My Heart Goes In One Direction, My Life In The Other

Everyone should listen to their heart. But to be honest, no one can be completely consistent every day. We consist of contradictions because we love and hate at the same time, are brave but run away, are good but also cause harm. But we deal with these contradictions when we build a way of being and living, more or less consistently.

For some people, building a foundation of consistency is not easy. They live as if they do not want to live. They work as if they do not want to work. They love as if they do not want to love. In these cases, there is a strong dichotomy between how they feel in their hearts and what they actually do. It is as if they live a borrowed existence and do not pull in one direction.

There are many cases like these. People who do not really love their parents but still maintain contact with them. People who work all day even though they long until it’s time to go home. People who choose a profession they hate, or people who always seem to appreciate the people around them, even though they just want them to disappear.

Of course, we go through all the days or stages when we dismiss the way we live. Under certain circumstances, we lose the desire to work, feel distant from our partners and become irritated by our surroundings. But when you really connect with life from the heart, these experiences are fleeting and pass with relative simplicity.

Of course, there are many people who do not live life from the heart and who blame external factors. If they hate their job but continue to work there, they will claim that they have to do it because the bills at the end of the month can not wait and because it is difficult to find a new job. But they will not look for new jobs or make any other kind of effort to be able to leave the job they hate so much.

This is even more common in love relationships. You probably know someone who always complains about their partner and who will continue to do so year after year. If you tell the person to leave the partner, he or she will say that this will happen one fine day or that it will not be possible due to children, shared mortgages or religious beliefs.

At this point, anyone would ask: If it is impossible to overcome this situation, why do they not find a way to adapt to it? And if it is possible to overcome, why do they not do everything to end their alleged anguish?

In these cases, the heart goes in one direction, while life goes in the other. The person suffers and feels trapped, but he can not visualize a way out of the maze. Or he simply believes that “such is life” and that he should accept it, or perhaps that he is not capable of making a change. In the end, a subconscious force is at work that these people are not aware of.

Almost all of us believe that the reasons behind our actions are quite clear, but when we are asked why we did what we did, we give vague answers. In reality, the human mind is much more complex than that. It seems that there is much we do not know about ourselves, including the deepest and most authentic motives behind what we do.

Ever since we were born, we have been exposed to the will of others. Our parents constructed a conscious meaning for our existence, but they also imposed their own subconscious expectations and desires in our lives.

A depressed mother can, for example, express the love she has to give, but also a certain gray cloud over everything that happens. A distant father can love in his own way, but can also become a ghost – always out of reach – that the child tries to be comfortable with and get closer by getting good grades, being very reasonable, or by constantly creating problems.

If your heart goes in one direction and your life in the other, it means that there is a contradiction between your conscious and subconscious desires. You probably live the way someone else wants you to. That person is probably one of your parents or someone who was important during your childhood.

You want to make them happy, but deep down you know that your actions are motivated by someone else’s desires. But something within you prevents you from rebelling and demanding a genuine life, tailored to your own desires. This something is the childhood fear of losing the love of those you continue to subconsciously depend on.

Within all of us, there is a vulnerable child who would do anything necessary to cling to the love, attention, and care of our parents. Some people learn to recognize the resources they have to live an individual life, free from these external influences where heart and life go in one direction.

Others, however, continue to hover around an unresolved, subconscious conflict with one of their parents. They grow up, they study, they work and they become doctors or even presidents; but they feel as if they are not themselves.