Getting the Desires of Your Heart – and, how can something wrong feel so right?

I wish my heart was as decisive as my tongue. The tongue knows what it wants. If it wants Salt & Vinegar Potato Chips, eating pretzels or popcorn tastes like disappointment. However, when it comes to the heart, we’ll feel its desire in vague form; not able to know exactly what it really wants, we’ll feed it something until it feels right. However, feeding our body with substances and experiences in an attempt to appease our feelings can cause more harm than health.

 

To understand what your heart is really asking for – you must first understand how your heart speaks to you.

 

The complexities of our heart (and tongue) are connected to the complexities of our neurological system. Emotions such as love are not under conscious, cognitive control. They are a reaction to a thought. However, emotions are partly controllable by cognition. “The heart wants what the heart wants” is only half true – the heart reacts to what the brain thinks.

 

When you experience pleasure in any form, dopamine, the “feel-good” molecule is released. When dopamine levels rise, the brain signals that the associated behavior was important and should be repeated – thus telling your heart the experience was good, feels good – so, keep doing it!

 

Here’s the thing, dopamine is activated through pleasure – not wisdom.  That means you can experience something that feels good but is not good for you.

 

• Dopamine tells me I want to eat Salt & Vinegar Potato Chips – Wisdom tells me I need sodium, or I need to drink more water.
• Dopamine tells us sex is pleasurable – Wisdom tells us to reserve sex for marriage.

Just because your heart (or tongue) finds something pleasurable, doesn’t mean that’s what it really wants.

 

How to hear the wisdom your heart desires:

 

If you’ve read this far you’ve already accomplished step one,

 

• ONE: Becoming Aware of Your Actions

Be aware that your heart is asking for something through the feelings you’re having. Identify those feelings – lonely, scared, worrisome, envious, angry, etc. – Recognize you are not the feeling, rather hold that feeling apart from you. You’re experiencing a reaction from a past experience.  Was the experience satisfying a deeper desire?

 

• TWO: Pause and Pray

I love the words of Ann Voscamp, “Life is not an emergency.” Your feelings are also not an emergency and therefore you can give them time and space to be heard and seen through the lens of a loving Father. God is listening, and you can be sure He is waiting for you to ask Him into your feelings; revealing the truth of your emotions.

 

“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” Hebrews 4:12

 

• THREE: Let Your Heart ‘See’ the Outcome

When food cravings remind me of their pleasure – I remind myself of the after affect; the bloating, the puffiness, the inflammation, the bathroom struggles. If your heart is asking for something that you’ve previously experienced heartache with – remind yourself of the outcome. Will it cause health or unhealth to you, your relationships, or your environment? While you sit in that space of imagination, does the outcome match the level of desire?

 

Let me explain from a personal example.  I was very excited to go back to college and get a Phycology degree with an undergraduate in Christian Counseling.  It was all I could think about and it   just   felt   right. When the total cost was added up my excitement quickly drained. Between going into debt, the reality of my age, and other circumstances still up in the air … wisdom spoke what my heart really wants. I really want to pour out, help others navigate through hard things, be a Mentor, and to step into the Titus 2 role in greater capacity.  

 

“For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding; he stores up sound wisdom for the upright;” Proverbs 2:6

 

• FOUR: Is your heart desire met through God alone? Or something, or someone else?

If I was married, I’d be content.

If I get the promotion, I’d be satisfied.

If my teenager would obey, I’d have peace.

If my husband would spend more time with me, I wouldn’t be lonely.

If my grandchildren would call me, I’d feel valued.

 

If our heart condition is contingent on someone or something, we’ve substituted the pleasures of God for our own emotional wants. Feeding this kind of selfishness leads to a hunger never fulfilled and a heart that continues to be fed disappointment.

 

“You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” Psalm 16:11

 

Friend, as your heart speaks its requests, I hope you’re able to navigate its complexities with Gospel truth and some scientific understanding.

 

I’ll leave you with a few questions to help navigate all the more.

 

• Are the places you receive from bound together through Gospel truth or emotional relatability? 
• After getting what you want, do you still crave more, or experience only temporary satisfaction?
• Before reaching for the ‘fix’ – do you ask God into your situation and into your heart? Letting Him lead you where it may not be pleasurable for the sake of lasting health?