“The greatest distance in the world is the 14 inches from our minds to our hearts.” ~ Agnes Baker Pilgrim
On Friday, I had my annual physical and for the first time the doctor performed an EKG. I had these little electrodes placed all over my body. Even the slightest movement, even clearing my throat, caused my heart rate to change. Its beat is the center of our existence, and yet we spend very little time actually considered the needs and wants of the heart, or rather our minds spend a lot of time dismissing the heart’s needs and wants.
How do we close the gap? How do we help our lives sing out from the heart while being informed by the tremendous cognitive abilities pulsing inside our enormous brains? I just finished reading Michael Pollan’s excellent book In Defense of Food. Pollan points out that we actually already know how to eat; we don’t need any scientist to tell us. What’s happened is that we’ve allowed “nutrionism” and food science to lead us astray. He advocates for getting back to our roots to help us re-learn how to eat well. I think the same method could be used to close our heart-mind gap.
A few months back I wrote an article for Examiner.com about getting back to age 9 to discover what will make us the happiest in our careers. The trouble is that once we get too far beyond age 9, we allow too many people to tell us what is best for us. We let others tell us what to do with our lives so often that we actually begin to believe them. When we’re 9, all we can do is imagine what kind of life will make us happiest. That’s the only focus of a 9 year old. As a 33 year old, I want to have that same maniacal focus on happiness that my 9 year old self had. I deserve it. You deserve it. We all deserve it.
In a recent job interview, someone remarked that my professional experience was “weird”. (I ended up opting out of the interview process as a result.) By “weird”, he meant that I have always done what I wanted to do. In my career, I just follow my heart rather than some plan defined my someone else as a “good way to go”. My friend, Susan Strayer, brilliantly advocates for following your heart in her incredible book The Right Job Right Now. Susan asks her readers to look up and then look in to find out what they really want to do with their careers. It’s the only career book in my personal library and I consult it regularly to keep me leading my career with my heart.
I’m not saying it’s easy to get back to being 9. There are some things I do to put me in that frame of mind. This isn’t a comprehensive list, but it helps me and I hope it helps you, too.
6 Ways I get back to 9:
1.) Play on the swings in the park near my house
2.) Spend time with kids – getting back to 9 by osmosis
3.) I paint with watercolors, sing, and dance with wild abandon on a regular basis – even if it’s just in my apartment by myself
4.) I watch cartoons – who says there’s nothing good on TV? Sesame Street is my favorite show.
5.) I spend time in nature. As a kid I grew up on an apple orchard in a rural area of upstate New York. Getting out into nature reminds me of running around the woods with my sister, Weez.
6.) I read children’s books and fairy tales. Those words and feelings of the young characters still resonate with me, and remind me to celebrate all that I felt when I was that age.
The image above is not my own. It can be found here.
Christa Avampato 