How Do Our Hearts Enlighten Us? Just Ask Yours!

This morning I wrote about some heart truths in my Morning Pages, things I would like to sort through because I think they are important. They were raw, so they need refining and explaining.

In the meantime, I wish to share the latest development from The Fellowship of the Heart. It illustrates one aspect I wrote of. I think hearts question our minds, our being, shedding light on the dark — not evil, necessarily, but confusion, depression, and many other darknesses — selves which have developed and block us from the light of Heart.

Heart, however, keeps seeking us, keeps whispering, keeps offering us reality and authenticity. And often Heart does this by questioning, sometimes relentlessly.
Here is the conversation Eric Lafarnge has with his heart in my novel.
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Well, here I am, no interference, no disruptions. So, I ask the questions again. What is going on with me? Do I want to keep working for this firm? Do I even want to continue being a lawyer?

“How do you feel about that? Do you want to leave? What would you rather do?”

Eric recognized the voice once again, a voice that seemed to come from the midst of his being, distinct but not audible, one with whom he could converse. I don’t know what I’d rather do.

“Then why are you going through this self-torture?”

Because I just feel like there’s more to life, like I’m missing out on something.

“What would that be, Eric? What are you missing?”

Is being a lawyer my purpose? Isn’t there more?

“Do you want there to be more? Think. Think seriously.”

Yes, I want there to be more. I feel empty.

“Who feels empty?”

I do.

“Who are you, Eric Lafarnge, at your deepest core?”

I’m you. I know it. But that’s not who I’ve been living. Why? Where is the discrepancy? Why haven’t
I known you, known me. What the hell is wrong with me?

“Why do you think something is wrong? You are thinking more clearly now than you maybe ever have.”

This is what I was thinking about the other day. This is a problem, thinking and overthinking.

“Eric, who do you think we are? What are you overthinking?”

Please, enough questions. At least some answers. What is this I’m experiencing?

“I’m you, Eric, your core Self. I’m your heart. I have always been here, whispering. I know you have heard me at different times. Now, there are other things to consider. Are you ready for this? Are you ready to answer the hard questions and do the hard work?”

How have I gotten so far away from…He paused, just breathing.
“You’re never far away. It all has worked to bring you to this point. It’s not wasted.”

But I’m so frustrated.

“What is frustrating?”

I’m not enjoying life, everyday life. I work and look forward to some vague future of things being different, being more meaningful.

“What is the future?“

Sometime later. It’s then, when I can relax, can play, can drink, can love, can feel, can plan, can create — maybe.

“Do you live now or then?”

I am not sure. I want to live now, but how can I when all around me are then’s. I have so many demands on my now that are filled with things I don’t like to do, things that make me only want then, then being only an escape from now. How can I enjoy now?

“How can you enjoy now?”

I don’t know anymore. I’m on autopilot. I have a harder time even laughing than I had in years past. How can I enjoy now? I asked you.

“Think. Think. Think. You have decisions to make, so think.”

Think, is that it? All this time that I have not listened to you, now that I am listening, you tell me to think, and that’s it? Why? What should I think about? What decisions do I have to make?

“How do you want to live your life — now or then? What decisions could you make to live now?”

What? You mean the things I do now, and the things I want to do then? It can’t be helped. It’s just the way it is. Better to accept it and play the game than fight it and wear myself out so that I can never enjoy my then, when it finally comes.

“Why would you play others’ games? Why would you not create your own game? What is your game? How can there be a then without a genuine now? What is the now life for you?”

What do you mean that there is no then without a genuine now?

“Do you want to live authentically.”

Why would I not choose to live authentically?

“Because many people take the easy, less painful way. Our ego would offer easier ways to live. You have known them.”

​But I don’t feel I have a purpose.

“Exactly. As I asked earlier, are you ready for this journey?”

Yes. I can’t stand this emptiness. What do I do?

“Begin. Do what you have to do for now. Be honest with yourself and others.”

And what else?

“What do you feel, right here, right now.”

Peace. Peace and love. I love this feeling of straightening things out, this feeling that I am heading towards meaning.

​“Good, Eric, because if you don’t feel love now, it won’t end in love, and it isn’t me, it isn’t us, it isn’t authentic.”
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This is kind of long, so I will leave this with a question for you: Have you heard your own heart prodding you to recognize your true self?