What does it mean to move from the head to the heart? And how does this movement heal separation, and foster healing, and hope?
When we look at overeating through the head, we tend to fixate on behavior, “shoulds,” and “doing it right.” We discount our human experience with all its messy, “irrational” behaviors. There’s often an undercurrent of frustration towards our imperfection, like overeating.
It’s an energy of, “just get over it already.”
When we move into the heart, we’re moved by different energies – love, compassion, and understanding. Looking through these eyes, we look behind and underneath overeating behavior to see the vulnerability that’s there. We touch something tender, and this tenderizes us. Rather than responding with frustration or attack, we respond with warmth, kindness, compassion and courage.
Paradoxically, the warmth of the heart is much more helpful than “getting over” the overeating. Through compassionate understanding – validating and coming alongside how we feel – our feelings can move and shift. Something in us quickens and stirs, and new behaviors arise.
Watch the video below to learn more. Enjoy!
Wanting more hands on help with food?
This video is an excerpt from my course, The Heart of Food, a course to soften anxiety, shame and self judgment with food. If you’ve been interested in my work, but were unsure where to start, this course may be a great fit for you.
It will help you in 3 key areas: softening shame, self judgment and blame around your food struggles; gaining understanding and practice in caring for the key emotions and needs that drive you to food, and growing resilience, where you feel more capable, and less victimized, by food.
This do at home course includes monthly Q&As where you can ask questions, connect with others, and get support. The next Q&A is September 19.
I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your journey and what you are sharing with us. It has made a huge difference to my life. When I feel I am struggling I come back to your site and it helps me see from a compassionate place & come back to healing. Thank you thank you thank you! Much love & blessings xx
Hi Olivia,
Thank you for writing! I’m glad to hear that the videos and blogs are helpful to you and foster rest, ease and compassion. That’s why growinghumankindness exists, so I’m happy to hear that it’s a support to you. I hope it continues to feed and nourish your journey here in this new year! Warmly, Karly
Hi Karly..i realize my life is a mess because of being in my head and making my decisions there..the head is not the real self and is the one separate from god which is love . Sure need help with this .
This is a great question, and one so many others wonder about.
Moving to the heart is moving to a place of tenderness, caring, warmth and love towards wherever we find ourselves to be. In a sense, when we move to the heart, we’re unearthing our heart’s natural compassion.
I find that a lot of contemplative practices help with this – things like metta meditation, vipassana meditation, yoga, and more.
Tara Brach is a fabulous resource for this – https://www.tarabrach.com/
I also recommend the work of Kristin Neff and her beautiful research on self compassion – http://self-compassion.org
I find that caring for anything – a child, a pet, a plant, your community – engages and softens the heart. As we engage our heart, we come more in touch with this caring, compassionate part of ourselves. It’s warmth moves out towards others, and towards ourselves.
Physically, you can support this heart softening by moving your physical energy out of your head and down, into your belly and pelvis. Breathe into your belly and move your center of gravity low in your body, like a sumo wrestler. I often put my hand on my heart and another on the belly – both as a physical reminder to soften and to feel this energy in my heart and belly.
Lastly, I find it helpful to recognize that we all can move into that head space – especially when we’re feeling disconnected – tired, overwhelmed, or isolated. I talk more about disconnection in these blog posts here, and how to use disconnection as a signal to connect –
https://growinghumankindness.com/binge-cry-connection/
https://growinghumankindness.com/collapse-healing/