When Success Isn't Enough: Moving From Mind to Heart

My son recently looked at me with complete innocence and said, "My teacher taught me how to play football."

Not you, Dad. My teacher.

He wasn't being hurtful. He was just being honest. And that's what made it cut so deep.

In that moment, I felt a lightning bolt of guilt and shame shoot through my body. My chest tightened. Sadness washed over me. All the intellectual justifications I'd been carrying—I'm building a business to provide for them, I'm doing this for my family, this is how I show love—crumbled in the face of one simple truth delivered by my child.

I had been so busy working for my family that I'd become disconnected from them.

This is what it looks like when you live in your head instead of your heart. And if you're reading this, I'm guessing you know exactly what I'm talking about.

The Noble Distraction: How We Convince Ourselves We're Doing the Right Thing

Here's the thing about living in your head- it always has good reasons.

I wasn't neglecting my kids because I didn't care. I was hyperfocused on my business because I did care. I told myself I was being responsible, driven, dedicated. I was building something meaningful. I was providing stability and opportunity for the people I love most.

And all of that was true. But it wasn't the whole truth.

The mind is brilliant at constructing narratives that keep us safe from uncomfortable feelings. Achievement becomes a shield. Productivity becomes a way to avoid vulnerability. We stay busy so we don't have to feel the grief, the longing, the fear, or the tenderness that lives in our hearts.

For high-achievers, professionals, and driven individuals, this pattern runs especially deep. We've been rewarded our entire lives for thinking our way through problems, for pushing emotions aside in service of goals, for staying "professional" and keeping our personal lives separate. We learn early that feelings are messy, unpredictable, and potentially dangerous—so we build entire lives in our heads where we feel safe, in control, and competent.

But here's what we miss: you cannot think your way into authentic connection. Not with your children. Not with your partner. Not with yourself. Not with the life you actually want to be living.

The Cost of Disconnection: What We Lose When We're Not Present

There's a difference between physical presence and emotional presence.

You can be in the room, at the dinner table, on the couch, even playing with your kids, and still be completely absent. Your body is there, but your mind is running through tomorrow's meeting, rehearsing a difficult conversation, calculating next quarter's projections, or solving the hundred problems that feel urgent and important. Or just wandering aimlessly on the phone screen.

Meanwhile, your child is trying to tell you about their day. Your partner is reaching out for connection. As a single father I am often trying to figure out what I need to do for my children and not on my children. Life is happening right in front of us, and we can somewhere else entirely.

I know this intimately because I've lived it. I was physically present but emotionally unavailable. I'd convinced myself that providing and achieving was the same as loving. But my son's honest words revealed what I'd been avoiding: presence isn't about being in the room, it's about being in your heart.

The cost of this disconnection shows up everywhere:

• We miss the small moments that actually matter (this is the magic)
• Our relationships become transactional rather than nourishing
• We're working for the people we're losing connection with
• We think we're building security, but we're creating distance
• We solve problems instead of truly listening
• We stay safe, but we stay alone

And perhaps most painfully, we realize too late what we've missed. The moments don't come back. The invitation to play football, to read the bedtime story, to sit in silence together, to really see another human being, these invitations expire.

Why Moving From Mind to Heart Is So Hard

In my work as a therapist and in studying my own shadow, I've come to understand that this journey from mind to heart is some of the most challenging inner work we can do. It requires us to soften walls we've spent years building. It asks us to feel things we've worked hard to avoid. It demands that we stay present with discomfort instead of escaping into our thoughts. May I be grateful for this humility. 

Here's why it's so hard:

1. Feelings Are Vulnerable: When you're in your head, you can analyze, strategize, and maintain the illusion of control. When you drop into your heart, you feel things you can't control- grief, longing, tenderness, fear, love. These feelings make us vulnerable, and vulnerability feels dangerous. As men we try to avoid this often by inhibiting our emotions or not feeling them. We bury them deep down inside, which is why when they come out we can explode. We do need to release them but it is better to have a controlled demolition. 
2. The Mind Has Been Our Primary Tool: If you're someone who's succeeded academically or professionally, your mind has been your greatest asset. You've been rewarded for thinking clearly, solving problems, and staying rational. Asking you to trust your heart instead of your head feels like abandoning the very thing that's kept you safe and successful.
3. Emotional Honesty Requires Courage: Being emotionally honest- first with yourself, then with others- means acknowledging truths you might not want to face. It means admitting you're scared, lonely, hurting, or uncertain. It means letting people see you without your armor. For me that often meant feeling some combination of doubt, fear, guilt, and shame. Fear is for entertainment purposes only as I was recently and wisely reminded. 
4. The Body Holds What the Mind Denies When we intellectualize emotions, we think we've dealt with them. But the body knows differently. That tightness in your chest or holding of the breath isn't wrong- it's truth trying to surface. Those physical sensations (Mindfulness Practice: The Body Scan) are your heart speaking the language your mind has been ignoring.

What Integration Actually Looks Like

Moving from mind to heart isn't about abandoning your intellect or becoming overly emotional. It's about integration- developing the ability to feel, process, and stay present with your heart, even when it's uncomfortable, while still honoring your capacity to think clearly. To respond wisely with intention rather than react with defensive behaviors. 

