“I am a lover of what is, not because I'm a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality.”
— Byron Katie
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How are you doing?
Me? Well – the whole family is down sick, and somehow I’m keeping my head up. Miracles abound!
It’s times like these that the urgent has to be jettisoned for the truly important; the plan replaced with the reality.
My to-do list now revolves around buckets and tissues and cold water flannels and love. And a surrender of what I thought I might get done today.
Can I do what needs to be done, rather than get frustrated and resentful and whine to myself about what I’d like to get done?
Dunno, but I’ll give it a shot.
Ah, life … it always wants to remind you something bigger is the real boss. Oh well, no point complaining.
Complaining just doesn’t help. I have to surrender.
When I don’t, the result is frustration and agitation. It hurts. And that’s not my cup of tea. In fact, I use the presence of such feelings as an alarm bell that I’ve fallen off the wagon of fully engaging with the reality of what is, right now.
My mind thinks it’s irresponsible. “I’ve got SO much to do”, “This is a total waste of time”, “What about meeeee?”.
Ahhhhh… the cry of the ego. “What about me?”.
I think plans and visions are important. Without them, nothing gets done, we don’t move forward.
But the answer to ending frustration and resentment is keeping these plans fluid and flexible. Holding them lightly.
The harder we hold to control over our plans and ideas the faster we’ll get wound up and frustrated.
You have to open your eyes to the reality of a situation. You gotta see the facts of now and deal with them, not the stories of what we think should be.
Right?
I was on a little live discussion the other day about mental health and why we thought it seems like such a big deal these days.
My take was that we’ve gotten into a place where we think so much we are unable to stop thinking.
It’s this habit that creates mayhem because we can’t get out from negativity and limitation and fear – we can’t escape.
The solution?
Get good at getting out of your head and into your body; into your senses. Get out of thinking so much and into the present moment; into what is here.
It’s such a beneficial practice. But you have to practice it.
So –
See if you can’t be a little more present to now.
See if you’re complaining or resentful or getting up tight somehow.
What are you doing to create that?
Is there anything you can actually do in terms of action or speech?
Or do you have to surrender to reality?
See if you can think less and be more. It’ll pay mucho dividends.
As someone once wrote:
“We make plans so God can laugh at them.”
Maybe we can learn to start laughing too.
That’s me. Hope you’re doing great.
Go well,
Arjuna