Eighteen Inches

The eighteen-inch journey from your head to your heart, Is the most important one you will ever take. Living in and from your heart will improve every area of your life.

My blog is all about helping you live your own extraordinary life.  It is about finding your purpose, your why, and answering the question – What is it I live for? And then building the skills that help you live a life that excites and energizes you.

What is it you live for?

Have you ever wondered what your purpose is, why you are here, or how can you leave your mark? Or wondered, how do I get unstuck, get off auto pilot and start moving toward achieving the goals and dreams I have?

If you are like most people, some days you feel energized, motivated, and firing on all cylinders. But other days – maybe most days, it is a struggle to get out of bed, you hit the snooze button and then when you do get up, it is go through the motions until you crawl back into bed that night, knowing that tomorrow will be the same old, same old. Do you ever wonder: Is this as good as it gets?

The question is: How do you get from where you are at to where you want to be?

There was a time in my life, about 20 years ago when I felt lost, didn’t know what my purpose was and was just going through the motions. I had lost sight of the goals and excitement I had when I was in my 20s and didn’t know who I was.  Every day was pretty much like the one before it and my life lacked joy and meaning.

But then, I went to hear a speaker and, I met the right person, at the right time and he had the right message. This speaker became my coach and mentor, and we stay connected until his passing in 2014.

He helped me get my life back on track by teaching me to live from my heart instead of my head and that changed my life completely.  I went from being broke, getting kicked out of my house, and getting a divorce to where I am today. And I have evolved his teachings into my model and proven process so I can help other people find their why and live their own extraordinary life.

And one of the secrets to doing that is by taking the eighteen-inch journey from you head to your heart.

It is truly the distance you need to travel in order to live you best life.

We spend most of our lives running away from, or avoiding the one thing we need to embrace, so we can live our best lives, find meaning and purpose, and look forward to each day.

That one thing is our feelings. 

I can already imagine some of you rolling your eyes, and others thinking its time to hit stop and move onto something else instead of listening to this guy’s psychobabble.

And if you are thinking that, guess why – because of a feeling.  I have stirred some negative emotion in you around feelings. 

So, hang on, don’t click on another tab, stick with me a little longer and find out how I have used this model with my clients for over 15 years and seen lives change, improve, and people accomplishing things they never thought they could.

And I’m not going to be writing so much about feelings today as I am about the importance of spending less time in your head and more time in your heart.

I am hoping you will at least entertain the notion that living from the heart can improve your life, your self-esteem, your relationships, your anxiety, your self-doubt and help you on the journey to living the life you dream about.

From the Heart

For centuries, the heart has been believed to be the seat of the soul and the origin of all our feelings.  That kind of sounds important doesn’t it. Something worth paying attention to.

There are two main reasons why we have difficulty living in and from our heart and spend so much time in our head thinking about the same problems over and over, thoughts and ideas, worry and stress, on the ever-spinning hamster wheel, and feeling like we aren’t getting anywhere or that we need to get of the wheel or out of our rut. To stop living on auto pilot and do something different.

The first reason we have difficulty connecting to our heart, has to do with media, information overload, and societal expectations and norms.

Unfortunately, as civilization has evolved, we have lived less and less in our hearts and more and more in our heads.  Especially in the information age we now live in. We are bombarded with information each and every day.  A dozen or more social media platforms, hundreds of television channels to choose from, billboards, news feeds, text messages, emails, app after app after app.

We are overwhelmed with information, some of it good some of it bad, some of it true, much of it misinformation or disinformation. We get snippet after snippet, sound bite after sound bite. Television commercials used to be 60 seconds in length, sometimes more and now they can be reduced to 15 or 20 seconds. That means in that 3-minute commercial break when you are watching your favorite show, you used to see and hear 3 messages, and now it might be as many as twelve.

In the news, we hear about inflation, stagnation, war, famine, refugees, climate change, pollution, homicides, and abductions on a daily basis.

