Charles Eisenstein on Why to Trust Your Heart

we have to be able to do things not knowing what the point is...

Do you have five minutes to validate what’s in your heart?

So I’m picturing this situation here… a woman who is pretty beat down… pretty dark place, but loves to draw, loves to do art. And when she starts doing it she comes alive for a few days or weeks or even months. But then this feeling of “what’s the point?” encroaches upon it and she shuts down and she stops doing it.

I think that on the one hand we have to be able to do things not always knowing what the point is because we do not know right now how to get to what I call “a more beautiful world.”  We know that it exists and we know that we have a role to play in bringing this world into reality. But we don’t know exactly how to get there. We don’t have a road map on how to get there. Because a road map would depend on our existing concepts of how change happens and how the world evolves. But the world that we’re moving to is bigger than those concepts. It is literally new territory. So we don’t have a map to get there and therefore we can’t rely on what our mind tells us is sensible or not sensible.  Or what’s the point or what’s not the point. Our mind says that drawing and painting pretty pictures…that’s not going to help us get to a more beautiful world.. working on your faces or your drawing technique… what good is that going to do in the context of everything that’s happening on this planet?

However, if you accept that we don’t know how this world works…that our understanding of causality is very, very limited, and it in fact comes from the story of separation that holds the world as a bunch of force-driven particles, generic masses bouncing around without intelligence… when we accept that that story of how change happens might not be right, then we’re plunged into the mystery where we have to rely on some other impulse to guide us in choices about how to spend our time and how to devote our gifts. So one of those impulses could be “what is it that makes you come alive?” and to do it for no other reason than because it makes you come alive. Because it gives you a feeling of life.

Ultimately, what we are in service to is Life. The current situational setup is in service to death. The planet is dying around us and we, the dominant civilization, are headlong converting all that is alive into products. To serve the opposite direction, to serve life, means first and foremost serving life within yourself and accepting what makes you come alive as a valid source of information to guide your choices.  And when “what’s the point” encroaches upon them, name and recognize that as a voice of the old story.

And one more thing.. that the pain of that, the deadening of that…that also comes from a beautiful place that so yearns to be of good service. So I see in that question a sincerity that really wants to be useful, that really wants to participate in this beautiful happening. And so I would say when the feeling of futility comes up, to go underneath it to that living spark of generosity. Really, it’s generosity. It says I’m here to serve, I’m here to give, I’m here to contribute. That’s what the voice of “what’s the point” co-opts, that’s the energy that co-opts and turns against yourself. So validate that and understand that that voice is using the intuitions and concepts of the story of separation and then say it’s ok to trust what makes me come alive…