Changing Unwanted Things Without Force

I don't know about you, but the end of the school year is anything but peaceful. The fruit of your efforts all year as a student, parent or teacher is finally revealed. As a teacher, students are seen for the last time and for the first time, the immense amount of end-of-year paperwork is really seen.

Just for fun, it seems that no matter what you do for a living, when that living gets super stressful, the universe is going to throw just one thing at you to make it seem unbearable. Your car will break down, important paperwork will become lost, someone will yell at you for something you didn't do, etc.

My God (and yours too if you believe in Him or Her), it's almost as if when we're in this non-peaceful state we attract more non-peace into our lives. The Law of Attraction at work......

And such it is with yours truly. Even with outstanding results from the big state FCAT test, I'm seeing less of what I like and more of what I don't.

When I woke up this morning from another night of "let's see how long I can survive on less than 100 minutes of sleep" and saw this meditation (from DailyOM), I felt like it was talking directly to me.

And because I value you, I wanted to share in case you need it too. Be sure to reread the part I highlighted a few times. Peace, Love and Joy


Looking Deeply
The Good In All

Sometimes we find it difficult to see the good in people, places, or situations that aren't to our liking. We focus on the things we don't like in our lives as a way of fueling our efforts to create change. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, and it is one way we make progress. However, if we get too caught up in this way of looking at the world, we lose touch with our ability to sit back and simply say yes to everything on our plates, which is the true starting point for all successful activity. Sometimes what we really need is to encourage ourselves to look deeply into all things in our lives to see the inherent goodness at the heart of everything.

At the core of this inquiry is the practice of unconditional acceptance, which can be scary because we feel as if we are being asked not to change the things we don't like. But when we think this way, we are still operating on the surface of our lives. In order to feel the beauty and warmth of full acceptance, we have to be willing to sink deeper into the stratum underlying the external manifestation of our lives. This deeper place of being is the origin of all lasting change, yet its paradox is that when we are in it, we often don't feel the need to change anything. From this place, we experience the pure beauty of the process of being alive, and we see that all things change in their own time. We don�t need to force anything. If there are things that we do need to change, from this place of serenity we create the shift easily, our hands guided by an energy that resides at the very center of our hearts.

In our active, goal-oriented culture, we learn to distrust stillness and to engage in busywork on the surface of life. This tendency can blind us to the good that lies at the heart of all things. But all we have to do to see again is stop for a moment, let go of our preconceptions and our agendas, and settle into the very center of our hearts, remembering that it is only from here that we can truly see.