The Heart: A Guide for the Intellectual

The language of ‘using one’s heart’ has been used for as long as I can remember. And I’ve been confused by it for even longer. What does it mean to break a heart, or play with one, or guard one, or follow it? How can you check in on your heart?

Of course, for the pedants, we are not talking about the organ that pumps blood out through the body, but the vague and ambiguous term that kind of refers to emotions, kind of to your self.

In Hebrew, the word translated ‘heart’ could more accurately be translated ‘guts.’ Like when you fall in love or have a scary meeting with your boss, and you feel it in your guts. That’s the core of yourself. It’s the being that feels for you and guides and directs you.

As a man especially, it’s generally known that we are ‘farther from our hearts, or more out of touch with our hearts’ than women tend to be.

So, a couple years ago, I set my mind to thinking through what we mean when we talk about our hearts. At an intensive type of retreat, I was repeatedly told that I’m ‘head-heavy.’ I just want to think through a problem and solve it, than spend any time feeling, or getting in touch with things my heart (and body…more on that in a sec) were telling me as well.

I learned that not everything can be solved by braining it.

So it took me an embarrassingly long time to come up with a definition of what the ‘heart’ is. For the longest time, I thought that ‘heart’ and ‘feelings’ were synonymous. And I didn’t like that because feelings come and go; one day I’m angry, the next I’m happy. Why would I care that much about the heart if it’s such a transient thing? But then one day I had a breakthrough:

The heart is the thing that does the feeling.
It is the part of us that feels.

And that may sound trite, but that’s just because we (brainiacs like me) undervalue feelings. They’re not important because they can’t make big decisions, create, be productive, drive the kids to practice, fix drywall, book flights, fill out a spreadsheet, etc.

But the heart is the thing that gets hurt, or stirs up anger when it’s unjustly wronged, or feels deep desire for another human. It does the feeling.

And if you perpetually dismiss it as unimportant, you spend more time with a heart that is bent toward negative emotions, or possibly worse, numb.

If we numb out our heart, it can’t do the one job is has to do, which is to feel all the things it’s supposed to feel which help adjust us to reality (That’s what emotions do — I’ll say it again: Emotions help adjust us to reality).

And if we don’t adjust enough to reality, you become just like me: Living mainly in your head, thinking about all the things that should be done to the world to adjust it to your liking, instead of letting yourself become adjusted to reality as it is via ‘feeling the feels.’ Or you’re angry about how things aren’t the way they should be, so there’s always a low-grade anger simmering beneath the surface because you haven’t let your heart adjust to your life, as it truly is.

Does this sound healthy? Even as a rational being, I must admit, it does not.

There are physiological health risks to storing all these things in, not to mention, emotional and relational setbacks.

So perhaps it is, after all, worth taking care of our hearts, despite how vague, amiguous, or vacuous that may sound. So the first step, as I mentioned above, is recognizing that it is intimately connected to our bodies.

As a Christian, the Bible makes it clear that our souls, spirits, bodies, minds, and hearts are all intimately intertwined. We are to love the Lord our God with them all; we are not to misuse our bodies, in part because of how that will affect our minds and souls. Look at how many bodily instructions are given in the Psalms: lift your hands, kneel down, etc. Why does this matter? Because our body reflects our heart.

And vice versa: Our body can often inform us of the state of our heart.

Your heart is racing and your breath is short and your muscles are tense? Might be anxious. But have you ever paused to listen to your body, or do you just brain your way through it all, like me?

You’re relaxed and feel 40 pounds light as you walk and you’re breathing easy and laughing a lot: You’re probably happy.

And so on. We can turn off distractions and check in with our bodies as a means of connecting with our hearts. I don’t want to sound all new age or woo-woo, but God gave us a body, so we should pay attention to it. It’s part of who we are. We are not souls hiding inside a body like a yolk inside an eggshell; our body in this sphere of being, is us.

My body is not separate from me; it is me in a very real way. It’s how I experience the world and how I make my impact on it. How else would I?

So for someone like me — especially men who feel like we know nothing about what’s going on inside our own hearts — we need to get in touch with them. And with our bodies. And not live in some equally ethereal and abstract world of the mind, but to attempt to unite them all.

We need to get our mind, our body, and our heart (the thing that does the feeling) on the same page. Or else we will end up always feeling angry, upset, off, or just numb.

Jesus was a man in touch with his emotions: He cried easily but also rejoiced easily. Same with David, the man after God’s heart who “flooded his couch with tears” (Psalm 6).

We will all benefit from getting more in touch with our hearts — not for the sake of being mushy gushy, or just to cry for the sake of crying, but because it will heal us, it will guide us healthy into the future, and it will make us more like Christ.

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Day 80 of 100 Days of Blog

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