Living From Your Whole Heart

The antidote to exhaustion is wholeheartedness.

Everybody’s tired. How many times a day do you hear yourself or your friends say, “I’m exhausted”?

If your work/life is being done with your whole heart, if you are being your authentic self in what you “do” you will not feel that draining exhausted feeling at the end of the day. If anything you will have to drag yourself away from whatever it is your doing and you will be left with a feeling of exhilaration. Sure your body will get tired and you will have to rest but you won’t feel drained and dragged down. How often when you are doing something you love has the time past swiftly by? I went for a seven-mile walk with a friend the other day and we were having one of the most real and authentic conversations while we walked that I had ever had. The seven miles fell away and when we got back to our starting point we both said, “I could do that all over again!” Sometimes you don’t remember to eat because your so intent on whatever it is your doing.

Our bodies really don’t need as much food as we think we do, case in point, when we are living an authentic life and doing something wholeheartedly our bodies don’t signal its time to stop for cheeseburgers. Quite the opposite, your body says keep going! Have an apple and stay at task.

So now not only are you lost in your passion for doing something you love you are staying fit as well as deepening the mind, body and spirit connection.

Don’t confuse pleasure for joy. The ego seeks pleasure and the soul seeks joy. It won’t really work if you think your passion to live your authentic life is something that only gives pleasure not joy that you feel in your soul. Having drinks with friends brings pleasure, doing something for humanity brings joy. One of my favorite thing to do is to entertain. I love having friends over for dinner and parties, making great food and drinking great wine. I felt like it was something that not only I loved to do but I was good at it as well. We had so much fun hosting parties and dinnersover the years; everyone always had a great time and looked forward to our gatherings. After many years of being the consummate host I realized that I was not getting the same feeling from throwing the party as I had in the past. I was starting to feel tired and a little resentful for always having to ‘be the one’ to have everyone over. Even though no one asked me to and I was only putting myself in the position of catering to everyone. After some introspection I realized that it wasn’t necessarily throwing a party that I loved what I really loved was caring for people. Throwing the party all the time was making me exhausted and unhealthy. I love my friends to be happy and comfortable and content. Laughter, having fun and having a human connection is joyful. It gives me great joy to help someone achieve that feeling. Throwing parties gave me pleasure and not serving others but being of service gave me joy. I just didn’t know how to express it any other way. SO I was almost there doing what was natural for me, being a host. But when it started to not feel quite right it was only through having some quiet introspection what I realized I really wanted to do and that was to be of service to people in a more meaningful capacity. Don’t get me wrong; I still love to put a dinner party together.  Choosing the guest list, the menu the wine the playlist of music. All of these things thrill me to no end. There is nothing wrong with a little pleasure now and again. I mean c’mon, we are only human after all! As long as it is done for the right reasons a gathering can allow great soulful joy.  But throwing parties wasn’t what I did professionally. Through yoga, reiki, meditation and breathing and even the blog I can help facilitate people to learn how to achieve balance in their lives and a greater sense of peace and happiness. My goal all along but being a party girl it just took me awhile to figure it out.

If your lucky enough to be able to sustain a living doing something that brings joy to you heart and soul you are the wealthiest person on the planet. What is “it”? What is your thing? If we all allowed ourselves to follow our dreams and live from the whole heart can you imagine how happy everyone would be just walking around everyday? Spread the word, it is all within our grasp. We just have to figure out what it is we can do from a whole heart. Whether it is writing, playing music, crunching numbers, teaching, debating, philosophizing or being analytical. Every one of us has a passion for something.

Following your dreams can make you happy have more energy AND you’ll be thin?? I’m in.