When the Heart Turns Outward

People sometimes build a biased internal model of reality that fits what they want to believe, and then make statements that are technically true within that model but misleading overall. As they maintain the gap between this internal narrative and external reality, they increasingly rely on self-referential interpretations—such as their intentions, perspective, or identity—to keep the narrative stable.

Over time, this creates a self-reinforcing loop driven by motivated reasoning and cognitive dissonance, which further entrenches the distortion. In this process, they may also begin to shift how they assign priority to others—judging or interpreting people in ways that serve and reinforce their internal narrative rather than staying grounded in what is actually there.

A more grounded way of living is when the “heart” is not centered on protecting the self, but oriented outward—toward others, toward reality, and toward what is actually happening outside of us. In that sense, life becomes clearer and easier when attention is less about self-justification and more about genuinely seeing and responding to what is beyond ourselves, ultimately responding to Who is above all.