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Center for Enlightened Leadership
 
THE LENS E-NEWSLETTER/JOURNAL

The Head and the Heart—Keeping Them Connected
By PAUL D. HOUSTON

  Dr. Paul. D. Houston
  Dr. Paul D. Houston
Founding Partner

When I was in high school, we used to joke, “Sound mind, sound body—take your pick.” The idea was that you could either be pure of mind and neglect the urges of the body, or be pure of body but go a little crazy because of what you imagined you were missing. We were teenagers, after all, and this is the teenage version of a major dilemma. But the truth is that as adults we struggle with our own dilemmas, not the least of which is how to find a balance between our heads and our hearts. How do we connect our hearts and our heads?

The Greeks advised us millennia ago that we should seek the “Golden Mean,” which they considered to be a balance in all things. If you travel to Greece today and visit their ancient sites, you will see that they placed their gymnasiums (which were outdoor areas for recreation) near their temples and libraries. This allowed the body, the mind, and the spirit to all be nurtured and kept in balance with each other.

In our modern world we are surrounded with external stimuli that keep our mind spinning until we become dizzy with possibilities and challenges. It’s all too easy to neglect the nurturing of our heart and our spirit. Losing the balance between our head and heart can literally make us lose our physical sense of balance also. Speaking for myself, I find it hard to stay in touch with the inner Paul when there’s so much pressure on the outer Paul—the physical part of me that faces the world on a daily basis.

My father was a minister and, while I consider myself a spiritual person, I suspect he would be disappointed with how I have drifted from the formal connection to church that he so cherished. While that connection with church-oriented spirituality truly isn’t as strong for me, I have come to understand why people seek solace in regular worship: it’s a chance to introduce and maintain that connection to spirit and heart that’s so hard to come by in their daily lives. The formal rituals of worship provide reinforcement for connecting to their higher selves. Although I have chosen to not be a regular churchgoer, I have found other ways to pause in my regular outer life so that I can nurture my inner one.

Steve Sokolow and I have written about having an attitude of gratitude that includes being thankful for the gifts we receive, even the ones that may seem not so good. For example, I was diagnosed several years ago with glaucoma—an eye condition that, left untreated, can lead to blindness. I have always considered this diagnosis one of those unexpected and unusual gifts for which I am grateful, because when I realized that sight was not a given, I began to see things in a different and more powerful way. Now I actually pause to appreciate beautiful views and sunsets. I really do stop to smell the flowers.

Remember the Chevy Chase movie Vacation? Chevy, as Clark Griswold, takes his family on a cross-country vacation, but they are so focused on getting to their destination (Wally World, a family theme park, à la Disneyland) that when they stop at the Grand Canyon, they literally stand for three beats and then rush away. (As one who lives in the Grand Canyon State, I can assure you that three seconds of viewing will not do it justice.) The moral: If you are so focused on getting somewhere else (what your mind is telling you is important), you’ll miss the things along the way that nurture your heart.

One of the great ironies of the Vacation movie is that after undergoing numerous horrendous misadventures to reach Wally World, the Griswolds finally arrive to find it closed for repair. That is so similar to much of our lives. We expend so much effort to get to our destinations that we miss living life along the way and, when we get where we were going, we are often disappointed. The heart is our reminder of what is really important. The heart can serve to keep the head honest, because the head will deceive us into thinking all sorts of things are important that are not.

I used to love watching the “Star Trek” series, not because of the science fiction aspect but because of the human element. The characters remind us of the need for balance between heart and head. The character of Spock is all head. As part Vulcan, he prizes logic above all else. Bones, the doctor, is all about heart and feeling. Needless to say, Bones and Spock clash on a regular basis. Thus we are constantly reminded that when one goes to any extreme it creates an unhealthy imbalance. Internal conflicts arise. (“Oh, we’re near the Grand Canyon—let’s take it in!” “What do you mean ‘Take it in’? Have you forgotten that we’re on a tight schedule?”) We know that going to extremes is not a good idea, yet most days we tend to lean hard toward the head or the heart—one at the expense of the other. It’s good to remember that in “Star Trek” it was Scotty, the engineer, who really got things done. He was the one called on to speed up the ship or to transport crew members to the surface of an alien planet. Scotty wasn’t caught up in the conflict, though sometimes he warned of dire results. He just got the job done. He knew it (following the head) and felt it (following the heart).

In education we tend to put far too much emphasis on the brain at the expense of the heart. In recent years, with the intensified emphasis on accountability and test results, teachers and school leaders have focused on how to raise test scores—how to get more out of the child’s head. But educators—and, in fact, all of us—must remember that the best path to the head is through the heart. Relationships should be nurtured and the needs of others supported. This creates a connection between heart, mind, and soul.

In a graduation speech to a medical school, the actor Alan Alda, best known for playing a doctor on television, gave the graduates advice that we should all remember. He told them that the “heart bone is connected to the head bone. Don’t let them come apart.” He was reminding them that the path to the head is through the heart. The head and the heart are inextricably connected, and we must constantly work to find a balance between them so that we don’t lose our own balance.

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