Following Your Head vs Your Heart

by Karen Joy Fritz

Following your head vs your heart is the conundrum of the modern age. For one, notice how this query almost immediately takes us to an either/or scenario.  As if one were better or more desirable. That’s a head thing; to compare and create hierarchy.

Industrial society prioritizes head things. Our very method for designing learning is filled with head-thing outcomes: define, describe, explain, compare, summarize, complete, categorize, defend, prioritize. It isn’t until the highest levels of learning design that we come into “collaborate.

We get trained to value the quick, single-focus, right/wrong answers by our educational testing systems. But Life is more nuanced. For any given circumstance or choice, our fullest participation in Presence is so much richer than a multiple choice answer.

The heart has the capacity to include this multiplicity of influences and nuanced interactions.

When we solely try to use the head to figure out a solution or a goal, the agenda often gets set by what we’ve experienced in the past. Then the heart gets called in to try to clean up in the wake of the head and somehow make the situation “fulfilling” after the fact.

This double-bind of following your head vs your heart, using the head to set course, then having the heart come along behind to reframe the results is the ultimate paradox of the human experience.

Following your head vs heart examples

Following your head vs heart examples aren’t too difficult to find. It’s the default setting for western society.

Where the heart may urge me to pursue an art, the head argues that I’ll never make it. Following the head, I overwork in a dead-end job.

Following your head is pursuing a great career path when your heart’s desire is to spend more time with your family. You may provide them everything money can buy – yet they never receive the most important gift of your Presence.

Even on a tiny level, we’re trained to push through and force ourselves when our heart knows we need rest and connection. Don’t let anyone see you struggle or falter is the message of our overbusy society.

When we set it up as head vs heart, we bounce back and forth rather than having all the centers of our full self, our Soul, work in concert. Too far one direction then compensate in the other. Overcorrect and need to loop back to the first – it’s like a pair of handcuffs holding us in old patterns.

Listening to your heart vs head

Listening to your heart vs head is the first step in having a choice – and perhaps the trickiest!

What makes it tricky is that sometimes the head tries to speak through the heart’s language. When we hear big emotionality protecting or promoting a certain course of action, it’s usually the head making the case. These strategies tend to leave us destined to be disappointed due to the fact that what we are actually hearing is not coming from our heart.

The heart’s voice tends to be softer, gentler, quieter than the intellect. Certainly there can be emotional notes – all flavors of mad, sad, glad, and scared. But your truest heart has an ability to rest in this language, not try to escape the experience.

The key to finding your heart’s voice vs head’s voice is to make sure you recognize the head. Let it be heard. What is the agenda? What rationale is it using? What is it wanting to protect or promote or perform?

Then quietly, gently, slowly ask the heart for its perspective. Listen with a hush. What you hear first may reflect a lot of what you now know to be the head. Thank it and keep listening.

Now you’re listening to your heart vs head.

What does it mean to follow your heart vs your head

So what does it mean to follow your heart vs your head? The head sees the heart’s way as risky. Utter foolishness. Total destruction of everything the head has been working for.

And of course, the head goes to full either-or mode! Catastrophizing around what will happen if you *always* follow your heart shuts down the possibility of co-creation between your heart and head. (Back to those nice familiar handcuffs and patterns… our Divine Coordinates clients know what we’re talking about here!)

Once you learn to listen to your heart, you can enroll the head and all its gifts to get behind the vision of the heart. Your heart says, “Let’s bring more real connection to our workday.” And the head can set up individual lunch dates.

Just because you’re following your heart doesn’t mean the head is sidelined or shut out. Consider your life as a feast. Even though you may be right-handed, you need both hands to carry a platter to the table. Each has a role to play, an important role.


Mastering the dance between head and mind takes dedication and a keen commitment to showing up as your highest self. Shadow work is one tool that can make way for this possibility. Becoming aware of the underlying motivations and unconscious expressions of both your heart and your head will allow you to recognize and interpret what each center of being is really telling you.

Thinking with your heart vs head

Thinking with your heart vs head has a different texture. Where head-thinking tends to be crisp and linear, the heart’s way encompasses a larger perspective and more nuanced interactions. An arrow flies straight. A bee dances its message in joy for the journey.

The heart’s version of “thinking” leans more toward things like invitation, cooperation, upliftment. Clearly these needn’t be totally separate from intellectual pursuits. Intentional cultures, whether classroom or corporate, bring these to the forefront while pursuing head objectives.

Studying emotional intelligence is more common and overt than in decades past! Considering how another person may receive our communication encourages us to ask for consent before we dive in. We check back for understanding to ensure the health of our connection as well as our communication. It’s about more than the task at hand – we’re creating a different octave of the world.

Coming into divine alignment with our Soul helps ensure head and mind are properly weighted and utilized to guide us on our true path and support us in living our purpose and potential.

Living in your head vs living from your heart 

Living in your head vs living from your heart creates an experience of accomplishment without fulfillment. Even though you’ve done all the “right” things, the agenda has been set from a place of comparison to promote and protect an egoic sense of self.

Both the imagined goal and the interpretation of the current circumstances are happening in the head, not in direct contact with the texture of the heart’s lived experience.

Living from your heart doesn’t mean living only in your heart, filled with reactive emotionality. Living from your heart is a way to integrate a cooperation that sources your direction from your deeper heart’s truth, then enrolls the thoughts and emotions to bring it to fruition.


Our ultimate objective is to make contact and live from our authentic self. This is the highest expression of your Soul. It will lead you to your purpose, your greatest fulfillment and your own personal mastery. It’s  all initiated in the heart.

This way you are the one bringing that heaven to earth.

Since 2011, courageous men and women around the world have chosen Divine Navigation and committed to the extraordinary and transformative experience of Aligning with their Soul-through their Divine Coordinates. We invite you to also explore the journey of Understanding Divine Alignment & Its Life Changing Benefits.