A while ago, I was totally living in my head. Like all the time. My ego was out of control. I was overthinking and overwhelmed.
Then something shifted. It wasn’t immediate, but it wasn’t subtle either. In a matter of days, maybe even a few hours, I took a deep dive from my head to my heart.
Once I got there, and saw what an amazingly beautiful place it was, I decided to stay there. In so many ways, this was simply living the way that Suzanne had always lived her life, but I never realized how it worked. Unlike me, she has always led with her heart.
Until that moment, that profound and magical moment when I finally realized what it truly meant, I had never felt how amazing it could be to live from my heart. And today, I’m a different person because of it. I’m a different person because of her and our love.
Today, I have a new partner, and since I lead from the heart, it makes being in a relationship so much easier. In retrospect, I wish I had loved like this more often when Suzanne was alive. It’s not that I wasn’t doing it, I simply recognize and acknowledge it more openly now than I ever did back then.
When I offer a hug now (of course, I don’t offer them to people outside my immediate sphere of family while we are social distancing), I offer it from a place of love and kindness—from my heart. And it’s a completely different experience than it ever was before.
They say the 15-inch journey from the head to the heart is possibly the most difficult we can ever take. Many of us never even bother to take it, simply because we allow our egos to drive us and to rule us (“one ego to rule us all…”). But we don’t have to.
Thing is, the heart is actually the embodiment of our feelings and emotions. The head is our consciousness and thought. If we can “stop” thinking and just “be” for a while, then we can listen to our intuition and to our feelings and sit with them, understanding that we don’t have to constantly rush or race to the next shiny thing.
I used to rush. A lot. In fact, I had a bachelor’s and two master’s degrees before I was 24. If that’s not being in a hurry, then I don’t know what is…
Then one day about a year after Suzanne died, I asked myself “why am I rushing to death?” I was always rushing from one thing to the next, never savoring the moment I was in or the person I was with.
My need to hurry affected all my relationships—at work and at home. I lost my patience easily, I was the angry man, and I struggled to feel content in any job I held. That made it much harder to hold a job.
Then I started to look deep inside for the elusive happiness, for the purpose, and for the passion I so desperately wanted in my life. And when I dove into my heart, listened, and HEARD what my intuition was telling me, I discovered the most amazing secret… my intuition was telling me to live my passion or don’t bother carrying on. It’s what Suzanne would have wanted me to do.
So I chose to become a full-time life and performance coach. Now that I started to do this, my life has changed. Since I made those changes within my own self, many people keep asking me about finding passion and purpose in their lives. So, I help them find it.
The thing is, in my life, and my most recent experience as a widower, I’ve seen so many people make the same mistakes I used to make: stay in dead-end jobs with low pay solely for the sake of “security,” wasting years of their lives doing something they just don’t love. To me, that’s just seems so alien now. So backwards.
Why do we waste so much time sticking with stuff we don’t genuinely care about? Is it the money? Is it recognition? Is it the health benefits? Is it truly for “security?” I just don’t know.
Recently, I have been spending an evening every two weeks with my fraternity brothers from UC Santa Barbara. We chat, we banter, and we play poker.
Of all the brothers, I am one of the very few that is genuinely “self-employed.” And I love what I do. No, I don’t get health benefits, and I don’t want or ask for recognition. Nor do I have much security. But I do get to do something that I am genuinely passionate about and care about. I get to serve and help other widows and widowers.
And I wonder why we aren’t all doing something that we truly love? And I think of all the times I wish I could have been at home with Suzanne, working on something I was passionate about and loved to do instead of wasting all those years complaining and moaning about dead-end jobs and long commutes.
I’m now putting together a program designed to help others get unstuck from the thinking that is holding them back from being happier and living their purpose and passion. It seems like a good idea. I will keep all my readers posted on developments…!
From my heart to yours.
Jeff