What to do when your heart and mind is in conflict?

Scientifically speaking your heart does not think. It is your brain which does all the thinking and feeling.It means that you have two choices, one an emotional one and the other a practical one. Emotions often clouds your vision and leads you to believe into unexisted things. But without emotions we cannot live or enjoy life as we should. I strongly believe into actions speak louder than words. I do a pros and cons of every situation, find out whether it is going to work and then move on.

The short answer - Meditate!

The struggle you're facing is because of expectations. Hope arises through you wanting a positive outcome of the situation you're in. It shows you are unhappy with your current circumstances. You want a change, something which aligns with your expectations.

The mind is all about survival. So it will persuade you to do things to protect yourself and secure your future. For someone who wants to start a business, it will emphasise it's a risky thing to do and try to convince you that a 9-5 permanent job will give you guaranteed income. In your case, it doesn't want you to suffer, so it will give you reasons why it's not good to carry on what you are doing and how you could stop the pain.

The heart on the other hand works in mysterious ways. It is irrational. As it deals mainly with emotions, it doesn't know boundaries. This gets you to a spiritual level in the sense that your heart may tell you to do something which is not necessarily for your OWN happiness but will make someone else happy.

In a situation where you've taken a step to overrule the mind or the heart, you will be in conflict. They sit at opposite poles and it is not easy to get them to agree.

So which one should you listen to? That's very difficult to know. Sometimes signals you think are from the heart may actually be the mind playing tricks on you.

Therefore the best thing to do is to drop all expectations. Be there as a witness. Watch what your mind/heart wants but do not act on any of them. Just observe the thoughts.

Think about this for a minute - if you really wanted a brand new iPhone but do not have enough money to buy it, is it the mind or the heart which is telling you to get it? You can argue it's the mind because it reflects ego and having this will boost your social status. Or you can argue it's the heart as the design/features of that phone will really give you contentment on a personal level. Either way, you've got a problem which will lead to unhappiness.

So drop the expectation - if you can buy it, then good otherwise it's still good. When you change your way of thinking this way, you cannot be unhappy. Meditation will help you achieve this level of mindfulness.