Follow your heart. This is one of the most common pieces of relationship advice we hear from people who want to encourage us to move forward with our love life. The heart is known to store more emotions, such as love and passion, than the mind. Thus, many people choose to follow it instead of the latter when it comes to making decisions concerning relationships with their loved ones.
But should we really just follow our own hearts?
The answer to that depends on what kind of heart you have right now.
The heart harbors a lot of emotions, energies, or spiritual things – both positive and negative.
You cannot just follow your heart and expect to succeed in your love life.
You have to do it properly so that you don’t break your heart, and worst, break your soul.
Here are 10 ways to follow your heart while avoiding regrets in the future.
1. Listen to your heart.
Know what your heart really feels, needs, wants, dreams, and desires. And most importantly, know what it truly loves. By listening to your heart, you will know if you’re right or wrong to follow it.
2. Watch your heart.
Watch how it works and what it does to other hearts – how it treats other people. Does your heart hurt others? Is it being rude, envious, hateful, and unjust to other people? If your answer is yes, then don’t follow your heart yet.
Also read: 16 Good Ways to be Kind in a Relationship
3. Purify your heart.
Before following your heart, purify it first. Get rid of things that corrupt it, like pride, hatred, bitterness, selfishness, envy, lust, greed, and love of money or flesh. Remember that it’s not wise to follow a corrupted heart.
4. Produce patience.
Following your heart is challenging as you will face various trials and hardships. It will require lots of patience. To have patience, you need to have faith. Your faithfulness should produce an abundant supply of patience. Hence, you must keep on believing.
Also read: How to be More Patient in a Relationship: 14 Tips
5. Open your mind.
You cannot follow your heart with a closed mind. Your mind should guide your heart. Therefore, open your mind. Get more knowledge and wisdom. Listen to your wise parents, elders, professionals, and other people with useful experiences.
6. Rejoice with the truth.
Do not deny the truth but face and accept it. You cannot follow a lying heart or one that lives in delusions. Be honest and learn to deal with the truth even if it hurts. Remember that the truth or reality only bites, but it is not toxic or poisonous like lies. It may cause pain or discomfort for a while, but it will make you better and stronger if you will only appreciate it.
Also read: How to be Honest in a Relationship: 12 Ways
7. Ask and give forgiveness.
A bitter heart is not wise to follow. It will give your difficulties in moving on. Hence, before you follow your heart, make sure that you forgive the people who wronged you. And more importantly, you should also forgive yourself. Fill your heart with forgiveness so that you can be free from resentment and enjoy peace of mind.
8. Immortalize your soul.
Follow your heart with a strong and undying soul. If you want to succeed in life by following your heart, you have to make sure that you can keep on believing. You must be hopeful and faithful. Without hope and faith, your dreams can easily die. Without believing, your journey to love and life can be ruined by fear and doubts. Therefore, believe and have reasonable faith so that your heart’s goal may be achieved.
9. Have consistent actions.
Follow your heart, not just with thoughts, words, and emotions, but more importantly with actions. Faith without action is dead. Therefore, practice what your kind and compassionate heart feels. Remember that no matter how you follow your heart, if you don’t take the necessary steps and actions, you will not reach your goal.
10. Let love reside in it.
Finally, let genuine love resides in your heart permanently. Love unites and harmonizes all the necessary virtues that we need to succeed in our love life, such as patience, kindness, truthfulness, self-control, hope, and faith. By making sure that it is true love, not hatred, that’s living inside your heart, you cannot go wrong when following your heart.
Conclusion
There is nothing wrong with following your heart as long as yours is a pure heart, which is uncorrupted by pride, envy, bitterness, hatred, greed, and lies. Moreover, you do not also need to choose between your heart or mind, as these two should go along together to guide you to succeed in life. If your heart and mind do not agree, then there might be something wrong with one of them. If you cannot decide which to follow, just follow the one that manifests true love, whether it’s your head or heart.
Also read: 12 Ways to be Practical in a Relationship
