How to Talk to Your Heart
We often have this false idea in the Western world that the battle’s all in the mind, that it’s all about how we think. If that were true, why do people smoke, do drugs, drink excessively, eat excessively, and do all sorts of things they know is bad for them? There must be something else going on.
The problems in our mind often lead to bad fruit, but the root of our problems is often not in our mind at all, but in our heart.
So often in the church we minister to people’s behavior, because that’s the low-hanging, bad fruit. It’s visible. It’s obvious. It’s clearly a problem. But that just leads to sin management, not real transformation. We have to minister to the root.
The root is often at the heart. In Western culture, in our arrogance, we’ve exalted our intellect at the expense of our heart. Yes, our thoughts are important, and we want to develop the skill of taking every thought captive to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5). There is a battle in the mind for sure. But that’s the effect, not the cause. The foundational battle is in the heart, and often it shapes our behavior and our thinking more than our mind does.
Jesus agrees with me. He says in Matthew 15:19, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.”
You catch that? Those are all behavioral problems he just mentioned, and he didn’t say they came from bad theology or wrong thinking. They come from the heart. The bad theology and wrong thinking is just our brain rationalizing what’s already in our heart.
And again, Jesus says in Luke 6:45, “A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.”
Jesus thought the heart was pretty important.
Ever have a mile’s worth of negative reaction over an inch of offense? Ever been like, “Where’d that come from?” And then we’re all embarrassed and ashamed because we reacted so strongly when we know that strong of a reaction wasn’t merited? I’ve done that, been there, got the tee-shirt. That’s a clue there’s a heart issue going on.
Often when we’re hurting, or addressing bad fruit in our lives, the most important conversation we can have is with our heart. We have so played-down our hearts and dishonored our hearts, while they are so wounded. A good way to start healing is to honor our heart by learning to listen to it.
So how do you talk to your heart? It may look different for you, but this is how I do it. I ask these four questions:
- Heart, why are you hurting, what wounded you?
- Heart, how did that make you feel?
- Heart, what did you come to believe? About yourself? Others? God?
- Ok, Heart, then what did you vow to protect yourself?
I put my hand over my heart, just because it helps me focus. Then I say (preferably out loud if I’m in a safe space like my car or some other private place), “Heart, why are you afraid?” or “Heart, why are you hurting?” And then I listen.
This is listening, so you have to protect the quiet. My brain, always trying to help, jumps in with all sorts of answers, “because of this,” or “because of that.” I have to tell my brain, “Shut up, I’m not talking to you.” Then I go back to quiet, listening to my heart.
Sometimes answers are immediate, but sometimes I have to wait anywhere between a few minutes or a few days. Sometimes even a few weeks, but I keep asking. It’s not that my heart’s not answering, it’s that I’m hard-of-heart-hearing. Sometimes it’s hard for me to hear my heart. For some of us, this is a completely foreign concept.
To talk to our heart, we have to unlearn a bunch of stuff we’ve learned. Like, “all meaning can be expressed in words.” Not! Our heart learned to talk a long time before our brain did. And when our heart learned to talk, we didn’t have verbal language yet. That’s why 90% of all communication is non-verbal. It’s heart-speak.
So our heart doesn’t always talk in words. Sometimes a memory will pop up. Your heart is telling you the answer is because “this” happened.
Our brain can help if we train it to. For example, I’ve dealt at various times with different levels of self-hatred. I had a very good Christian childhood and my parents loved me. And my siblings, two brothers 10 years older than me, also loved me and were very good to me. I had no trauma growing up. But because of a deep-rooted self-hatred I didn’t even know was there, I made some poor choices in my life because I didn’t think I deserved any better. So I recently was trying to figure out where that came from.
So I asked my heart, “Heart, what’s your wound?” Crickets. I was having trouble hearing my heart. That’s not a question it necessarily wants to answer, and hearing your heart is hard anyway. So I let my brain help, giving my heart a multiple-choice question instead of an essay question.
“I was bullied.” Nothing. Nope that’s not it.
“My parents weren’t proud of me.” Nothing. I know that’s not true, that lie has no power over me.
“I was a mistake.” Sudden strong emotion! Where’d that come from? I had to fight back an audible cry in the car. Bingo! That’s the wound. My two brothers were 10 years older than me, and I thought I was a mistake.
Now I was onto something. So I probed deeper, and now the answers came quickly. “Heart, how did that make you feel?” Unloved.
“Heart, what did you come to believe?” No one will love me.
“Heart, what did you vow to protect yourself?” I will make everyone happy so they love me.