Mental health issues are off the charts, depression, anxiety, drug, and alcohol use are at all time highs.  People are overloaded, overwhelmed and looking for ways to escape, to shut out all the noise and find a bit of peacefulness and bliss.

A Safe Place

There is a quiet place just eighteen inches from the place where all the noise is.  It is a place where you can find the answers to all your questions. Questions like: Why am I here, how can I make a difference, how can I improve my relationship, what should I do with my life, how do I achieve my goals and make my dreams a reality?

Wouldn’t it be nice to escape into your quiet place and find those answers?  Here the second reason we live in our heads disconnected from our feelings.

I want you to imagine a newborn child. Each of us comes into the world, a newborn, as a blank canvas ready to absorb everything about the world we are thrust into. Out of the warmth and safety of mother’s womb and into a world full of sensations and messages received through touch, taste, smell, sight, and sound.

Babies don’t worry about what others think of them, their crying, other emissions, or how they look.

They are the ultimate living sponge, absorbing and processing everything around them.

Babies look up from their mattress and typically see two immense people peering over the edge of the crib and making funny noises. These are their first teachers and if you will, their first gods. They are providers of everything necessary to sustain life, comfort, stimulation, and growth—assuming these people are healthy and capable.

Babies grow and develop mentally at an incredible rate. They learn to trust these gods and to communicate when they are hungry, sick, tired, or when their diaper needs changing simply by crying or screaming.

They are healthily egocentric and quickly learn the power of communication and that when they cry or scream, their needs are met. They even teach their gods that different types of cries and screams mean different things and produce different results.

As hostile as their new, cold world seemed when they first arrived, they feel safe because these creatures they later learn to call mommy and daddy have their back – in most cases. This little sponge continues to grow, absorbing everything, and even understands from the get-go that the noises mommy and daddy make mean different things and so do their tones and facial expressions.

They are so perceptive that they can even feel what is going on around them and whether it is safe or scary. Their eyes see, their ears here, their brain processes and they check their feelings to determine if everything is OK or if it is hostile.

From the moment they take their first breath, the blank canvas begins to come alive and take form, and each experience is like a brushstroke, shaping, defining, and creating how this new being sees the world and themselves. Much of the painting is completed by early adulthood but events in later years can contribute to the overall picture.

A Masterpiece or Not?

Some experiences lead to amazing brushstrokes worthy of a masterpiece and others are dull, and like tarnish or a stain, detract from the beauty, purity, and innocence of the original, brilliant canvas.

These dull or damaging brushstrokes born out of adverse experiences can be blindingly visible to the viewer or may be covered up like an ill placed tattoo, in an attempt to hide them from the world. These stains, whether glaringly obvious or covertly running the show from beneath a superficial layer of paint, can appear as low self-esteem, negative self-talk, self-limiting beliefs, anger, rage, addiction, depression, anxiety, self-sabotage, and a host of other mental and physical health problems.

It is important to understand that these dull and tarnishing brushstrokes are put there by other people and other experiences. They can defile and desecrate the beauty and purity of the original canvas to the extent that the person fails to rise to their full potential and at times may feel hopeless and lost.

It is extremely important to understand that the negative comments and events that attack a person’s being and essence need not define who they are or trap them in a prison of believing they are not worthy of a meaningful life, that they are less than, or insignificant. Know too, if the child’s inner critic is harsh, unsupportive, or even mean, this is a collection of voices from its past and it is a reflection of the people who have said these things – not a reflection of the child.  And if it is the witnessing or experiencing of events that created the child’s doubt or lack of self-confidence, they can rise above their circumstances and replace their inner voice with one that supports them, builds them up, and helps them become the person they were meant to be.

So how does all of this relate to the eighteen-inch journey?

Serve and Return

To illustrate, lets fast forward from newborn to about 18 months.  Imagine this little person sitting in the safety of its room, back to the door, playing happily with its favorite toy. The child hears a sound behind as someone enters the room. They turn around and look, and if it is mommy or daddy, the child will light up, make some happy sounds, and may stretch its arms out to be picked up or show mommy or daddy that they are playing with.  When mommy or daddy entered, their eyes saw, their brain registered it as a safe, and they felt joyful.

