…but if you trust, then knowing doesn’t really matter.

If you allow the pace and Will of your heart to guide your sails with intuitive winds, you begin to rely on something stronger than simple “knowing.”

You don’t know what you’re doing, and that’s perfectly fine. Will you ever give up the illusion that life is an equation that can be mastered? Will you admit—if only to yourself, if only for the sake of humbling your ego—that there are no answers to life’s biggest questions?

Over history, humanity has long suspected the mysterious something within ourselves that knows our purpose greater than our conscious minds. We call it intuition. We call it instinct, our gut, our heart. Destiny. Fate. Our logic and our reason naturally clash with this eternal mystery of internal-knowing. But when you tell yourself, “I don’t know what I’m doing,” you are neither admitting defeat nor surrender. Suddenly, the pill of “not knowing” becomes just slightly easier to swallow.

Going without knowing. Trusting without must-ing. Living without over-willing.

This is the Art of Direction Without Destination. This is the Joyful Frustration of Indefinable Being.

An Identity Challenge

“If there was one thing you could tell me about yourself to let me get know who you are—other than your job title, line of work or describing ‘what you do’—what would it be?”

I posed a challenge to my friends across Twitter and Facebook a few weeks ago. I asked you to describe “who you are” without regurgitating “what you do.”

From what I’m told, the hardened association of “who I am” and “what I do professionally or in my career” is apparently a very American characteristic. And it’s no real surprise that we as human beings would assign intrinsic value to what a person does for a living: it’s another instance of our brains categorizing and sorting through assumptions, labels and stereotypes in attempts of better understanding this new person whom I’ve just met.

But is what I do really who I am?

The Joyful Frustration of Indefinable Being

Call me an idealist, call me an ideologue… I don’t believe what I do encapsulates who I am. Maybe that’s because of how frustrating it is to try to define what you’re doing when it doesn’t have a cushy label, a cozy title, an assigned salary with a numerical value.

At the same time, I’m overjoyed to live an existence that doesn’t have a simple label, title or description. I’m striving to live a life of indefinable Being. Don’t get me wrong. It’s scary. It’s unknown. It’s frustrating. It invites critics and cynics and being completely misunderstood.

And I can safely say, I don’t know what the hell I am doing.

But as soon my life bears a hardened, stagnant definability… I’ll know that my mission is going awry. I’ll know that I must break free and begin anew. Honestly, I don’t know what I’m doing. But, I trust. So “knowing” doesn’t really matter.

…Do you?

If you don’t, inquire within yourself as to why. Then, stop asking altogether. Instead of trying to logically explain your answer, feel. This is trust. Don’t reason or rationalize. Pause your thinking: your mind is but a tool, not a way of Being.

What does your heart know, that your head can’t ever truly understand?

Shift from your mind and to your heart. Shift away from “self-improvement” and into “self-mastery”. Shift away from “personal development” and into “potential-realization”. Shift from “Life sucks and then you die” and to the Art of Direction Without Destination.

And, most of all, shift from “You don’t know what you’re doing” to the Joyful Frustration of Indefinable Being.

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Flickr photo by: Ethan Lofton

The human mind and the human heart are distinctively different, separate, but equal originators for our human behaviors.

On a biological level, all of our emotions and every decision that we make originate in varying areas of the brain; what we synonymously refer to as “the human mind.” Our thoughts and feelings technically originate in the exact same place.

But on a distinctively “human” and spiritual level, it feels as if “the human mind” (logic, intellect, and rationalization) and “the human heart” (emotion, instinct, and nature) operate separately but parallel within us: they are different but equally strong and parallel forces that influence and affect how we live, act, and speak. It also seems as if these two distinct sides to ourselves have equal influence in our thoughts and actions, and could be the very cause of severe inner conflict and turmoil that we often feel within us.

The subtle but powerful differences between “the mind” and “the heart” aptly relate to our ongoing discussion about human behavior, self-improvement and personal development here on DaveUrsillo.com.

Although our minds (logic, intellect, rationalization) and our hearts (emotion, instinct, individual nature) influence us to feel, think and act in opposing ways, we can ultimately make better decisions by combining them to create mental-emotional synergy. But how do we combine opposite forces that influence our behavior?

Developing Mental-Emotional Synergy

Envision the traditional Taoist symbol called a Taijitu (often incorrectly referred to as a “ying/yang” symbol). The symbol represents the concepts of “yin” and “yang,” or how polar opposites and seemingly contrary forces are always interconnected and interdependent in the natural world. In other words, in nature, what appear to be opposites often give rise to each other.

When we discuss mental-emotional synergy, we are likewise considering two seemingly contradictory, natural forces — the human mind and the human heart — as interconnected sources of our individual behaviors. There cannot be one without the other, and each necessarily gives rise to its apparent opposite.

The ideal goal is to develop a mental-emotional synergy within us, a conscious decision is to melt the two opposites into one; to discover and nurture symmetry, balance and harmony amid two conflictual opposites. And when our minds and our hearts begin to work together — off one another rather than against one another — we can make stronger, more sound decisions that will improve the quality of our lives, every day.

And thankfully, developing mental-emotional synergy is really much simpler than it might seem. It begins with three simple steps:

Step 1) Identify the Primary Motivator: Head (Logic) or (Emotion) Heart?

Depending on the conflict or situation at hand, you need to first identify whether your primary response is driven by your “head” (logic, intellect, rationalization) or your heart (emotion, instinct, and nature). Here are some examples:

• You have been dating someone for several months and have grown very attached to them. However, you’re about to move across the country and realize that, as much as you care for the other person, the distance will give way to too much suffering and ultimately cause the relationship to slowly and painfully end. In this situation, logic and rationalization are primarily influencing you over your emotional love and attachment to the other person.

