Heart in the.Bible refers.to the mind. That's why the bible says "Guard.your heart with all diligence..." it means guard for Mind against evil thoughts.

I feel like our mind is where we think rationalize and plan but our heart (more than being a mere organ) is where our core values and beliefs are stored up as well as our conscience and will

Sweet mz, na you open this thread

First of all, its important for us to understand that the bible was not written in English, the original languages are Greek and Hebrew.
So Some interpretations does not definitely express the communications of the spirit.

2 Hebrew words come to mind when the word "heart " is used in the bible.
1. Lebeab - interior organ; referring to our physical heart
2. Leb - the will, intellect, the centre of substance

From the definition above, the context can help us decipher which is the spirit communicating.
Furthermore, lets remind ourselves that the real us is a spirit not our physical body.

The mind is like a processing house, holdind our thoughts, processing info from the physical world and the spirit world(God).

The spirit (heart) is the real us, where the processed info is stored, this stored info defines us. Not the info under processing.

In other words, it's your mind that is getting in the way, not your heart

like you rightly said and the writers view, the info in our minds (which we receive daily, from various forms ) keeps interferring with the stored info in our spirit.

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/7436-heart

The above is one link I found when I googled "leb" to get an idea how it is defined. The article in there is excellent and when you think about it, it does agree with the entire Scripture.

Man is a whole being described as a spirit, soul and body. The idea that one of the three is the "real" us makes us handle ourselves in somewhat injurious ways. If our spirits are the real us, why does the Bible talk about souls under the altar in heaven in the Book of Revelation? And what do we need a body for? Why does the Bible talk about a spiritual body which obviously is still physical (remember Jesus after He rose from the dead?)?

We are wholly body, soul and spirit. We are not complete without any of those. However, everything has an essence: something that is the very definition, the meaning of that thing. That essence is the heart of the thing. It is the heart that produces the expressions that can be seen and interacted with by other entities.

It is with the heart that we think, make judgments, enforce decisions, feel things (from base appetites to high spiritual emotions). In so far as the mind is our tool for thought it is a part of our heart. The heart does not thus oppose the mind. It uses it along with other faculties like conscience, intuition and everything else.

Yes, our values and beliefs are stored in the heart but each time we are faced with a situation and we call up these values and beliefs, we also process the data from the environment to decide whether to adjust our values and beliefs or enforce them. The heart is the workshop, the powerhouse of our entire being. That is what makes us us.

Understanding the 'body, spirit and soul' has eluded me since forever!
Following this thread.........