Our Inner Compass Is Always Working

Thursday, 05 August 2010 14:46 Written by Nirmala

I received another question about how the Heart is our true guide:

How do you determine which is more true right now? By the Heart? Or else experiment rationally and see which turns out best, but with that method you can never really know what the "best" outcome really would be so it's hard to evaluate the results.

So we've circled back to the Heart, but this brings up for me a question on "unconscious wounding". I've been reading lately about how certain childhood experiences result in "addiction to unhappiness", that is, the inner compass of what feels "right" is off. Self-sabotage and veering toward situations that don't serve occur. But the key point is that this is all a completely unconscious mechanism. If this state of affairs is true the Heart is off and you're really at sea without a compass. There may actually be an expansion, not just an emotional need or craving but a true expansion, toward situations such as, for example, caretaking others at the expense of your own needs.

Here is my reply:

The Heart can help you know what is most true right now. The truth gives an expanded, relaxed sense of self and also quiets the mind. I do not agree that the Heart can be wounded in a way that causes the inner compass to be off. I would suggest that even when there is an unconscious addiction to unhappiness, that the experience is still full of inner contraction and tension. The Heart is still showing you how true your addictions or compulsions are. So the true inner compass is still working, even if we are following a false compass like our fears or desires.

Of course, there usually is a way that we are rewarded for our addictive behavior with a pleasurable or comforting sensation or emotion, or a false sense of superiority, or some protection against our own self judgment, but that is not truly an expanded and easeful experience. I often say the truth is like when you have a roommate and they go away for a month....you can just relax and be yourself. The addictive and distorted defense mechanisms we learn never really give that sense that you can just be yourself and that is enough. Instead, they are like your roommate coming back and bringing his or her parents for a month long visit: we can't just relax and be. Even in our unconscious defense mechanisms we can never relax and just be, we always have to "keep up our defenses".

Consciousness itself has no preferences, so it always allows you to move into any experience including very contracted, confused defenses against the residue of our childhood wounding. Of course it is also always willing to consciously see the truth of our wounding and thereby start to heal it in a way that actually does allow an expansion and realization of our truer nature.

In response to your first question, when it comes to practical decisions and sorting through the many thoughts, feelings, intuitions, desires, longings and impulses of our daily life, there are limitations to how useful the Heart can be. That is because it ultimately does not matter that much what we decide and what we do each moment. Life has a way of getting us where we really need to be one way or the other, so if we miss one opportunity, we can always get there another way.

The real value of listening to your Heart moment to moment is not that it makes everything work out well and avoids all pitfalls and wrong turns, but that it means that we are listening when a profound truth arises. When we are touched by a deeper knowing, the Heart shows us how true the bigger truth is by softening and expanding to a striking degree. We can expand right out of our usual sense of "me." These bigger truths appear in our lives spontaneously and more often than we might realize, so it is a great gift when we are present and aware of them.

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