Beliefs, Rules and the Heart

Now that we have covered some biblical and scientific fundamentals of the heart, we are ready to dive into how to discover and understand our own heart. To understand our heart we must first understand that we live largely driven by rules and belief systems. We touched on this when we spoke about our operating systems. We all have developed maps of how to navigate through life. Most of those rules are dictated by cultural, family, religious, political and other systems. It is the spoken and unspoken, understood or assumed rules around us. There are good rules and not so good rules. Let’s explore some of them to get a better understanding of how we might be able to identify our own.

A common rule among Christians for instance, although it probably varies based on denominations, is that in order to be a good Christian you have to attend this many meetings and be involved in so many of activities. Or in some Christian circles you are only a good Christian if you do not drink alcohol. What rules do you see in your church community?

Cultural rules are the rules from the country you live in, or the state. When we moved to Oregon, we quickly learned that there is a certain dislike of Californians moving up, and we also learned the motto to keep Portland weird. In the home school community, I feel there is a certain expectation to represent homeschoolers as a whole well by our own example so as to not give them a bad name (which is not a bad rule as far as I can see). Try to find some rules you know are socially acceptable in the area where you live. 

Family rules and ethics vary greatly. There could be a family rule that states you have to keep the family secrets. Or everyone shows up to Sunday dinner. Or even holidays have to be spent together else you are a traitor. In our family academic excellence and serious work ethics was high on the list. What about your family? I’m trying to think of what rules my now family keeps, as I am sure we have some new ones that weren’t part of my upbringing. I do think my kids would say there is still a strong focus on excellence and hard work. 

Then there are peer pressure rules. One being, depending on which crowd of moms you hang out with, you are insane if you immunize your child, or you are considered crazy if you don’t. Do you have any peer pressure rules? I don’t know if this qualifies as peer pressure specifically, maybe it is more cultural, but in one community I lived, outward appearance was high on the list. Hair and nails got done by many people, beauty appointments and fashion mattered a lot more than where I am now. Depending on where on social media I go to, I feel like I run into peer pressure. I was reading an article by a rather conservative Christian blogger the other day, and while I saw some points as valid, the voice of it was actually a bit nit picky and sometimes sweeping. But when I went to look at the comments, it seemed the group that reads this blog agrees with this kind of thinking. I didn’t feel I needed to go stir the pot…I do wonder if there would have been responses if I had challenged some of the sweeping statements.

Then there are rules that you may have made yourself, rules you discovered are helping you navigate life. Maybe a rule to look happy all the time so as to not have to answer probing questions. Or maybe to work hard to not be a burden to anyone. I have a rule that says I have to be in bed on schedule so the next day goes smoothly. Do you have any examples of rules you’ve come up with that help you and maybe some that don’t? Some rules are pretty specific and are helpful. Other rules may be more broad and impact the choices we make. Let’s say I believe I have to maximize my time and make the most of every opportunity, then I will likely not allow myself to do playful things and will probably end up leading a pretty serious and restless life. 

Some of these rules are good rules and have very real benefits. What is important is that we don’t just blindly follow rules but investigate why those rules are there, and why we follow them. We need to know the “why” of keeping the rules. Because if we don’t know the “why” of the rules and choose to follow them without knowing the “why”, rules can actually keep us from reaching our desires, needs and dreams.

For instance, if a person believes she has to take care of her ailing parents all by herself, otherwise she is a bad daughter, she may say no to career opportunities she has always dreamed of because she has to obey her rule. In the process however, she is keeping herself from following her dreams. Most of the time we aren’t aware of these rules but follow them subconsciously. They are ‘shoulds’, and because of the ‘shoulds’ we shut down our dreams, saying it’s not ok to follow them, yet we never ask why. To be healthy, we ‘should’ challenge all rules to understand them and find out if we actually want those rules to govern us. The reason we often don’t do this is because we fear we will be punished for challenging and asking. After all, if we challenge a system, we challenge the people in the system. Generally speaking, humans like rules because they allow them to control things.

I remember a time when I was young and really could not understand how Pharaoh could be considered a bad guy, if he couldn’t help it, since ‘God hardened Pharaoh’s heart’. I genuinely wanted to understand how to make sense of this. I may not have asked it well. I was not aware that asking this question could make my mom feel very uncomfortable. To this day I do not understand what her true position was, I just remember that she shut me down when I proposed, “If God hardened Pharaoh’s heart and then punished him for it, then he is unfair”. I have since had other people tell me I was not allowed to question God’s fairness. But this particular memory came up as I was studying this idea of challenging rules. I think I unwittingly challenged the rule to not, under any circumstances, challenge or doubt God. I didn’t get anywhere with this question then, but it is something I pursued and found answers to elsewhere, even though I was shut down before. I guess I tossed the rule that I must not challenge God. I examined it and decided the ‘why’ was not valid to me, and that God could handle being challenged. I have found more intimacy, more understanding and awe of God precisely because I challenged him about questions I have. He hasn’t always answered every one of my questions, but he sure has given me many answers that were amazing and gave me a depth of faith I would not have otherwise had. That was a rule way worth tossing.