This is what I call the serve and return cycle between the head and the heart. It is also called a feedback loop. Sight and sound cues are given, and the brain registers them, sends a positive signal to the heart and the child expresses happiness or joy.

Imagine now, that the person who entered the room, was a stranger or worse, someone who had previously hurt the child.

The child would look, the brain would register danger and the child’s feedback loop would return a message – a feeling, of danger and subsequently fear.

The child would turn from the person, become really small and focus on their toy or toys, hoping the danger would pass.

We all know that typical fear responses are fight, flight, or freeze. Incapable of doing the first two, the child freezes.

Several chemical reactions happen as well but I won’t get into the science of stress hormones in this discussion. These two examples are only to illustrate how there is a built-in feedback loop that exists in all of us from birth.  A feedback loop between, sights, sounds, smells, an even taste with our feelings or heart.  Some people call it checking your gut or gut reactions, but it is a tiny bit higher than that.

Unfortunately, if we don’t grow up in a loving, caring nurturing home or there are other environmental factors like being bullied, living in an unsafe neighborhood, growing up in families where addiction is present, or where mixed messages are given, or there are mental health issues, the feedback loop gets hijacked or blocked.

Childhood is supposed to be about playing, growing emotionally, intellectually, and socially. Days spent, playing baseball, soccer, music, hanging out with friends, having crushes, and dreaming about the future.

Survival

But when a child experiences trauma, experiences or witnesses, violence, or abuse, – life ceases to be about the wonderment and joy of childhood and becomes a series of problems to be solved. 

In other words, the child needs to spend most of its time in its head, trying to figure out how to survive. When it is supposed to be spending its youth, without a care in the world.

And this starts the moment the innocence of youth is shattered – even for the very first time, by trauma, violence, or abuse.

I want to be clear about the word abuse. Most times it brings up images of physical or sexual abuse. But it includes emotional and mental abuse such as being bullied, called names, sworn at, witnessing the raw discharge of emotions – especially anger, and taking on adult roles at an early age.

I want to be clear on this as well. Typically, we jump to images of unhealthy, abusive parents. But it can also be siblings, grandparents, teachers, coaches, ministers, priests, schoolyard bullies, neighbors, or classmates – even ones that may appear as friends.

Perfect Family?

Let me paint a picture for you of a family that to the outside world looks like the perfect family in any perfect neighborhood. But there is a secret. Dad is an alcoholic and the kids have learned that there is a 5 o’clock dad, an 8 o’clock dad and an 11:00 o’clock dad.

5 o’clock dad seems happy to be home but tired and worn out from a hard day of work. He is pleasant enough but distant and uninterested. 8 o’clock dad is starting to get loud, angry, and aggressive. The kids have learned to stay out of his way, keep quiet and not ask for anything. 11 o’clock dad is raging, swearing, and yelling at mom, while the kids try to sleep. They are afraid he might come into their rooms in a fit of rage or hit mom again. They hope he will pass out soon. 

When they get up in the morning, nothing is said, mom is pretending nothing happened, or makes excuses for dad’s behaviour again.  And off the kids go to school, sad, confused, and scared. But there is nobody to talk about it with because they have learned from both mom and dad, that they don’t talk about what happens at home to other people. They are stuck in their heads, cut off from their feelings, spend the day pretending everything is OK before they go home hoping and praying tonight will be different. It isn’t.  There is no joy, and life is all about figuring out how to survive.

Imagine another family. A child is touched inappropriately by their teacher who is a friend of the family. The child comes home, distraught, sad, hurt, confused, and full of shame and proceeds to tell mom what happened. Mom says: “I can’t imagine them doing something like that, why they have kids of their own and have won all kinds of awards for teaching and they even coach the soccer team. Maybe it was just an accident.”  The child needs love and support but is met with denial and learns that talking about their feelings isn’t safe because their feelings weren’t acknowledged and even worse, dismissed. The child goes up into their head to figure out what the did wrong and how to prevent it. They begin to believe they can’t trust anyone but themselves.

