The Courage to Say Yes to YouR HEart

I just came back from a beautiful creativity retreat in Oaxaca Mexico.

In Oaxaca—an artist haven—the heart is a symbol that can be seen everywhere and anywhere. It shows up in block printings, bottles of mezcal and tattooed on lots of Oaxacanian arms and chests.

The interesting thing is that the heart they embrace is the anatomical heart, not the one we romanticize on Valentine’s Day cards, and that’s noteworthy.

To lead with your heart takes courage and the root word for courage, coeur, literally means “heart”. An anatomical heart is a muscle, and I truly believe courage is a muscle we can strengthen.

It’s not something we are born with.

Most of us have been taught to not trust our hearts because they are too emotional, erratic, and not logical.

Honestly, I agree.

We shouldn’t follow the 2-D cartoon heart we have all been sold. There is so much value in being pragmatic and grounded, but it doesn’t mean we can’t be moved by our feelings and trust our senses too.

They are not opposites.

People often ask me how I have the courage to follow my intuition and take risks, and it’s from seeing courage as a muscle. I’ve had to learn to flex it, and now it’s become a strength I can lean on.

I’m an Asian Immigrant with ancestry that’s lived through a massive uprooting and I’m a Gen Xer. I’ve grown up on a foundation of fear, so it’s not been the easiest thing to follow my heart.

During one of my first coaching intensives, we were told we needed to live in integrity and “clean up” something we’ve been hiding.

Mine was to tell a professor of mine I’d cheated on a pharmacy exam that would decide whether I graduated or not.

I was terrified.

I was a professor myself, and that incident was feeding my Impostor Syndrome—rightfully so—like a sugar addict in the background of my psyche for a decade.

But it wasn’t all Impostor Syndrome. In fact, it was much deeper.

My wise professor said, “well, I believe everything happens for a reason. What did you learn from this?”

“By cheating on that exam, I cheated on myself because I never wanted to be a pharmacist. If I had failed, I would have had to follow my dreams 10 years earlier and I wasn’t ready.” I was shocked at my response.

It’s hard to believe that conversation was 10 years ago! It was the beginning of learning how to hear my heart and I’ve been flexing my courage muscle ever since because I got the cost of “waiting ‘til you’re ready.”

Today, courage is a core value of mine and a foundation of my coaching work. I am so proud to support my clients in being able to hear the whispers of their heart and take action on it.

I would love to help you to do the same during our next community call where the theme is Cultivating Courage. Join Us!