• You have worked at the same job for three years and are making a $50,000 salary. The job is grueling, demands long hours, and you’re not very happy there. You are thinking of quitting this job for another, and although the hours are better and you think you will be happier, the salary is $40,000 per year. In this situation, you are logically assessing whether you value job flexibility and personal happiness over the decrease in pay, which will cause financial impacts on your life.

• You have recently suffered from a bad breakup with a boyfriend or girlfriend who dumped you. You were very hurt at how the situation ended. Suddenly, you bump into the boy/girlfriend in a social setting and react aggressively or dramatically in front of a large crowd. In this situation, your emotion superseded logic, which would have dictated prudence and good-judgment and helped you not cause an embarrassing scene (however warranted it felt).

Step 2) Assess and Inject Secondary Motivator

The second step is to assess how the secondary motivator, or the opposite of the primary motivator, is influencing the situation, if at all (remember: the head is opposite the heart, and the heart is opposite the head). How is the other motivator impacting you? Is it at all?

• If your emotions are driving your thoughts, words and behaviors, is logic or prudence interjecting?
• If rationalization wants you to play-it-safe, is another instinctual side of you saying the opposite?

After assessing whether or not a secondary motivator is influencing you, if its opposite is absent, then you need to forcefully inject it into your thoughts and deliberations.

Step 3) Create Mental-Emotional Synergy:

Remember that our goal is to develop an ideal process through which we make better, smarter decisions that will best benefit us and those we care about the most. Mental-emotional synergy is when both our heads and our hearts work together, complimenting each other rather than against each other.

We create mental-emotional synergy by making the conscious decision — the choice — to not think in terms of mutual exclusivity: that we must either think with our head, or act on our hearts. We can melt the two opposites into one. Simply with this realization and by choosing to assess the influence of our minds and hearts on our behaviors and attitudes, we begin to discover and nurture symmetry, balance and harmony amid two seemingly conflictual opposites. When our minds and our hearts work together, off one another and not against one another, we deny inner conflict, create mental-emotional synergy and foster inner peace.

Without a doubt, mental-emotional synergy will help us all make better decisions that will improve the quality of our lives, every single day.

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The Convenience of Implication and Inference is not, in and of itself, problematic.

But a grave problem arises when someone who is seriously emotionally upset attempts to convey their upsettedness with subtle implication, and with the explicit intent of having another party — a significant other, a family member, a friend, — infer, understand, and rectify that upsettedness. It is akin to willfully having someone you care about suffer the utter impossibility of an unsolvable emotional mystery.

The Convenience of Implication and Inference has the potential to completely implode good relations, and at the unnecessary cost of failing to convey one’s honest feelings. And, the ease by which one can resort to Implication and Inference to attempt to express their feelings can make it a suddenly unwanted trend in many relationships — its convenience can be addicting.

What is the Convenience of Implication and Inference?

Let’s step back to define Implication and Inference as they are being used in this essay.

Implication is defined as “something that is implied, especially: (a) an indirect indication or suggestion; or (b) an implied meaning, or implicit significance.” With regards to friendships, relationships or other personal relations, we mean the act of Implication to refer to when someone implies the way one is actually feeling emotionally, without explicitly stating it outright (regardless of the reasons or motivations).

Inference is defined as “the act, process or mode of reasoning from from factual knowledge, evidence, or implied premises to a factual conclusion.” With regards personal relations, we use the term Inference to mean the process that the one who is Implying hopes will be utilized by another, in order to somehow deduce how the Implying party actually feels emotionally.

I’m confused; Isn’t this supposed to be “convenient”?!

If your head already is spinning trying to understand “the Convenience of Implication and Inference,” then perhaps a conclusion is already clear: as easy as it may be to imply how one is actually feeling without saying it outright, doing so is completely backward to simple logic. It’s an indirect, roundabout way of approaching what should be a simple task.

Defenders of this method argue that the Convenience of Implication and Inference is a safe way of expressing one’s self, and a less harsh way to convey personal feelings. To the contrary, the Convenience of Implication and Inference is a selfish means of self-expression that poses a severe danger to strain or destroy friendships and relationships. Some examples of the dangers it poses in personal relations follows:

1. When we resort to the Convenience of implying how we feel or what we think without having the courage to explicitly state what is bothering or upsetting us, we are willfully extending unpleasant relations.
2. Once this trend has begun, the increasingly unpleasant relations thus spurring even more severe and hostile emotions.
3. What was once a misunderstanding, or some negative emotions that could be discussed and diffused with relative simplicity, have spun out of control. Now, the danger is that the higher level of hostility can lead to even more strained and begrudging relations.

For all its dangers in personal relationships, the ease by which one can resort to Implication and Inference makes it a convenient resort when one is lacking the courage or will to express one’s true feelings. Even worse, the Convenience bolsters unwanted personality traits such as ego and pride. Though largely subconscious and unnoticed, one’s pride is emboldened in the act of forcing someone else have to go through the emotionally strenuous act of deducing your own actions and words so that they might better understand what is being Implied by you and the reasons behind it.

How do we overcome the Convenience of Implication and Inference?

First, we must routinely remind ourselves that the ones we care about in our friendships, families, and relationships are more willing to understand our emotions and feelings than we often give them credit. Often times, strain in our relationships does not come from a lack of understanding, but in our inability, unwillingness, or impatience to properly communicate our thoughts, emotions and feelings. A simple resolution is to communicate them.

Ideally, we should try to deny the convenient lure of implying our true feelings for the sake of denying our pride or ego. We should remind ourselves of the danger that something small like the Convenience of Implication and Inference has in possibly causing good relations with friends, family and lovers to spiral out of control.

For the sake of the ones we care about, our best option is, always, to resort to Truth.