When your heart talks to you, listen
I had an important realisation last week.
Alice (my partner) and I were on a walk around Cod Beck Reservoir – a beautiful and peaceful walking spot in Osmotherly, North Yorkshire – when we spotted a stag.
We were deep in conversation, talking about our projects and what we were working on and I turned to Alice, stopped and said: “With my new course, I want to show people how to get into their heart space. How can I do that?”.
“Oh my god Lisa”, Alice said, looking over my shoulder and into the woods.
“What, what?”, I asked as a I spun 180 to see what she had seen.
And there he was. Standing around ten meters from us, just behind some trees a stone’s throw from the path. The stag. He wasn’t scared and neither were we. He just lifted his head, slowly and with grace and looked us right in the eyes as he chewed the wet grass he has just torn from the ground.
Time stood still. We were silenced. In awe.
“What do we do?”, asked Alice.
“Nothing”, I replied, “just take it in”.
Alice had been asking to see a deer for a few days and then, as if by magic, there appeared a stag. I can’t remember what happened next. I think he walked off and the spell that held us to the spot was broken.
We turned back to the path ahead and continued our walk.
“Wow”, said Alice, “that was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen”.
“He was huge”, I replied, “but so graceful”.
It felt like a huge privilege to have seen him.
Driving back home that night Alice Googled the spiritual meaning of seeing a deer. For the second time she proclaimed “Oh my god Lisa! You’ll never guess what…The deer is the symbol for gentleness aaannd heart energy! That’s what you were saying just as I spotted him – that you wanted to show people how to get into their heart space”.
The deer spirit animal will remind you to be gentle with yourself and others. The grace and gentleness characteristic of this spirit animal echo the qualities brought forth when living from the heart. For example, the traditional symbol used for the heart chakra has the deer (sometimes also represented as an antelope) as emblematic animal of the energy of love and harmony with oneself and others. Read more here.
Shivers ran over my body. She was right.
What’s odd is that I’d been re-reading The Alchemist (again) and a lot of the book talks about omens and signs. As the King says to Santiago, the shepherd on a quest for his treasure: ‘In order to find the treasure, you will have to follow the omens.’
I’d best take heed! I thought to myself.
Later that week, Alice took me to a meditation in Newcastle, led by her wonderful meditation teacher Christine. I didn’t know what the session was about – just that it was a guided meditation.
As Christine introduced the session I couldn’t believe it. It was all about aligning your head and your heart.
Is this for real? I asked as I looked up.
Following the meditation, we hopped in the car and went to meet a friend, Rachel, for dinner in Jesmond. As I got out the car, right in front of me was a massive patch of grass on the wall shaped into a heart. It was the only one – it had just grown that way.
I know this sounds hard to believe so it’s just as well I captured it all on camera for the next vlog!
Anyway, I’m taking heed. I’m listening to the omens and following the signs and so here I am, trying to articulate what I mean by ‘heart space’ and ‘heart energy’ because getting into this space changed my life. It saved my life.
I’ll be honest. I didn’t know it existed before the start of April. Before LA, Alice and I went to a Hay House event in London. We watched lots of incredible authors, speakers and light workers take to the stage and share their ideas and stories.
At the end of the day a woman, named Sonia Choquette, took to the stage. She had a 90 minute slot. I wasn’t sure I could last – it has been a long day and we were pretty tired – but as soon as she began I knew I was here to learn what she was teaching.
Sonia introduced me to the idea of creating from the heart and not the head. She showed us how to ‘silence that barking dog’ in our heads through music, dance, singing, playfulness, silliness and movement. She told us that we were the vision boards of our lives and that to make our dream lives a reality we simply needed to get into that heart space.
I was captivated. It was so obvious once she’d said it but I was not living in that space. I was very much in my planning, controlling, fearful head space at that moment.
Half way through her session Sonia asked: “Has anyone else noticed how quiet their mind is right now?”.
It was unbelievable. That voice that wouldn’t shut up was quiet. My ‘barking dog’ was quiet. Now was the time to create. I got it.
Our trip to LA to see Tony fricken Robbins* was an extension of this training – getting out of our heads and into our hearts.
“Your heart knows the answer”, Tony fricken Robbins said, “put your hand on your heart and ask”.
He had us dancing around, hugging, meditating, high fiving – anything and everything to bring us out of our heads and into our bodies. “Get in your head, you’re dead”, he said over and over again.
I get it, I thought, as I stood in that arena with 9000 people who were there to change their lives.
It’s in our heads that the voice lives – that doubting nagging voice. It’s where fear talks to us and convinces us our dreams are silly. It’s where logic sits, the logic that proves it can’t be done. It’s the voice that keeps us locked in mediocrity, too fearful to follow our dreams. To change our lives, to manifest our dreams, to DARETOGROW we must get out of our heads and into our hearts.
I came back from LA as a new woman. A woman who had once again tapped into her heart and her passion and her purpose.
I’d done it once before, but by accident. I hadn’t realised, then, that I’d landed on the secret to all happiness and success in life: living in our heart space.
Two years ago, I’d hit rock bottom and, as a blissful result, I stopped caring what other people thought. I stopped doing what I should have been doing – what was expected of me – and start doing what I wanted to do – what I felt compelled to put in motion. This was the DARETOGROW blog, my book, the live talks – they all came out of that heart space and the more I listened the more my heart spoke to me. Two years ago I took heartfelt action and it saved my life. I did what I felt guided to do and it enabled me to step into my power and bring my purpose to the world. I just didn’t realise it at the time.
On another walk around the reservoir with Alice I realised this and I nearly cried. “Thank you Lisa” I shouted out. I was so grateful to myself that I’d listened to my heart two years ago – because of that guidance I’ve met so many wonderful people. Because of that guidance I’m in the most incredible relationship. Because of that guidance I get to live my dream life.
And so my advice to you is this: just for a moment this week take a moment for yourself, get into your heart space and ask for guidance. You can ask for guidance on anything you like – your heart will answer. You could start with a hot bath and candles to calm your mind. You could paint or colour in.
Me? I get into my heart space when I’m baking, running and driving. It’s an odd mix but they all work. You’ll find what works for you and in fact – I bet you already know don’t you, how to bi-pass that circuitry in your head and get into your heart space. What activities do you do that calm you down, quieten your mind, help you find a release?
You see, we all know deep down what we want from life, don’t we? We have needs, desires, cravings – things we’d love to accomplish but would never dare attempt? That is the voice of our hearts talking to us.
As Paulo Coehlo says in The Alchemist – there is a language in the world that everyone understands; it’s the ‘language of enthusiasm, of things accomplished with love and purpose, and as part of a search for something believed in and desired.’
It’s soul language as Alice would say. It’s the language of our hearts.
The magic of life starts in our hearts. Our dreams lives are imagined in our hearts. The impossible idea comes forth from that heart space and everything you need to learn to make it happen will come to you along the way. Tune into the signs, follow the omens and when your heart talks to you, listen.
