"Sometimes I need only to stand wherever I am to be blessed.”
~Mary Oliver
Dear ,
Note: All are welcome to our next Coming Home Together online gathering on June 1 focusing on Cultivating Curiosity, Humility, Compassion, and Devotion. To find out more and register, please click here. And for more events, please click
here.
~~~~~~
At its core and in its natural state, life is simple—now in this moment, and always.
There is a just what’s here and happening...with no commentary, judgment, or resistance that complicates matters.
It’s like stripping the moment down to the barest experience of what is: just seeing, reading, breathing, sitting, hearing, talking, moving, life emerging…
But don’t take my word for it. See if this is true in your own experience. Take a look right now and delete the mind’s interpretations. What is actually here in your direct experience?
Continue with this contemplation, and you’ll start to notice how simple life is.
If something needs to be taken care of, it will become obvious. If you’re hungry, you’ll get something to eat. If the car is running out of gas, you’ll stop at a gas station. If someone asks you for help, you’ll say yes or no.
Can you imagine carrying out these activities without paying attention to the spinning commentary of the mind?
There is a natural, utterly simple unfolding of things that is completely apparent—when you can see it clearly without the mind’s complications.
But for many of us in our normal everyday lives, we’re distracted by mental and emotional noise…and we overlook the simplicity of the moment.
- We go into our heads trying to solve endless problems;
- We feed anxious stories about things not going our way;
- We live in fear that we won’t get the attention and approval we crave;
- We’re fearful of not being perfect and just being human.
The mind entices you into believing that the present moment is lacking. We believe that whatever is happening now isn’t good enough—and we’re not good enough.
And this leads to “if only” thinking. “If only I had more confidence, if only everything was just right and I felt comfortable.”
Then you scramble to find solutions to this perceived lack. And things quickly get complicated.
See how your thinking spins out of control? You move away from reality (so simple in its clarity) and into the made-up stories in the mind.
But here’s what’s always possible—to rediscover the simplicity of the moment.
Ignore the commentary that takes you away (blah, blah, blah…) and return to the bare experience of what’s actually here. This is where you find freshness and insight, “Oh, it’s just a thought! Oh, there's nothing here that needs to be fixed.”
Peace and ease are always available—in this and every moment. But you won’t know that if you’re lost in the complexity of your thoughts.
Disregard the content of your thinking—just turn away from it—and you’ll discover the peace you’re looking for. If there is action to be taken, you can trust that you’ll know just what to do.
Keep it simple, and you might have the brilliant insight that nothing is missing and things right now are perfectly okay as they are.
Gail
Note: Our focus for our next Coming Home Together online gathering on June 1 is on cultivating the essential qualities of curiosity, humility, compassion, and devotion and applying them to our everyday experience. Please click here to register. All events are open to
everyone, and a recording will be sent out to all who register. I would love to see you there!
There will also be a Coming Home Together gathering on Presence in Our Relationships on Saturday, June 4, and please join for the 3-part course on: Waking Up in Our Relationships: The Sacred Path of Intimacy and Deep Trauma Healing, sponsored by Open Circle Center. I'm excited about
diving into this topic with you! Dates are June 9, 10, and 11 for 3 hours each day. For information and to register, please click here.
|
|
|
