The key to truly being yourself is knowing your own heart and following it. Have you ever experienced a moment or situation when other people did not want you to follow your heart? When you were stopped from expressing what you really felt or from following a course of action you felt strongly drawn to? If so, take time to consider how that made you feel.
Though those who held you back may have had the best of intentions, they stopped you from following your heart and thus from being yourself, and that is often a painful experience. When we are prevented from following our hearts and being ourselves, we shrink, learning to hold back and not to trust our own judgement. When we are encouraged to be ourselves, we grow in wisdom, understanding and joy.
The experience of following your heart is powerful and dynamic and moves you beyond your old boundaries of experience. When you know how to read your own heart, you naturally acquire understanding of the hearts of others, for all hearts are linked and beat the same beat. So to follow your own heart is also to grow in wisdom, compassion and generosity towards others.
Knowing your heart is knowing what makes you who you are. It is knowing your reason for wanting life. One of the ways to know your own heart is to be in nature and to see it, not with your eyes, but with the understanding in your heart. Your heart then becomes your true eye on the world.
It is not always easy in today's world to know or follow your own heart. There are many people who know in their hearts what is right but who hesitate to follow what they know, waiting for others to act first and take the lead. In this way each person waits for the other and the only thing that happens is waiting. So be brave, follow your heart, even when that means standing up to be counted. You will konw yourself best when your heart is inspired by ideals and beliefs that bring you serenity and simplicity. And the more truly you follow your heart and know yourself, the more others will see beauty in you and be drawn to you. Live your life with compassion and love for others, guided by the pure, clear voice of your heart, and your spirit will grow. And as it does, you will move from just being - when you are purely reactive, to becoming - when all life is with you and in you. You will move from going with the flow to becoming part of the flow of life.
~The Tibetan Art of Serenity (pp.42-3) by Christopher Hansard
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