Our Heart's Desire

Albert Einstein riding his bicycle in Santa Barbara in 1933

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” - Albert Einstein

 

When I was in college, I had two career treks: a solid foundation in liberal arts to build on for law school, and my secret pleasures--creative writing and world religion.  I would gift myself with one creative writing class and one religion class each semester that I thought of as my guilty pleasures.  What I now know is the classes that gave me so much joy and I felt pulled towards were the guidance of my soul.  I let my intellect−law school will provide a good living−trump my deepest desires.

My intuitive mind, which I believe is our soul that resides in the heart, was quietly guiding me, while my rational mind firmly controlled my path.  Albert Einstein knew we had those two roles mixed up.  French philosopher and Jesuit priest, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said it so beautifully, “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”  Thus, as we can understand that part of us is physical, we also must acknowledge that another part of us is spiritual. The gift of spirit in our daily living is sometimes ignored or dominated by our rational mind.  Yes, we need our rational mind to get us to the market, to remind us to feed ourselves, etc., but the role it should play is that of supporter.  The star is our intuitive mind, which is the gift of our divine knowing. 

How Do We Recognize the Intuitive Mind?

Have you ever made a decision you regretted and then said to yourself "Something told me to go the other way?"  That "something" is the quiet voice of our intuition.  The intuitive voice is usually soft and non-intrusive and does not cause fear.  We can tap into that quiet voice through meditation and prayer and by placing our hand over our heart at any time and in any place and call forth our soul to answer.  Calling forth our intuition is like a muscle.  The more we do it, the clearer and stronger that intuitive voice will be.

The Limitations of the Rational Mind

Our rational mind is protective of our survival−the creator of our flight or fight response−and can cause us to have fear and doubt. Our rational mind also mirrors the voices we heard growing up, which causes limited thinking (our Monkey Minds).  If we were told we were stupid as a child, the rational mind will remind us of this for on our protection until we tell it otherwise.  Gay Hendricks, research psychologist and author of The Big Leap, calls this an Upper Limit Problem. (More about our Upper Limit in the next blog). We can program our rational mind to be in line with our spiritual selves as we grow.  We can tell our rational mind that we are no longer the child who was scared, self-doubting, and alone.  Remember, our rational mind is, after all, our faithful servant. The key is to learn how to use our intuition by recognizing our soul's quiet guidance and then reprogram our rational brain to obey the direction of our heart, which is where our soul resides.

30- Day Mirror Affirmation

If you are suffering from the the demands of the rational mind, our survival mind that can indeed keep us up at night with anxiety, try the following affirmation for 30 days:

I surrender to the guidance of my heart, and trust that all my needs and desires have already been given to me.  I accept this gift right now in this moment and affirm that it is so.