Why You Should Sit and Listen To Your Heart (Even When You Feel Like Jumping Into Action)

Are you all ready for Thanksgiving?

It’s one of my favorite holidays. I love the food and family gatherings around the table. I especially love that it comes at the time when we are wrapping another year, reflecting back on all that happened – and didn’t happen. Because doing that with the focus on gratitude is just perfect!

I will be spending some time in reflection this week. I’ll be considering where I am right now and what’s ahead.

And I am already grateful for this little insight my heart brought to me the other day:

My trip to Minot was wonderful and I came back feeling that good ‘high.’ The show was awesome, our trip was smooth, I got to see my friends Leo and Kathleen (and stay with them!) and the flight home was A+. I came back inspired and ready for new projects!

Every business coach will tell you to ‘use that high and ride on it’ – or in other words, use the momentum and built on it.

I was all set to do that over the weekend. But then, my heart wasn’t up for it.

So I decided I’d let my heart speak to me for a minute. I felt blue and I wanted to hear what was making me feel sad. (If the heart stays unheard for a long time it will get worse and start pounding or tightening until we start paying attention. So it’s good to catch it when it’s whispering to us.)

It was cloudy and the tree outside my window was completely bare. All the leaves had fallen off while I was on my trip to Minot, North Dakota. I missed watching them swirl in the air – which happens to be my favorite thing in autumn.

“Life is like that,” I thought, “a swirl of losing and gaining, of holding on and letting go.”

That’s what my heart was feeling: the sadness that comes naturally when we let go of something we care about.

And things like falling leaves are often triggers for other more painful memories of loss…

Being aware of this allows us to acknowledge the ache and gently let it pass – without dwelling on it and getting stuck in it.

So I did. I acknowledged the pain, let my heart know I heard it, and the blueness passed like a fluffy cloud on a sunny day – as opposed to lingering and turning into a storm.

It didn’t use to be like that. I didn’t always know how to handle the blues. Sometimes I’d let it pull me down and make me feel stuck. More often, I’d ignore it and hold on to feeling ‘high’ with excitement – finding new projects and exciting new things to keep me there because I didn’t want to feel my heart’s aches.

As we approach the holidays and everything gets a bit more shiny – high energy, saturated with colors and success and big smiles and perfect outfits and beautifully put together kitchens and living rooms – please allow yourself to rest, come down and hear what your heart is trying to tell you. Sit with it and just listen.

It might make your family gathering better. It might bring up some stuff that needs healing, in which case you will be able to take care of it and avoid more pain in the future.

In either case, it will give you a sense of calm and joy. And it will ultimately help you drop into a place of deep gratitude and bring awareness to all of the Love in your life.

Because that’s what hearts do.

Have a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving!

Tatiana “Tajci” Cameron is an award-winning music artist, published author, inspirational speaker, and certified transformational and spiritual life coach.

She has many passions and is dedicated to helping others while also creating an enriched life for herself and her three sons. When Tajci is not on the road performing gigs, she volunteers with local organizations dear to her heart, spends time with loved ones (often involving music!), and collaborates with other artists to bring creative projects to life.

Tajci’s most recent projects include a meditation CD, an annual retreat & sea cruise in Croatia (that she organizes and hosts), and a multimedia CD/book (Un)Broken: Songs My Father Taught Me.

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