Preamble:
After writing about wars, it is only appropriate for me to write about the most appropriate response to mindless conflicts.
I have written about how people search for relevance in the form of identities, how societies expound labels more than thoughtful engagements, and how both form the anatomy of wars. While we can connect the dots between the three, it is time for us to explore the fourth milestone of this writing journey now.
Divided by borders, skin tone, facial constructs, and Gods, we endear ourselves with narratives that protect ‘our own’, and weigh others on a different scale. When these barriers are broken, and the differences are celebrated, we thrive as living beings on this blue marble called Earth.
The one factor that can help us achieve this is empathy, and the act of expressing empathy is by sharing our feelings and caring about others’ feelings.
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It starts within:
Humans are emotional beings. Their hearts are the engines of their emotions. Emotions manifest as feelings. If we have to understand ourselves as humans, we need to feel and understand our feelings. If we understand our feelings, we understand emotions, and from emotions, we will understand the human in us.
Our hearts are at the center of it all.
When I say ‘it starts within’, the search of the human in us, lies within us – all we have to do is to listen to our hearts.
“You will never be able to escape from your heart. So it’s better to listen to what it has to say.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
We know that visual sense is 90% of all senses, and they say seeing is believing. But what we need is more than proof or fact-checks. We don’t need logic. We need more than that. We need the truth, with love.
Our heart is blind, yet it can speak, touch and feel. Haven’t all we heard these words?
‘Speak from your heart’.
‘It was heartfelt’
‘It touched my heart’.
The heart is not a mere piece of pulsating muscle, it is the home of our feelings. If we are feeling and emotional, it is because we can listen to our hearts and feel it. It is therefore the heart that makes the human.
So if we want to be caring or empathetic, reach within – reach our heart.
Learn Heart-speak:
Heart-speak is the language of the heart. Our hearts express feelings and emotions, which come out through our senses – see, touch (feel) and hear (listen).
The language of the heart is love. Love is a composite feeling of trust and betrayal, joy and sorrow, gain and loss, richness and poverty. This language is beyond the vocabulary of the languages spoken and written. It is a language that is felt deep inside.
“When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”
― Kahlil Gibran
This language of feelings is spoken with love, empathy, and care. How do we prove this? When we speak the language of hate, we become heartless. Hearts don’t exist in humans who cannot speak love, empathy, and care.
There is one more thing – it is the heart that sees the truth. The mind manipulates, but the heart-speak is true and pure.
“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
Truth is something that is hidden – often hidden in plain sight. The heart always figures out the truth, while the eye leads to a belief that manipulates the mind. Nobody ever told us to follow our heads, but to follow our hearts, because the heart always leads us to the truth.
“The heart is an arrow. It demands aim to land true.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows
Truth is often the more difficult thing to handle and digest; that is why the heart, the seeker of truth within us, suffers in pain and loss. Truth demands that we let go of things, and truth gives us closure. Since the heart helps us to the truth, the heart-speak is the final word.
We need more hearts:
We are told that we should not lose balance, and we should think with our heads. But it is hard for the heart to be balanced, for it yearns for love and searches for truth. If people have hearts, we have loving, truthful people. Does it not sound great?
“Rhysand stared at me for long enough that I faced him.
“Be glad of your human heart, Feyre. Pity those who don’t feel anything at all.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Thorns and Roses
Why do we think people love a Zelensky and hate a Putin? The answer lies in our hearts. We now know who pity belongs to.
If leaders lead with love, empathy, and care, they win hearts. I cannot resist, but quote from the famous Russian author, who I read and rever, Leo Tolstoy.
“I think… if it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
Wherever we are in our lives, let us embrace our hearts. We will find our love and truth. From there, it is a lovely journey ahead.
~Ashok Subramanian