Justin explained how a rule can be good, such as the rule not to have an affair. He went on to explain that the reason he does not have an affair, though is not because of the rule but because he has thought it through and considered the destruction and chaos it would bring (in other words, he has considered the “why”) and has made a heart choice to follow that rule. This is how we should endeavor to live. Although, not all ‘rules’ in the Bible may make sense to us, yet we are still to follow them. In the class they were specifically targeting cultural and family rules, not absolute rules that God put into place. Making it my goal to have a heart connection with whatever (cultural, social, family…)  rules I keep, is a good rule of thumb. Especially when the ‘shoulds’ are strong.

It was interesting and now makes sense, there was a big reaction inside of me when I married into a Japanese family, and I was expected to keep the Japanese unwritten rules. A lot of ‘shoulds’ suddenly got hurled at me. They don’t prepare you for this in marriage counseling. Many of these Japanese cultural rules are based on a system of honor, which isn’t bad at all, but I could tell I did not understand the “why” of many of these. I felt like I was not allowed to challenge them. Part of that may have just been my perception, but I certainly felt I was just to accept their way of doing things without question. It would have been great to know I have permission to challenge them. Being outnumbered and the minority is something I was not prepared for, and I would deal with it differently now. Not that I need to beat myself about this. But I think it answers the first of my homework assignments to where I have overruled my own heart in order to keep rules. It also explains the resentment.

Be prepared that as you challenge rules and start asking questions, the people who made the rules start losing control, which means there will likely be resistance and a reaction. It’s scary for people. Because people have rules to control others. Rules get rewards. People often use rules to control love.

Here are some examples of how it is important to investigate and ask why. Justin had a rule that said, “In order to be a good friend, I have to let my friends borrow my truck if they ask.” But when he was asked to lend his truck, every time his internal response was a big great shout about how much he doesn’t want to. He felt like he had to but he didn’t want to. I can completely relate to this kind of internal conflict!

He gave himself permission to pause and investigate. He asked himself, “Why don’t I want to give my truck to my friend?” He knew he didn’t want to because in the past, when people had borrowed the truck, they had returned it dinged and scratched up, empty, dirty etc. I wouldn’t want to give my truck to friends under such circumstances. Experience said, “They don’t take care of it, they destroy it and don’t respect it, or me.”

After this investigation, he had two opposing issues before him. He had his heart that did not want to be run over by his friends. He also had his rule, that he had to lend when asked. What to do?

He had to make a decision. He did not want to abandon his friends, but he also did not want to keep running over himself. He could easily have said to his friends to just rent a U-Haul truck. When we look for a solution to conflicts like this, there are hardly ever only one or two choices. I think he came up with a good compromise. He set up some rules for borrowing his truck: “I need the truck gassed up upon return, I need you to bring it back in better condition than you got it in, and if you damage it I need you to be fully prepared to take responsibility for getting it fixed.”

Basically what needs to happen in such a situation, where the rule says one thing, and your heart says another, you need to figure out a way not to run over yourself or the others. I found this very freeing. That my heart matters and should not be run over, is such a wonderful thought.

Another example had to do with, “What if someone wants to become your friend, but you don’t want to be their friend?” You feel guilty and want to overrule that reaction, because your rule says, “I have to love everyone.” However, if you pause rather than overrule, you can find out why you don’t want to. And it turns out the reason you don’t want to is because you know this person tells things about others, and you are afraid they will do the same with you. If you completely ignore your heart, you are not taking care of yourself. Your job from God is to take care of yourself, to guard your heart, take care of his temple, your body, and no one else can do that for you. You are the only person who has the authority over yourself. You have to decide how to take care of your heart in this situation. How can you take care of yourself, and at the same time be kind and loving?

Notice the options. It would be completely fine to say you don’t have the capacity to be their friend. That is a valid option. You could also say, you are afraid of saying yes, because you know this person shares stuff, and you are worried it will happen about you too. And that if that happens it will change the relationship. This option is a tough one for me to even see as an option because I hate being that direct. However, I recognize there must be a reason why, something else to investigate! Another option is to be a friend from a distance. You can’t be closest friends with everyone, but you can be the kind of friend that shares easy stuff that you don’t mind being shared with other people. That is another way you can protect yourself.

