“The human mind is kind of like… a pinata.

When it breaks open, there’s a lot of surprises inside.

Once you get the pinata perspective, you see that

losing your mind can be a peak experience.”

~ Jane Wagner, playwright, “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe”

Though it may sound strange, “losing your mind” — living for a time empty, without a constantly chattering brain — can help you find yourself. When the brain takes a break, it’s easier to hear your heart, and to follow its guaranteed guidance.

But few of us go willingly. For me, the shift from a left-brain, Type A personality took the form of illness. “Losing my mind” catapulted me into my body and into present time in a way I’d never experienced. I couldn’t think, reason, or talk my way out of what was happening. With my brain on an extended vacation, I began to live by — and trust — my intuition.

The truth is, our heart and brain are in continuous dialogue. Rollin McCraty, PhD, co-founder of the Institute of HeartMath, says the heart has a special intelligence, and sends “far more signals to the brain than the brain is sending to the heart.”

Yet we idolize the brain and give the heart short shrift, except when it demands attention — via a heart attack, for example.

Hm.

The Longest Journey You’ll Ever Take

Americans come from diverse backgrounds and speak different languages, yet we can all become fluent in a common tongue: the language of the heart. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, author of The Little Prince, wrote, “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.”

Seeing with our hearts creates kindness. In Jewel’s song Hands, the bridge brings tears to my eyes: “In the end, only kindness matters…” It touches something primal in me. Similarly, TV talk show host Ellen DeGeneres closes each broadcast with the invocation, “Be kind to one another.”

The greatest gift we can give each other and ourselves is moving from the brain to the heart. Traveling these 14 to 18 inches is both the shortest and the longest journey most of us will ever take.

Leaving Normal

A brain-break catapults you out of your comfort zone, notes feminist icon Gloria Steinem. It can be a conscious choice in lieu of a crisis. Profiled in Oprah Winfrey’s latest book, The Path Made Clear, Gloria maintains that a constant “on the road” mentality keeps her open to new experiences, because travel “brings people out of their heads and into their hearts.”

Living in the moment is the very definition of “flow,” agrees Oprah. This is how we enter what athletes call the zone: the place where it all comes together because you’re being your truth.

You can’t think your way into the zone. It’s a heart-centered space in which, says Gloria, you feel “boundaryless, spontaneous, at one with everything.”

So pry those mental fingers loose. In free-fall, trust that there’ll be an invisible cosmic trampoline beneath you — or you’ll grow wings in mid-flight.

What Competition Really Means

Kindness grows from this expansive feeling: knowing there is enough to go around, enough of whatever you feel you need: love, attention, money, etc. Yet our cultural paradigm fosters competition, and competition fuels an “either/or” mentality: either you win or I do; either I get what I want or you do.

It’s hard to live from your heart when you need to win — and when somebody else has to lose. It’s also intriguing to realize that “compete” actually means, “to seek together.” The prefix “com” means “with.” So when we compete, we’re really striving together towards a common goal.

We’re more likely to cooperate when we feel there is enough for everyone. Cooperation is about holding a “both/and” perspective. Holding the both/and, choosing collaboration rather than competition, is a refreshing way to dance with life — and the key to honor and respect.

A Politics of Love

Some people use the word “spirituality” to mean religion. But spirituality is not about religion. It’s broader than our 3D compartmentalizing. And the moment for an integrated spiritual perspective (heart and mind) has arrived.

Recognizing this beckoning opportunity, spiritual teacher and author Marianne Williamson threw her hat into the 2020 Democratic presidential race, courageously re-crafting her message to reach voters for whom a politics of inclusivity is a new concept. She speaks about the power of Love, with a capital L.

In the early days of her campaign, people laughed at her platform, even as the number of Google hits on her name soared. Then the New York Times Magazine ran a feature. Fewer people are laughing now.

Does Marianne stand a chance of securing the Democratic nomination? That’s beside the point. Her work is not about winning the White House, or even about government. She’s stirring the conversational cauldron, whetting the appetite of those stirring to consciousness with an amuse-bouche of pure essence.

Who we are at core (the etymology of heart!) matters so much more than what we think, so much more than any political party or ideology. Spiritual teachers such as Marianne know the mind must be in service to the heart in order to elevate humanity to our next level of evolution. The body politic is not separate from our bodies: as above, so below. As within, so without.

This is something our Founding Fathers understood. As our youthful country has grown, we’ve become lazy, relying on the government to solve the very problems it creates. Einstein said, “You cannot solve a problem with the same level of thinking that created it.”

Realizing heart and brain must not just co-exist, but co-create, is a giant step, and bringing this awareness to the world stage is a major mission. Marianne answered her own heart call to take the leap, as a gift to humanity’s unfolding.

Show Me the Money

A heart-centered culture will also radically alter how we exchange life energy, better known as money. In her pivotal book, Beyond Prophecies and Predictions: Everyone’s Guide to the Coming Changes (which I finished reading the night before 9-1-1), Moira Timms speaks of a “New Order of the Ages,” which many indigenous cultures had prophesied to begin between 2001 and 2012.

She writes, “The mind analyzes — the heart synthesizes. The turning point is where the heart is awakening. Historically speaking, we are at this juncture. America’s motto, inscribed on the banner in the beak of the eagle of the Great Seal [of the United States], reminds us that America was founded on the principle of ‘E Pluribus Unum’ — ‘Out of the Many, One.'”

Further, the inscription beneath the Great Pyramid (the centerpiece of the Great Seal on the back of a one dollar bill) says, “Novus Ordo Seclorum” — which translates, appropriately, as “A New Order of the Ages”! Isn’t this amusing? The answer is in money, but it’s not about who can become the richest at others’ expense.

If we insist on remaining on the fast track, consuming planetary resources and each other at the speed of greed, the money will not follow. True wealth/prosperity/abundance flows from alignment with purpose. It’s about tuning in to a higher frequency. The clues are everywhere. In my computer’s thesaurus, one synonym for prosperity is well being.

Our Highest Expression

I’ve long maintained that the Internet is our precursor to global telepathy. In recent times we’ve become seduced by technology, tethered to our phones, barely breathing life, let alone our fullness. Yet in a crisis, we respond from the heart.

California just experienced some of the worst wildfires and mass evacuations in the state’s history. As people flowed into safe locations, many businesses opened their doors to share desks and WiFi with displaced workers, fitness centers offered free showers (even supplying towels, soap, and shampoo), and grassroots organizers provided the essentials people would need after leaving home in a hurry.

I always marvel at this kind of outpouring, which typically ceases along with the emergency (“emerge and see”). If people and systems were as open and loving all the time as they are during a disaster, there would be no homelessness or hunger.

Reverence for the Real

When heart and mind align, it’s whole-brain change: we marry the dreamer and pragmatist within, and move ahead without selling out.

It’s radical. It’s possible. It’s the new world order, a different form of self-government we’re beginning to embrace as the planet awakens en masse. Idols may make useful teen heartthrobs, but in adulthood our hearts seek a deeper, lasting Love.

The heart calls. The brain responds. It’s incumbent on each of us to make the journey.

This is how everyone wins.

© Copyright November 2019 Amara Rose. All rights reserved.

About the Author:

Amara's work is widely published in health, business, lifestyle, and new thought magazines, both digital and print. Visit LiveYourLight.com, where you can also subscribe to her monthly e-newsletter, What Shines.

Amara Rose

Why Losing Your Mind Is A Gift