You’re Told to Follow Your Heart, But What Does That Practically Mean?

We’ve explored how to navigate our unconscious mind, heal our shadow aspects and balance our inner feminine and masculine and now Tracy will bring this together to teach how to create and live into our potential in this fourth and final blog.

Here are the links to the previous blogs:

Ever Wanted to Fly?

Do You Know the Difference Between Your Superconscious and Subconscious Mind?

How to Heal and Unite Your Inner Feminine and Masculine

Cherie: Okay, we hear the saying ‘follow your heart’ a lot these days — what exactly does that mean in your opinion?

Tracy: Following your heart is not for the faint-hearted and it doesn’t mean giving into your egoic desires in each moment (which can often take you further away). It means having the courage to get real about who you are, exploring what your soul wants to express through you and committing to walking this path because the fullness of your life depends on it.

Yet how do we even do this?

We could have a myriad of external and internal obstacles and perceived limitations and somehow have forgotten that we are the curators and creators of our own lives.

It starts with taking our power back from the outside world and deciding to live our highest potential, beyond what’s comfortable and familiar.

Cherie: Why is it detrimental, in this new paradigm, to listen to our heart intuition instead of our heads?

Tracy: If we rely on our brain to give us information on how to move forward, we’ll remain stuck. It only knows what it knows based on past experience and can’t give us any new information that hasn’t already been learned or experienced.

To live according to our highest potential is to break out of the cycle of fear, doubt and lack and follow the intuitive design, cycles and wisdom of nature. We need to harness the power of the seen and unseen, the superconscious and subconscious, the masculine and feminine and the heart and mind to create from a place of wholeness and balance.

Cherie: Following the metaphor of the cycle of the butterfly — that you’ve already illustrated for us in the previous blogs — how do we use it to create what we want?

Tracy: Start with the end in mind. Begin with the butterfly, that which you are at the core of your being.

What is that highest vision you want for your life, for your next project, for who you want to become?
What are you passionate about? What do you love to do and talk about?
What GIVES you energy, rather than depletes it?

Your purpose may evolve over time, but in each moment of living into your passion and truth, that path will unfold before you.

The old fearful way of creating is to keep doing what you know, work hard and then harder, with effort, sweat and tears.

You’ve lost the joy, passion and energy. You’re working from a place of lack and fear and have disconnected from your truth.

It’s all ‘doing’ and not enough ‘being’ and therefore no real creativity, which is what truly brings us to life.

Cherie: So, we’ve basically got to find the balance of our heart-mind connection to truly and fully encompass our innate creative power. Can you expound on working together with that heart-mind connection and all it entails?

Tracy: Working from the heart–mind combines the power of flow and focus, surrender and action, compassion and passion, inspiration and execution, contraction and expansion. It’s a dance that feels less like work and more like wild hearted living.

“It’s the difference between living in the world of magic and the muggle world.”

It begins with the heart –that feminine aspect that’s receptive, allowing and intuitive.

She is still, radiant, creative, nurturing, feeling, flowing, unconditional love. This is the place of receiving intuitive divine guidance. So much of that has been lost in society and yet this feminine energy is the power and source of all of creation.

Like the egg of the butterfly, be open to receiving the seed of inspiration from your highest vision.

We can access this place through meditation, being in nature, gentle movement and embracing nature’s many feminine attributes (the flowing water, the blossoming flower).

Allow yourself to imagine this space of the receptive, magnetic feminine. What do you see? What do you feel? What do you hear? How do you know when you’re in that place?

Cherie: I love that! Thank you. Synchronicity is an incredibly powerful force in this world that guides us along our path and you’ve described it and what to do with it beautifully. Any last words to impart before we wrap up this incredible journey you’ve taken us through?

Tracy: Remember, to the degree you experience the expansion of your vision, is to the degree that you will feel the contraction of all that’s needing to be let go of.

You will have to go through the contractions in order to birth your vision or highest version of self. The old fear cells will be threatened by the higher vibrational imaginal discs of the butterfly and your job will be to keep holding onto the truth of who you are and let the fears and doubts dissolve as you keep walking through them.

You are growing your wings and the caterpillar, who is scared of flying, will do everything to try stay in her camouflaged, black and white world – but you are born to fly!

Living and leading from the heart requires courage and commitment, yet you get to a point of no return where you can only dance the cha-cha towards your truth!

You inevitably WILL come up against your fears and doubts as they want to keep you playing small in your familiar playground. Don’t’ let the fear of feeling fear hold you back. Feel it, dance through it and walk through it.

You’ll find a pot of power on the other side that will fuel you for the next threshold you face. All the while, you’re reclaiming more and more of your personal power, building your confidence muscle and preparing you for full flight.

Cherie: I’m sure I speak for all my readers when I say a big heartfelt THANK YOU to Tracy Russell for her time and wild hearted wisdom in this powerfully transforming cycle of the butterfly metaphor series. I think we’re ready to spread our wings and take our lives to a whole new level!

More about Tracy:

Tracy Russell is transformational coach, facilitator, writer and speaker guiding adults and young adults to their hearts, inner nature, authentic power and potential so that they may share their unique expression with the world and be the rEVOLUTION that’s needed. She’s a truth-detective, edge-walker, nature-lover, fear-slayer, heart-activist and Wild Hearted Woman in training. She lives in Cape Town, South Africa where you’ll find her either up a rock face, somewhere in nature, dancing or hanging out with her beloved, spirited daughter… when she’s not doing the work she loves of course.

Find her on Facebook HERE

Visit her Site HERE

UPDATE: Tracy made her transition in March 2024. She is truly flying high now in the great beyond. She will be remembered with love and great appreciation for all the wisdom she left us with.