Integration means:

• Noticing when you're in your head vs. your heart. Is your chest tight? Are you holding your breath? Are you analyzing instead of feeling? These are signs you've left your body.
• Developing emotional literacy. Learning to name what you're actually feeling (not what you think about what you're feeling) and allowing those emotions to exist without immediately trying to fix or explain them away. What you can name you can tame. 
• Staying present with discomfort. The mind wants to escape uncomfortable feelings by thinking about them. The heart asks you to stay, to breathe, to feel what's actually here- and let them go. Telling yourself the same story will bring you right back to the feeling. Write a new story that is healthy, constructive, and nourishing. 
• Practicing somatic awareness. Your body is the gateway to your heart, and the present moment. . Simple practices like placing your hand on your chest, taking three deep breaths into your belly, or doing a body scan can help you drop out of your head and into felt experience.

In my work with MBSR (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction), I teach clients these foundational practices:

• Body scan meditations to reconnect with physical sensations
• Heart-centered breathing to activate the parasympathetic nervous system
• Emotional check-ins throughout the day: "What am I actually feeling right now?"
• Mindful pauses before transitions to ground in presence

The neuroscience is clear: when we practice dropping into our bodies and hearts, we're literally rewiring our nervous systems. We're building new neural pathways that allow us to stay present with emotion instead of automatically escaping into thought. Neurons that fire together wire together (Hebb's Law).

The Practice: Welcoming the Invitation to Presence

After that moment with my son, something shifted. Not fixed- shifted.

I realize that transformation isn't about having a breakthrough moment and then being "done." It's about welcoming the ongoing invitation to be more present, more open, more emotionally honest- again and again and again. That is the work. I could judge and crush myself easily and do, but it won’t help me get to where I want to be for myself or for my son. 

Here's what's changing for me:

• I'm being more proactive about engaging with my children. Not because I've suddenly figured it all out, but because I'm learning to notice when I'm drifting into my head and choosing to come back. Being a single father is not an excuse. Excuses are lies. The question I ask myself is "What does love ask of me in this moment?"
• I'm practicing presence in small ways—putting my phone down during dinner, making eye contact, asking questions and actually listening to the answers.
• I'm catching myself when I start to intellectualize emotions and asking: "What do I actually feel right now?"
• I'm learning that being a good father isn't about being perfect—it's about being present. It's about showing up with my heart, even when it's messy, uncomfortable, or both.

It's not fixed. But the invitation is there to be more present. And I welcome this.

Practical Steps for Your Own Journey

If this resonates with you, here are some practices that can support your journey from mind to heart:

Start Your Day With Grounding: Before checking your phone or launching into your to-do list, take 2-3 minutes to sit quietly, place your hand on your heart, and simply feel your breath. Ask yourself: "How do I actually feel right now?" Or better yet “How do I want to feel” and then planning the action to feel great about the day. Being intentional.

Practice Emotional Check-Ins: Set reminders throughout your day to pause and name what you're feeling. Not what you think- what you feel. Even if the answer is "I don't know" or "numb," that's valuable information. If needed, what do I need to do to course correct? Do it.

Notice Your Body's Signals: Your body is constantly giving you honest feedback about what's happening emotionally. Chest tightness, shallow breathing, tension in your shoulders—these aren't problems to fix, they're invitations to get curious.

Create Presence Rituals: Choose one activity each day where you practice being fully present. It could be reading to your child, having coffee with your partner, or taking a walk without your phone. Use it as a laboratory for noticing when your mind wanders and gently bringing yourself back to the present moment. Be curious. 

Get Support: This work is hard to do alone. Join a gym. Find community, or consider working with a therapist, joining a mindfulness group, or finding a practice community that supports heart-centered awareness. Having friends, witnesses, and guides on this journey makes all the difference.

Be Patient With Yourself: Moving from mind to heart is lifelong work. You'll forget. You'll drift back into your head. You'll intellectualize when you mean to feel. That's not failure- that's the practice. The work is in noticing and choosing to return, again and again.

The Invitation

I share this story not because I've mastered this work, but because I'm in it- right alongside you.

The journey from mind to heart is the most challenging and most important work I know. It's the difference between living a life you can think about and living a life you can actually feel. It's the difference between achieving and connecting. It's the difference between being successful and being present. I recently heard an account of a group of otherwise highly successful executives revealing during a wellness retreat how unhappy they were despite the material success they had in life. Embodying presence guards against this.

Your mind will give you a thousand good reasons to stay where you are, we can get pretty comfortable with our suffering. Your heart is asking for something different- something that requires courage, vulnerability, and the willingness to feel what you've been avoiding.

That tightness in your chest? That's not a problem. That's truth waiting to be welcomed.

The invitation is always there. Will you say yes? As your heart opens up remember that your world will open up in wonderful ways. Your outer world is a reflection of your inner world. When you have peace and love in your heart you will cultivate peace and love externally with the ripple effect. Don't fear life, rather ask yourself "how good can it get?" 

If you're ready to begin this journey from mind to heart, I'd love to support you. Whether through individual therapy, mindfulness-based coaching, or our online MBSR course, we can work together to help you develop the capacity for presence, emotional honesty, and authentic connection.

Reach out for a free consultation here, explore our MBSR Online offering, and free meditations.