And here is one more example. A child tries out for a sports team, in a sport they love and have been dying to play.  They get cut from the team and go home in tears, run to their room, and slam the door. The child is sad, embarrassed, and hurt. Mom ignores it and waits until dad comes home to talk with the child.

Dad enters the room and asks what happened. The child, eyes red from crying, through their sobs, tells the story and the pain and sadness are all over their face for dad to see. Dad offers this wisdom: “These things happen in life. Life isn’t fair so you need to learn how to handle disappointment.  You’ll get over it, so stop crying and get washed up for dinner.”

In that moment the child learns that their feelings don’t matter because they weren’t validated and also to expect disappointment in life. The world seems a little less safe and friendly and that must be true because it came from dad. The child spends more time in their head to figure out how to avoid disappointment and not get hurt again. Maybe they reject sports and become bookish and withdrawn. They are reluctant to share feelings because they were completely ignored by both mom and dad.

These stories are sad and may seem out of the ordinary or extreme. But trust me, I hear these stories and worse every day in my practice.  I hear them from men and women, doctors, lawyers, bus drivers, fire fighters, construction workers, teachers, ministers.  And even though I have used three examples of families, this type of ignoring feelings, not validating feelings, and denying feelings, happens in schools, churches, workplaces, counsellors’ offices – places that should all be safe but sometimes aren’t.

And as we mature into adulthood, ready to take on the world, if we still carry these wounds with us, we use our survival skills of being in our heads, and cannot connect to our heart, have difficulty expressing our feelings and often struggle with relationships.

I have found that people who feel like they are awkward, don’t fit in, don’t matter, that they are not enough, and underachieve were often not seen, heard, understood, or cherished as children.

Alignment

When we are told by people we respect or who have some type of power over us, whether that power is real or perceived, that our feelings don’t matter, we begin to think there is something wrong with us, that we don’t matter. And when we feel that we don’t matter or that we are not enough, we cannot rise to be our best selves.

Why is that? Because from birth, we are meant to have the feedback loop between our intellect and our feelings, and it is a part of who we are. And even though we have managed to survive by being in our head, there is a disconnect because on some level – likely subconscious, we know there is something missing – some part of us that is needed so we can be a whole person – to be the best we can be.

We are not aligned or congruent. Alignment, which is needed to be living a fully authentic life is when our thoughts, words, feelings, and actions are in harmony.

When our thoughts, words, feelings, and actions are not in alignment, we suffer from something called dissonance.

A good example of dissonance is when an orchestra is warming up for a performance. There are 50 different instruments, tuning up, playing different scales, running through their solos. All at the same time. It is unpleasing to the ear, there is no harmony because they are all on different pages. Then the conductor raises the baton, the unharmonious noise suddenly stops and something beautiful happens. Harmony, every instrument aligned and playing their part.

The journey of eighteen inches is about alignment, about harmony and about getting our thoughts, words, feelings, and actions all on the same page. When we can do that, life gets easier, and we can make our own beautiful music.

How do we do it? First by accepting the obvious.  We have feelings so there must be a reason for them.  Then by deciding we want to live our life more fully, in harmony and aligned.

Next by understanding it will take courage, work, and commitment if you want to live to your potential. Why courage? Because living in your feelings requires vulnerability. And for most of us, way back when we children, when we were little sponges and we were vulnerable, we got hurt.  And we learned it is safer to go up into our heads and figure things out.

That was a survival tool and likely necessary at the time. But if you want to become the person you were meant to be, it is time to stop surviving and start living.  Survival is being in your head. Living is from your heart.

Open up the feed back loop, the serve and return system and begin living more fully.

In future blogs I will write about how to do that, how to identify our core feelings and the reasons we have them.  Yes, we have them for a reason – even the ones you think are negative feelings. Here is a tip. There are no negative feelings.

I hope to see you back here next week as we continue the eighteen-inch journey to living our best lives.