Today I think I wanted to talk about the fact that it was a hard week for me. I found myself being disappointed a lot. I had put a whole bunch of effort out there for selling my work and I didn't see immediate returns in the way that I was hoping or expecting. And it just seemed like it was just “one of those weeks”.
I found myself struggling and I have this habit sometimes, where I say “I'm not feeling my Aloha Spirit”. I'm not feeling present, not feeling the joy. I want THAT. That feels nicer. How can I get back to that feeling?” And I begin to scramble. And guess what? That only makes it worse.
When I do all of the “how can I not feel what I am feeling”, I find myself not only disappointed or anxious or worried, or, emotionally triggered, now I have a new added dimension of “Spiritual Tyranny”.
Eventually, I thought about A Course in Miracles. A Course in Miracles, if you're not familiar with it, it's a self-study course. 365 meditations. Technically there are no teachers of it you're guided by your own higher self or they, as they call it in the course of miracles, the Holy Spirit.
Now, to be honest, I have some issues with the Course in Miracles nowadays. I'm not completely connected with a lot of the way that things are framed in terms of Judeo-Christian language. However, like so many of the powerful spiritual practices or, systems, there is always some pretty profound truths that one can find kind in all of these different approaches to spirituality.
One thing that came up for me a lot this week, is a meditation from a Course of Miracles, which says, “Let all Things be Exactly as They Are”.
So I went back to that this week and I went a little deeper on it. I unpacked it. And the thing that's important to understand about that meditation, Let all Things be Exactly as They Are, is that you don't make the mistake that I made when I first read it many years ago, which was, “oh, I'm supposed to just let all the circumstances that I'm not happy with “be exactly as they are””. I thought that the Course was telling me, “suck it up, just be happy”.
That is not what a Course in Miracles is saying. What they're saying (to my understanding) is let all things right NOW be exactly as they are. Another way you could look at it is like “radical acceptance”. It is not “let all my circumstances or story or drama, stay just the way they are because I am spiritual.” It is not “your house is in foreclosure but “Let all things be exactly as they are”. No, that's not the idea.
The idea is, if your house is in foreclosure, stop and look within to your senses, is your heart beating faster? Are you noticing that you're having shortness of breath?
What about your thoughts? Are you noticing that you keep seeing pictures in your mind of you living in your car?
That is what you want to find the strength to let be as it is, this now moment. Let your actual experience be as it is. Let all Things be Exactly as They Are.. now.
Now you are focusing on this moment. Let me let things be exactly as they are. You know why? Because they ARE what they are. And the habit of trying to not feel what you're feeling takes up so much more energy than the actual depression or anxiety or worry that you happen to be going through.
Adding the layer of judging yourself, judging your experience, only sets you up for an even greater quagmire.
It's almost like this crazy evil game.
So I allowed myself to let things be exactly as they were. And I found that sometimes I noticed a feeling of depression or I was worried, or I was noticing frustration.
But the irony is that when I fully allowed myself, using this radical self-acceptance, to let things be, like “oh, now is the scene in my movie where I'm upset”. ironically, I moved through it so much faster.
There is a crazy dichotomy about what I'm talking about today. Yes, you want to be back into your strength. Yes. You want to feel the joy of living. You want to be “happy”, or however you want to describe it, but let things be as they are right now, because there's nothing wrong with the place that you are at. You are evolving.
So that's what I wanted to share with you today. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to me. And I encourage you to experiment yourself with this idea of radical acceptance, letting things be as they are.