Daily Gratitude: This follows on nicely to the quote about the 16 inches between your brain and your heart.

It’s a wise saying that is worthy of our attention. Often you hear people say they can’t escape from their thoughts, that they feel a prisoner in their heads.

Just as often, though, there are people who are driven by their heart whether you consider that to mean being guided by emotions in general or by love specifically.

I personally think this quote is aimed toward people like myself who don’t ever acknowledge their heart, their emotions. I learned long ago that it wasn’t safe to express them and worse yet, it wasn’t safe to have emotions. Here we see the truth behind mind-body medicine. You cannot escape these emotions (your heart). They will manifest some way, some how. And if you don’t acknowledge them , they will make themselves known in and through your body. 2017 proved that to me. My body expressed all that had been stored up for decades and it wasn’t pretty.

If you’re like me, you have to make a conscious effort to recognize your emotions at least. Then it’s a good idea to learn how to cultivate them. Once the door is open, it becomes easier – just like everything else in life. It’s all about taking step after step. Perhaps that’s why this year’s vol state was even more meaningful. It was just that – taking step after step. And my my more experienced parts tried to escape my heart by numbing me but fortunately there were other parts that stood up and decided to make themselves known. It’s a process and I’m only now, as I write my book, understanding all that happened.

Yet if I’d just ignored the experience, I would have missed so much and just stuffed all those emotions away in the lockbox of my heart.

Listen to your heart. What is it telling you?