I am going to share an example from my own life, since our assignment is to get in touch with times and memories where we were in such a heart versus rules conflict. I realize that had I been more in touch with myself I would have recognized the internal conflict way sooner and fixing the situation would have happened way sooner, resulting in less struggle and misunderstandings.

Ever since I have become more health conscious, I have become a lot less interested in going to restaurants and places where there is nothing I want to eat. I didn’t realize until just now that the reason I feel so hesitant about sharing that I need a better place is because I have a rule that does not want to inconvenience others. I know that the places where I would want to go, are more expensive in general, and I know I don’t want to expect others to have to adjust for me. But I am pretty sure in the process of talking myself out of going out in order to avoid getting ‘glutened’ or get exposed to other food toxins, I have probably given the impression that I don’t want to be with the people who wanted to go out. That is not true of course. I need to not shove my needs aside, because it is not just a preference, I do in fact have physical issues if I’m not careful. But I could be a lot clearer and explain up front. We could probably work out a place, where I can buy something where I want, and they can still get what they want from another place nearby. That way I would be honoring my own heart and need, and still find compromises so they can also feel honored and not expected to adjust in unreasonable ways.

It doesn’t have to be the extreme of one or the other. Often times there will be some answer that will meet both needs.

I’ll share another example where my heart needed one thing and cultural rules demanded another, how I handled it and what I could do differently next time. I used to have a friend from church who liked to come over and hang out. She loved the whole family and was extremely loving to the kids. I considered her a close family friend. As time went by, I began feeling overwhelmed with how much closeness she wanted. She would ask questions that made me uncomfortable because I was not ready to open up that far, or I felt like she was pushing me to process stuff I hadn’t asked her to help me process. But it also felt like she was not picking up on any of my evasive responses. It got so I felt really cornered and overwhelmed with the relationship. I didn’t have the language for it then, or the maturity, but I know now my heart was screaming for space. But my rule said I can’t hurt her feelings by telling her I need space. I really did not want to hurt her feelings. I did not know how I could get space without hurting her. The only scenarios I saw in the middle of this internal conflict was to either just say nothing and endure as best as I can, or to avoid her as best as I can. It turned into a mix of the two until we ended up moving out of state. At that point I took the road of ‘loosing touch with her due to moving and being busy getting settled here’. Looking back, I realize, because I had not worked on why I fear being honest about how I feel, I didn’t see the option of sharing my needs and what I needed from her in this relationship in order for me to feel comfortable, as a valid third option. I understand now that I need to take care of my heart and not run over it because I’m afraid of the other options. Shoving all my needs and desires out of the way because I need to obey an unwritten rule does not help me take care of my heart. I need to be aware of my feelings, needs and desires, so I can navigate from an empowered place going forward. If I don’t know what I need, I won’t know when I need to set a boundary to guard my heart. I also realize that me saying nothing probably didn’t fool my friend one bit. She was probably hurt because she recognized my nonverbal communication and likely made up her own story about it. Depending on how healthy she is, she might have easily concluded I was rejecting her and did not like her any more. It is a lose-lose deal. I can see that clearly now. 

Boundaries are really a whole other topic, one that has been a confusing one to me. So many different ideas are out there as to what boundaries are, or are not, or what they should be. I have to say, hearing Abi and Justin make a case for the mandate that we take care of our hearts, is making boundary setting become much more doable and right. It is by setting boundaries that I protect my heart from being run over. Looking back, it is when I have not set good boundaries to protect my heart, that I end up feeling powerless, insignificant, unloved, rejected, abandoned, taken advantage of, and any number of other feelings. If I allow my rules or rules of others to abandon my heart voice, and if the heart represents a little me that has needs, then of course I will end up feeling caged, hurt, angry, small, and unseen. It’s that feeling of having to do something repeatedly instead of figuring out a way to honor my heart. If you do anything you don’t want to long enough, because you feel you have no other option, you will end up turning anyone who is around you into a villain.

Have you ever felt like you go above and beyond for many, and no one seems to do the same for you? I have. What I didn’t realize in that endeavor is that I am not fighting for me, listening to my heart, taking time to pay attention to myself, because I am too busy trying to go over the top for everyone else. If I do everything for everyone else, what does that say about my relationship with myself? Am I kind to myself? Am I making sure my own needs are getting met?

Please consider spending some time exploring what major rules you live by and if you know the “why” of them. If this is tricky, look for the “should’s” or “shouldn’ts” in your life. Once you have investigated those, you may want to look for some times in your past where you have overruled your own heart voice, your own needs for the sake of keeping rules. If you find any, spend some time apologizing to yourself about those times. I’d love to hear about your findings in the comment section!