We live in a word that goes fast, really fast. And the world wants us to go fast too. We need to be productive and efficient, not to get side-tracked, to keep as many balls in the air as possible, and we need to let it seem easy. On the other hand, we believe that life is a struggle, and that things don’t go easy, we have to make sacrifices to make our dreams come true. But what if that just isn’t true. What if our expectation makes it so?
We are all deeply indoctrinated by today’s culture of productivity. It almost is the new god, and I am no longer willing to bow to it. What I have found lately is that I want to realize a lot of things, but that the thing I crave most, most of the time, is time to think and read and do nothing and meditate and release and sit with my eyes closed and sleep and be alone. These notions seem incongruent. How can you realize your dreams without laser-like focus and massive action? I don’t know, but I do know that I feel a lot of resistance trying to make things happen through what is perceived as the way to producing results. What if there is nothing wrong with me? What if I just feel the need to do things differently. What if there really is another way? What if I stopped trying to make things happen?
This week, as it is a school vacation, I gave into reading and doing nothing, I allowed myself to sit quietly with my eyes closed and do nothing. What if I learned to accept that part of myself? What if I stopped fighting it, and stopped feeling guilty over this non-doing. Part of me finds this very scary. What if I get stuck in doing ‘nothing’? What if that is all there ever will be? I have big dreams, and sitting still and doing nothing does not seem the way to go about that, yet it is what every cell in my body is screaming. Maybe it is time to heed that voice, that other part of myself. Maybe it is time to surrender even more, to learn to trust the wisdom of my soul, to allow my life to be organized by the counterintuitive principles of the universe. It feels like a free fall, letting go of all mores and relinquishing control.
I am perfect as I am. This perfection is not being free of imperfections, it is a cosmic perfection that includes all my perceived imperfections. I am perfect for being me. I am unique, like my thumb print. There never has been and there never will be someone exactly like me. This is what self-acceptance is, not to simply accept our perceived flaws, but to embrace and celebrate our uniqueness. It is the courage to do things our way, no matter what anybody else is saying or doing. It is knowing that our soul won’t lie to us. It is trusting things to work out perfectly, even if we don’t know how, because our soul tells us so. My soul tells me that expectation is key, that I need to expect without a doubt. I don’t know how to do that yet, but I will follow the trail of bread crumbs and start doing things the other way, my way. I will leave my guilt behind me, and read and meditate and release and do nothing with a vengeance. I expect things to work out for the best, because my soul tells me so.
picture by Maja Piskorska