My teacher Adyashanti always says when you don't know what to do, do nothing. This advice had always resonated with me on an energetic level but my mind couldn't understand how to implement this because it leaves it out of the equation completely. However, the more that I have heeded these words of wisdom the more I have realized that something is always moving me and that there is a huge relief when I can get out of my own way and allow myself to be moved purely by this force.
So no planning hunh? Really? I kept asking myself. No frantic research to gather further information to make a better decision with? No searching for the next thing, job, relationship? Yes! He said do nothing. My poor little mind continued. How can I do nothing when there is so much to do? I can't see the solution so how then will this happen?
Now for an A type personality like myself this has been my greatest challenge. I mean we're talking about the woman who who worked full time, went to school full time, was married and had a young son. Who also at the same time danced in a performance group and had a full social calendar. I know half the women reading this can relate to this "go until drop" mentality that the rat race has instilled in us." Be the best. Do more." I kept hearing from everyone and through people's social media status updates. I thought surely I can do more I always have, but the higher self kept reminding me and not always gently, just relax, do less.
I would be working one job, get another job so I could save up and the first job would unexpectedly end or I would be fired for something silly. Being forced into bed from three kidney stone procedures. The material things I was attached to like my phones and computers broke or my car ended up totaled. These type of things kept happening until I was forced to stop, was left with only myself and had no choice but to look at who I was being in world.
After seeing the needed changes and watching my world begin to crumble I was left doing, well not much of anything. So with lots of time and no distractions I began noticing a few things. First that I didn't really miss going so fast. Phew, if I wasn't caught up too much in my head worrying about the outcome, I kind of enjoyed being "lazy." I also began to really like myself. Enjoying my own company so much that it became the preferred company to almost any other offer. But the thing I really noticed in these forced moments of pause, was that all of my needs and those of my children, in every instant were being met despite what my mind had told me would happen if I became unemployed or didn't have a car to go to work.
I still couldn't help but peruse through Craigslist and send off as many resumes as possible as it was all I knew how to do but ultimately the connection needed for the new job would come to me through a friend at a gathering or at the coffee shop making me realize what a waste of good meditation time I had spent on trying to make it happen. It seemed that the law of attraction might be actually working in my life and that my requests from the universe to "bring to me a good job" were being fulfilled and I could have trust in that. It wasn't selfish to enjoy more time in peaceful meditation, but needed to prepare me for the new job. Frantically scouring for something to fill up space out of nervous anxiety wasn't helping me but actually working against what was being offered as a gift of rest.
In this place of observing and continually noticing how even when things didn't seem to work out, they still did somehow, I gathered more confidence in this guidance. My faith deepened and my courage became stronger to trust myself. I can now enjoy this beautiful new relationship I have with myself that can't ever be taken away.
If keeping up with the Jones or the Kardashians has gotten us into this mess of perception that we must always be doing something in order to "keep up" then it seems doing the opposite, not trying so hard, would counter balance it. It seems that if we at the very least slowed down more often, took a little more time in between things, mediated more, and made more time for our loved ones, we would enjoy life more. We won't need to continue suffering in unnatural striving and stress. Doing nothing when you don't know what to do won't be just another idea to entertain, a practice to master but will be the guide to show the way to an embodiment of something more meaningful.
Have fun doing nothing!!!
