Putting the Being Back in the Human Being: A Spoken Word Poem | Sian Flanagan | TEDxWest Vancouver

Quick Overview

The spoken word poem argues that modern society conditions humans to operate from the calculating head rather than the feeling heart, leading to a disconnection from true vitality and self, and advocates for consciously choosing to live from the heart's inner wisdom to reclaim authentic being.

Key Points: The speaker contrasts living by the head (to-do lists, logic, achievement) versus living by the heart (feeling, intuition, vitality). Modern societal pressures, like constant notifications and the need to perform, create a "hollow" existence, reducing life to a sterile, measurable surface. The speaker recounts a personal experience of hitting 'rock bottom' due to this disconnection, characterized by guilt, shame, and feeling trapped like an animal in a snare. Key concepts introduced include reclaiming the 'royal' essence of being, moving from head-centric actions to heart-centric feelings, and using imagination as a crucial tool. The speaker challenges the audience to ask, "How are you doing?" expecting the automatic, surface-level response, "Good," instead of the authentic answer about their true feeling state. The solution involves consciously choosing to align the mind and heart, allowing the innate vitality and wisdom within to guide actions rather than societal expectations or logic alone. The presentation uses evocative visual metaphors, including a spinning clock representing time draining away, a barren landscape, and eventually, a vibrant, blooming heart.

Context: This TEDxWest Vancouver talk, presented as a spoken word poem by Sian Flanagan, explores the tension between intellectual/logical living ("the head") and intuitive/emotional living ("the heart"). The speaker uses vivid, often dramatic, imagery—such as a white dress stained with red marks, a collapsing structure, and a soul trapped in a fox trap—to illustrate the emotional toll of constantly prioritizing productivity and external validation over internal feeling and authentic being. The narrative builds toward a call for personal reawakening by choosing heart-centered awareness.