You Rule In Your Heart – From Morning To Evening

In your heart there should be no owner, nor borrowed pieces or corners. Your heart belongs only to you. It only has one owner and that’s you. Thanks to the heart, autonomy will grow. It will pump enough self-love and oxygen for your self-esteem, to be able to love fully. And that is what will enable you to be the master of your own path and construct a dignified life.

Achieving this personal autonomy is not an easy task. Especially when you are trying to integrate a sense of intimacy into your important relationships. In fact, if you are looking for the most classic and traditional sets of romantic relationships, you will realize that autonomy and privacy have been stipulated as incompatible.

No one is completely free from influences when it comes to deciding our fate and creating a path. We are all under the influence of certain social, cultural and even ideological norms. To try to understand these influences, it is always a good idea to remember what the studies on personality psychology have to say to us.

You can try to integrate an authentic devotion for yourself as the cornerstone of life. Both your personal autonomy and the ability to decide what you want and do not want are basic principles for your psychological well-being. Your well-being deserves to be the goal of some of your daily endeavors. Your heart, understood as that metaphorical dimension where your feelings and even your identity are, is a universe that is constantly growing.

Let us therefore let it expand so that it becomes its own master. But your heart must also remain humble and sensitive enough to know how to connect with the people around you in an authentic way. For magic is found in this balance.

Putting your work projects on the shelf because your other half said you would. To end the love of your life because your parents do not like the relationship. To change your hobbies so that your friends always have different plans. Giving up too early because no one wants to help you with your goals…

These are general examples of what it means to threaten one’s own dignity, self-esteem and identity. It is important to think about this. This type of sabotage does not just come from the people around you. In most cases, it comes from yourself.

We should not just blame those who try to control us. We must also take responsibility by understanding that we are the people who give in and let others shut us up.

On the other hand, we should also remember that the people who hand over the wheel to their own lives to others do not do so in a punctual or spontaneous way. In fact, it is an everyday practice that they envy voluntarily.

Like someone who decides to stop bathing, brush their hair or cut their nails. It is part of our psychological hygiene and a principle of the emotional health that we postpone and give to others. And that’s wrong.

Our own dignity should not be touched by anyone else’s hands. No one can (or should) sow the seeds of their selfish desires in our hearts and sell us goals that are not in line with our values. It does not matter if these hands, who are so used to boycotting our identity, are the hands of our partner, our parents or the so-called best friend.

There are certain territories that are private and that no one should encroach on. What we should worry about is taking care of the qualities that are related to our being. This is a daily task that one should never envy.

Dr. Carol D. Ryff from the University of Pennsylvania is one of the biggest advocates of positive psychology. Between 1989 and 1998, she developed an interesting model called “Psychological Well-Being”. This model is still one of the most enriching contributions to personal development. It has a lot to do with the health principle that we raised earlier.

We suggest that you start thinking about its main points to start working on your own emotional and psychological autonomy.

One of the most interesting points in Dr. Ryff’s approach is what has to do with neuroscience. When something arises that goes against our values ​​or when someone tries to pressure their opinion on us or make us do something we do not like, our limbic system will react immediately.

That cerebral structure that is related to our emotions is like an alarm. It’s that inner siren that whispers to us “be careful, something is wrong” . You immediately become stressed and cortisol flows through the blood. The best thing in these cases would have been to simply count to 10. And after that, we should act in accordance with our real needs.

We know it is not easy, but we can achieve this if we slowly but surely learn how to integrate these principles of psychological well-being into our lives:

• Exercise self-acceptance every day.
• Make it a priority to establish positive and enriching relationships with other people. If a certain relationship, whether it is a friendship or a romantic relationship, does not align with these principles, then you should think about making a change.
• Have a clear and objective purpose for your life. You should also fight for it.
• Invest in your personal development. Every occasion is the right one for this.
• Maintain control in your heart as well as your reality. You are the one who directs, guides, decides, initiates, ends and limits, and you should be responsible for your own decisions.

We are aware that these strategies cannot be achieved overnight. It takes willpower, courage and perseverance. But let us remember that if we ever feel blocked or notice that we are losing our autonomy, we must apply this classic home remedy: take a deep breath, count to 10 and REACT. Because in our hearts, it is WE OURSELVES who create the rules.

You are in control of your heart!