your head or ego.  Our job isn’t to get rid of the ego, but to live first and foremost in our hearts, allowing the heart to inform the mind and ego. 
 
Example:
 
         My Heart’s Desire                                                                My Fears
Be in romantic loving relationship                            I like my independence.
                                                                                             I’m too old, ugly, fat, poor…
                                                                                             I don’t want to get hurt again.
                                                              
Have the career of my dreams                                     I can’t make money doing that.
                                                                                             I have responsibilities.
                                                                                             I don’t have enough experience.
 
Take a look at your fears column and notice that most of them are based on your past experiences, your assumptions about your life and reality, and on what is lacking or “not enough”.  You’re not good enough, no job or person is good enough, there’s not enough money, not enough time, etc.  In order to protect yourself, you must stay in the same spot you are in now.  Even if it is painful, at least you’re surviving.
 
Consider that if you want to follow your heart, then you must honor your fears by respecting them.  Ask them how you can serve them.  Thank them for trying to protect you.  Let them know you are there, to simply love them and honor them.
 
5.  Notice Your Heart’s Desire Right Now
Once you are aware of what is not your heart’s desire, you can open up to what is.  Your heart’s desire comes from a place of pure love, where trusting yourself and a feeling of peacefulness and enthusiasm for life reside.  It has no set future plans, meaning that it is in the timeless place of the present moment.  Your heart nudges you, in this moment.
 
It is so easy to navigate your day on automatic pilot.  This is often experiences as a constant to-do list in your head.  It is a list of “shoulds”, of judgments about yourself and what you or others should be doing.  We rush around, keeping busy, shutting out the quiet guidance of our hearts.
 
Your heart’s guidance most often arises as a gentle feeling, a soft voice or image in the background of your busy mind.  It might nudge you to stop and enjoy the scenery around you, take a walk, drink some water, or give loving attention to a friend.  Your true heart’s desire is to have the life of your dreams right now, in this moment, and you can!  All you desire, nothing lacking, resides in your heart.  Your future does not hold the place of your dreams fulfilled.  Right now, this moment, does.
 
Your heart knows that you are perfect just as you are in this moment, and so is everyone else, even with all your fears, judgments and shortcomings.  This means that you have the choice in this moment to enjoy your life just as it is. 
 
Your heart gives you power in any situation, for if there is nothing to fix or fight against, then all that is left is to take the most loving action, for yourself and others, in the moment.
 
It might assist you to think of someone whom is the most loving being you know.  It could be someone in your life, someone like Jesus, Buddha or Mother Theresa, or your divine guides and angels.  Ask yourself, what would the angels do?  What would Jesus do?  What would my true divine self do?
 
6. Be Willing to Make Mistakes
Let’s say you want to have a better relationship with a friend or partner.  Your heart’s desire is to have more love present, more understanding, connection or better communication.  You’ve noticed that you have a list of fears:  They don’t care about what I have to say. They’ll leave if I am honest about my feelings or opinion. They’re just like that and are never going to change.  I’ve tried that before and it made it worse. 
 
When you take action from those fears, that action often seems to backfire.  However, consider that even if you choose to take action when aware of your fears that are still present, it is movement in the direction of your heart’s desire.  You are practicing!  You have committed to practicing self-awareness (see #2).  You can begin to unravel the difference between your fears and your heart’s desire.  You don’t have to wait.  Every experience can teach you how to live in and trust your heart more and more. 
 
Living a life trapped in the box of fearing rejection, upset or failure may have us feel safe, yet at the same time closes us off to the stream of possibility that our hearts offer.  We all want more freedom, self-expression, joy, pleasure, abundance and connection.  We can have more when we choose to trust our heart’s desire and take action from that desire.

The Truth of Who You Are
The truth of who you are is that you are not lacking in anything, and the one to give you what you want is you.  No amount of money, no amount of sage advice or guidance from another, no amount of attention or love from another can give this to you. 
 
Your heart is crying out to let you know that YOU are the one who contains all you desire. 
 
When you are willing to take a look at yourself honestly and cultivate love, compassion, forgiveness and trust, then the universe can provide you with what you are wanting in your outer experiences. 
 
Your heart is waiting for you to fall in love with yourself!  It is asking you to fall in love with all that you are and your life just as it is now.   Take the time to slow down, to breathe, and to take a step in that direction in this moment.  Your heart will never fail you.  No matter how small that step is, such as to smile at someone in the grocery line, to say hello to a neighbor, to pet your dog or smell a flower, your heart is guiding you to live in this precious now moment and take actions that infuse you with joy.