Surrender Your Hasty Heart to Your Higher Power


“Sorry is born in the hasty heart.”
Richard Todd, The Hasty Heart

The hasty heart is the obsessive-compulsive heart. It’s the heart that’s always a jump away from reacting to life. And it’s the heart that plunges head-long into something without ever involving the thought process. Truly, “sorry is born in the hasty heart.”

And yet, so many of us who suffer from hasty hearts find it difficult to say “I’m sorry.” We say ugly things that we quickly regret. We react and do things that are hurtful toward people we love. We act manipulatively to get what we want. And even after we have experienced our guilt trips, even after we have accepted that we have been hurtful toward others, we still find it nearly impossible to fess up and take ownership of our behavior.

Why is this? If we want to change this bad behavior of ours, we have to get to the bottom of it through some soul-searching. If you’ve said or done something recently that you need to take ownership of through an apology, what is it that’s keeping you from making proper amends? The answer is somewhere inside of you. Is it just false-pride? Is it that you already feel so diminished inside that you fear that admitting to one more mistake will cause you to disappear into nothingness? Or is it that you feel so many people have done you wrong, and never admitted to it, so you just can’t bring yourself to make an apology when you are owed so many apologies yourself?

Do your soul-searching and find out what’s standing in your way of being a truly loving person. Truly loving people take responsibility for their behavior, even if they suffer consistently from having hasty hearts. Once you are able to take responsibility for your behavior, you will return to a better place inside yourself. You will enjoy the balance of being back in right-relationship with others, God and yourself.

In terms of taming the hasty heart, learn to practice awareness. Awareness places us in the NOW, in the moment. In the now, we can have the ability to make a conscious choice. We can make a choice to say or do this or that. We don’t have to immediately default into any old hasty reaction when we are in the present moment. We can breathe deeply, clear our heads and ask God to help us make a good choice of what to say or do. We can ask “What are my choices?” and allow God to provide us with the enlightenment we need to understand what are choices are in any given situation. Then we can hopefully make the right choice and not the “hasty” one.

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