That explains so much! My mom told me as a baby I’d cackle or coo or do whatever made the person holding me smile.
My dad told me, as a 2-year old, they only had to tell me once to not touch the expensive figurines on the coffee table, and I wouldn’t. He said he’d never seen another child like me.
These sound like good things, but they were a child trying to earn love because he believed a foundational lie. It lead to some bad choices later on.
Since I’ve learned what the wound was, what the foundational lie was, it’s been much easier to deal with. Now when I have thoughts of self-hatred, I call out the lie and replace it with God’s truth. “No, I’m not a mistake. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. God’s works are wonderful, I know that full well.” (That’s Psalm 139:14, BTW. If you struggle with self-hatred, internalize Psalm 139. It’s the anti-self-hatred psalm.)
So what about you? Talk to your heart lately? Do you need to? Try this out and let us know how it goes in comments or shoot us email. We’d really love to hear from you. And please share this if you think it would help someone else.
BTW, the concepts in this post come from the Identity and Destiny seminar by Sandra Sellmer-Kersten, from Elijah House Ministries – Australia. If you liked this post, you’ll love this DVD series, available here. FYI, this is *not* an affiliate link; I get no commission if you click or buy. But you will get a tremendous, life transformation, like I did. I cannot recommend this series highly enough.
I find this How to Talk to Your Heart post so inspiring and helpful that I have shared it with several of the ladies I regularly fellowship with. Ironically, we often meditate on this specific topic. All of the ladies have responded back with affirmation and gratitude for sharing the post’s four questions to ask your heart. And bonus, put your hand on your heart!
I appreciate and resemble the hard-of-heart-hearing. I have been in a posture of frustration, because I have been working diligently over the years to replace enemy lies with God’s truths, yet the transforming and renewing of my mind appears to be lagging. I am no longer motivated by sin management, because it is temporary and not a real transformation.
It is insightful for me that the root of our problems is often not in our mind at all, but in our heart.
Thank you for all you and Janet are doing through this ministry.
I pray you receive back hundredfold 🛐💟✝️
Thank you, Janice, and thank you for sharing the post! You’ve totally made my day. Your journey of transformation is amazing; God has put so much in you and you’re just beginning to discover it. I hope learning to hear your heart proves to be a useful, transformative tool.
I’m coming back to this piece again (your IIW FB link – thanks!). WOW – the beauty and the truth of it is almost overwhelming.
I’m no stranger either to living from (considering, honouring) our hearts nor to the extra layers of considering colors, objects, emotions etc that God can use to speak to us through…to draw us into something He has for us to consider or investigate (alongside or leading to His Word, His truth, ultimately, of course.)
But you’re right, SO MUCH has NOT been understood, NOT taught us or mentored to us, about our hearts, from the Church body. And we’ve lost alot in the process.
Thanks for being one Dave, to help resurrect a full-orbed heart-spirit consideration in our walk before God.
btw – you and/or Janet would LOVE Sharon G Brown’s “Sensible Shoes” books!
Deeply appreciate you both!!
Thank you Naomi! We really appreciate your words. And thank you for the book recommendation — we’ll check it out!
The heart’s influence over our brain is even scientific. Web site heartmath.com. We are indeed fearfully and wonderfully made.
What a fascinating site! Thank you Gloria. I love it when science catches up with the Word of God. 🙂
This is revelatory to me. Thank you.
Thank you Jane! I really appreciate finding out how the posts help people. Feel free to drop us an email. You’ve made my day!
ps – I really enjoy/appreciate the clear layout of your site and the good layout, including creative use of font and color, on your piece! Bravo!
Thank you, NomJ, you’ve made my day! We try to make the longer posts scannable, so we use bold to highlight the points in each paragraph or so. Then if someone’s short on time (aren’t we all) they can still get the gist of it by scanning the bold. And if something in bold connects, they can read the rest of that paragraph if they have time. I’m thrilled you’re enjoying the site & it’s blessing you!
Beautiful piece. Saved to my files. Echoes a preacher-teacher I listened to a lot last winter, James B Richards (he even has a “Heart Physics” course).
There’s so much to learn from the Body (His Body) and much to discern aright, too.
Thank you for sharing your voice and writings with us.
This is a precious piece.
Thank you for the kind words, NomJ! I will google James B Richards & Heart Physics…
My heart loves this article. I love how you said I’m hard-of-heart-hearing, that’s all of us for sure. Thank you for outlining some steps as a starting point. This practice of talking to your heart is worth persevering through and incorporating into ones prayer life.
Thanks Dave
Thank you for the kind words, Josiah! I’d love to hear how it’s working for you as you start practicing this.