A thoughtful reader and inquirer wrote to ask me about the stress she experiences when she believes she needs to relax, lighten up, or stop working so much in order to be happy. You may the post from last week I Need To Relax To Be Successful.
This is such a great discovery, to realize that even with gentle-sounding thoughts and concepts that seem like good ideas, we can start a thread of thinking about how we could improve.
The thoughts go something like this (spoken from one who knows):
- I should relax more
- I should be kinder to myself and others
- If I only knew how to calm down, my life would be more pleasant
- I shouldn’t let that person bug me
- If I meditated more, practiced my spiritual path more, then I would be a better person, more loving, and happier
- I want to spread peace and not war
- I allowed people in my life to hurt me, it’s my fault
- If only I had a thicker skin, jeez!
- If I could just remember to count to ten or have more patience, my kids would be happier
- I should love myself
What I found is that when I start to get into these kinds of thoughts about how I don’t measure up to the best I could be….frustration, tiredness, low-energy, sadness, disappointment.
One of my favorite exercises in Katie’s book I Need Your Love, Is It True? is to consider the worst you have ever done. Almost everyone on the planet, upon thinking about the WORST they have ever done, feels terrible. We are sure we could have done it differently. I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER.
Katie suggests that we couldn’t have done it any better. No better, no different. It went exactly the way it needed to go based on who we were, who they were, what we were all believing at the moment.
We were innocently believing our thoughts. That was the way of it, that is the way of it. We were doing the best we could have done.
Notice how the mind will say “OK, I did the best I could in that moment…and IT WASN’T GOOD ENOUGH!”
You don’t really have to know consciously what you are actually believing, with perfect wording. You can question simply that you are not doing it well, that you could be doing better.
Who would you be without the thought that you are not good enough at relaxing? What if you didn’t evaluate yourself as needing to improve in any way at all, right in this moment?
What if you shouldn’t even love yourself right now? What if it is not possible to be a better parent? What if you are not awakened because you are not supposed to be? What if you are not successfully raking in money or working at a good job because your current status is just right?
“All that’s required of me is that I be good enough just to sit in this chair now. It doesn’t matter what my mind says…..Only a huge ego could say that you’re supposed to be doing something that you’re not doing. If it’s required, just start moving toward it–get the job done. And if you can’t get the job done, it’s because it’s not required.” ~ Byron Katie
It is so strange for the mind to not have an improvement plan. But how amazing to find out what happens without one.
I was always so sure NOTHING would happen, or BAD things would happen without an improvement plan. Just try for a few minutes, a few hours, seeing what happens if you have no plan, if you don’t know what is supposed to happen now.
See what happens if all that is required is being you, no “making” yourself do, think, say, or be anything. You may find that life begins to live itself, without all the stressful thinking.
Empty your mind of all thoughts. Let your heart be at peace. Watch the turmoil of beings, but contemplate their return. Each separate being in the universe returns to the common source. Returning to the source is serenity. If you don’t realize the source, you stumble in confusion and sorrow. When you realize where you come from, you naturally become tolerant, disinterested, amused, kindhearted as a grandmother, dignified as a king. Immersed in the wonder of the Tao, you can deal with whatever life brings you, and when death come, you are ready. Tao Te Ching #16
Don’t worry about not being where you’d like to be, yet. You are a part of all that moves in turmoil and then returns to balance, to the common source of serenity. You are on your way. You are supported.
Love, Grace
Wonderful Teleclass!
“Being anchored in doing The Work with something regular, and hearing other people’s thinking helped me see/feel/hear my own…wonderful!”~ JCN, Australia
Accepting Where You Are:
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