Treat Your Heart the way you Treat Your Brain
It is often said that the greatest distance is the 18 inches (45 cm) between the human brain and heart.
We go to school for years starting as children and often well into adulthood to train our brains and challenge our minds. We read and play "brain games" to keep our minds sharp. We talk about learning something new everyday and how learning is a lifelong endeavor.
But when was the last time you put that kind of effort into caring for your heart? When was the last time you went to school for your feelings or read a book on emotional development? Have you ever played a game designed to grow your heart for those less fortunate than yourself?
Why do western societies attribute greater respect to those who are intellectual as opposed to those who are empathic? Why do we hold a person with an advanced degree in higher regard than someone with a lifetime of volunteer experience?
Perhaps we need to be reminded that our hearts matter. Our hearts are at least as important as our brains and both deserve care and attention.
Perhaps the reason that we choose our brains over our hearts is that it's more comfortable. If we encounter someone in need we can think about them or we can feel for them. It's easy enough to think about what they may have done to deserve their current predicament and then walk away. But if we allow our hearts to truly feel for that person, walking away becomes much harder.
Thus allowing our hearts to feel challenges us to act in a way that simply following our brains alone may not. The question is... are you up for the challenge?!