My lovely wife Sumati, in fine form:
“Stop being such a doofus”
I love a gentle, supportive, guiding hand back on track, don’t you? Ha ha! Well, sometimes you can’t choose HOW the reminder comes, it’s just enough that you got the wakeup call.
See the fact is, I WAS being a doofus, completely. Have you ever talked yourself out of doing something? Of course you have. I used to do it ALL the time. I do it a lot less now, but there’s always that time to remind there’s no such thing as perfect or finished.
Talking yourself out of things: there’s this bright idea to do something or go somewhere - and then the second and third thoughts come in and give you all the reasons why you shouldn’t or couldn’t or why just staying at home and doing the same old, same old is a better idea than heading forth on an adventure. Which is exactly what happened.
I LOVE kayaking. And it’s been forever since I was went last. So when it started raining last night a ton, I got a little excited. I was watching the river coming up, preparing everything, checking the river levels again, stretching in preparation, checking the river levels … And then this morning I was all second and third thoughts. “Well, maybe I SHOULD be doing some work, maybe the river is too high, actually it’s going to be too low, ooh, it’s really cold out there …”
Enter the Sumati and the doofus uppercut. And thank goodness. Because being on the river was such a blast. Resistance. The biggest handbrake to you doing anything new, lies in your own head. Your mind loves inertia. The same old, same old. No change thanks. So I guess the moral of the story is that no matter what your plan, your idea, your new thing, expect the resistance and just do it anyway.
No one got to the end of their life and said “I wish I’d listened to all the excuses why not a little bit more”. Right? So practice not listening.
Where would you be without them?
Pretty darn happy and fulfilled, I would say. Having adventures. Living the dream.
Go well! Arjuna
PS -
Getting familiar with your own mind - so you can have free choice on what you listen to, so you can be independent of those unconscious patterns and reactions - is a giant step forward in terms of enjoying less stress and negativity and way more calm, contentment and aliveness.
You might really enjoy this sweet little challenge I got going to become more familiar with every moment, complete with Facebook group for extra goodies: