1/22/13—Taking Sincerity to Heart

Today's Draw: A Thin Wrapping of Wishes from Illuminate! Life Journey Cards by Linda Clayon. Do you make a conscious effort to be impeccable of word and action? Do you have a practice that keeps you on track? How are you at spotting the insincerity of others and do you suppose others are just as good at spotting it in you?

The book for this deck says this card is about dreams and wishes. But it also included a line I found interesting. It said "Where is the heart?"

It wasn't that long ago that we had a post about how to ask your heart if a certain choice or decision is right for you. We were to "breathe" into that area and see what made the heart feel expansive or what made it contract. And we were to follow expansion. 

But where is the heart when it comes to the things we say and do in our lives? I think a key phase of our emotional and personal evolution is being honest with ourselves in this way...to really understand the intentions beneath our words and actions.

There was a time in my life that I might, say, be manipulative without being aware that's what I was doing. There were times I would play the victim with profound righteousness. Times I might belittle or believe I was superior. Times I might be opportune. And I would do these things unconsciously. I probably still do some of that stuff. Even though I've worked on this a lot, I still sometimes catch myself falling into those traps and I have to wonder what less-than-genuine words or deeds I'm not catching.

There are times you know what you're doing, even as you're doing it. And there are times you realize that and change course or fess up. And then there are times you're unaware or in denial. You can check your heart or gut for these things, too.

To do this, you can pick a time where you KNOW your intentions were pure. Breathe that moment in and see how it feels in your heart. Does it expand it? For me, everything in my whole midsection relaxes. And then ask yourself about a situation where there's issue. Is your heart in the right place? For me, if it's not, I'll get a funny feeling in my gut.

We have within us our own built-in lie detectors to suss out the lies we tell ourselves. And there are times for all of us where our heart might not be in the right place, even though we want to think it is. So I think it's a good practice to check in on this regularly so we can truly be the people we like to present ourselves as being. We have these sophisticated brains and personalities we take out into the world everyday and I think we do ourselves and others a disservice if we don't operate them responsibly.