We all love a good story where the hero wins the day, saves the village and grows as a person. We love it, because it is what our hearts aspire to. We want to be the hero in our own stories. It is easy to get distracted from our hero’s path. Although we aspire to be on the hero journey, the activities of our life are often more urgent and win our attention. We go about earning a living, feeding and clothing ourselves, and consuming entertainment. We forget to listen to our heart and become the cliché of living lives of quiet desperation.
Or at least I know that I find myself in that rut. Our heartis the key to finding our way back to a path that allows us to feel joy and believe that our lives have meaning. There is not just one journey, and it doesn’t stay constant. What felt like the hero’s journey yesterday can quickly become something that no longer speaks to us in the same way.
Because of the stories about heroes, it is easy to mistake the happily ever after as the ultimate sign of the journey we want to take. Actually, the happily ever after is just the moment when our last journey is no longer is the journey we want to be on and the sign that is it time to find a new way. There is a reason why the story ends here. Living the happily ever after is not nearly as interesting or captivating as the journey itself.
This is a great theory, but how do we listen to our hearts? How do we know when it is our heart leading?
Our heart lives in the present moment. It tells us whether we are heading the right direction. It tells us when we are in a place that isn’t good for us. We can listen to the messages of our heart by tuning into the feelings and sensations in our body right now.
It is hard. If we have tuned out our bodies or have avoided being present in the now, the first messages we receive are often unpleasant. We notice the aches and pains of our body that we have been cavalier about nourishing. And we notice unpleasant sensations from feelings that we have ignored. Just like when we put our hand near a hot stove, our instinct is to flinch. We believe that we are serving ourselves by avoiding the unpleasant truths that we find by tuning into our heart and the present moment.
We are not bad or stupid for this behavior. This is the human condition. And it is also the human condition to strive to be better and to become heroes. And we our make choices in every moment. We can face the truth of this moment and listen to our hearts and become heroes, or put if off for another day and another time.
What will your choice be?