The Problem With Allowing Life to Happen
This morning, I woke up tired and cranky. Coffee didn't help.So, naturally, I went to yoga.Yoga is my coffee-doesn't-fix-it magic pill. If I'm feeling down, distracted or otherwise un-whole and centered, I take care of it by Om-ing out with some super-sweaty Vinyasa.The yoga instructor that taught my class this morning is one of my favorites at my new gym. She's patient, bright and encouraging when you need it most (in the middle of those crazy poses you're sure are going to end up in you needing stitches on the bridge of your nose).The parts of her class I really enjoy are her talks about relating life back to your mat. They always serve to ground me in the present, and help me reflect on my life in gratitude while letting go of all the minutia that really doesn't matter.Today, however, I found myself disagreeing with her lesson. It was a calm, centered, internal understanding in the moment that I didn't feel was necessary to share in front of the class, but I do feel the need to share it with you here."This whole week, I've been reflecting on what brought me to where I am in my life," she began at the end of class. "What scenarios, relationships, and 'mistakes' led me to be here with you right now."What I've realized is that it wasn't from my trying and pushing. It was from my ability to allow and let go of control."Here's where my skeptical ears perked up."Everything I have now didn't come from trying; all my blessings came out of coincidence and events that I couldn't have created from striving."Ehhhhhhhhhhh, fought my brain. We'll get to me, but here's the rest...She went on to describe how she got her job at the gym, how she became a yoga teacher before that, and how she had changed her life completely before that. She had been trying and trying and trying at work and in her marriage, but felt unfulfilled the whole time.When she stopped trying, she released what didn't fulfill her (her job and her relationship), and embraced what scared and excited her: becoming a yoga teacher. Since then, she's fallen into everything good that's come her way (her job, her life as it is now, her happiness)....or that's what she said. Here's what I think...The problem with allowing life to happen without doing anything about it is that it won't happen for most of us. Not the way we want it to, anyway.Yoga Teacher strived for so many years, learning what she wanted and what she definitely did not want in her life. Those years weren't just wasted time; they were spent creating this life right now!
It's not that she stopped trying and it just happened; it's that she learned how to direct, exert effort and then let go.
Yoga teacher was arguing against trying, against goal-setting and action-taking. I, however, know from personal experience that living without intention is a risky game to play.When I tried to live by the law of attraction (before I knew that taking action was necessary), I sat around waiting for years. Waiting for the life of my dreams to be delivered to me on a silver platter. I made my vision boards! I told the universe every day what I wanted! I even meditated on it!But I never took action on my own. I just thought about it a lot, and I expected it to happen for me.And it didn't. Because my energy wasn't right, and I wasn't doing anything.Unfortunately, not all of us can get lucky at every turn of our lives like Yoga Teacher did when she landed these awesome jobs and found the career of her dreams. I don't think it's fair to tell other people to let go of goals and let their ideal lives happen to them. It just doesn't unfold like that for most of us.And here's why I felt the need to tell you all about my yoga lesson today. This isn't something unique to this one yoga class; this is a pervasive notion amongst many of us youngens. The yogi-esque, new-new-age mindset of allowing and law-of-attraction promotes the seeking of good energy and allowing–which is great!–but often also keeps many of us in the mindset that thinking about it is enough. As long as we create the energy and light around what we want, it will come...The problem with that perspective is that the lives that we create without any effort or direction, might not be the lives we want to live at all.As far as we know, we've only got one chance at this life thing; letting it happen without exerting any effort toward what we want seems like a waste of potential to me.And I don't just mean "potential" in the way that your school counselor says it; I mean potential of life-fulfillment, adventure and joy.Here's the very simple formula that works more often than not:
Positive Energy + Focused Effort = The Life You Want
Your life is your creation. Though you don't have control over all of it (scenarios that happen to you, your upbringing, etc), you are the traffic cop here. You tell your energy and effort where to go and when to stop.There's a balance to be found between pushing and fighting all the time, and it's a delicate one. Here's how to get it down to a science:
Positive Energy
There are two major elements to creating positive energy around your goals. Here, I break them down into simple, actionable ways to make them possible in your own life. Get ready to start beaming!
Centered-ness
It's important to find stillness and silence within your hectic everyday life. Whether that means meditating for just 10 minutes in the morning, zoning out with a book at night, or going for a run to reflect on your day and take time for you, it's important to make space for it in your life (no matter how busy you are)."Stillness and silence" isn't to be taken literally; this is found in different ways depending on your personality and whatever best mellows you out. When you're mellowed out, the little things that distract you from what you want out of life become, well, little again. When you're stressed out, these little things can build up so high that they cause you to completely de-rail.Stress gives the little things the power to become bigger. By centering yourself through silence and stillness, you allow yourself to regain that power, and direct it into what really matters.Being centered in your actions will also keep you from pushing too far. When you are centered, you are in tune with your stress levels and with your body. You know when you can challenge yourself, and you know when it's time to back off so that all the work you're putting in has the chance to manifest into results.Find centered-ness for yourself: play with any of the options above, or create your own way to find that centered-ness within yourself. The only requirements are that you feel grounded, present and mindful after you do it. That's when you know you've found your meditation.
Positivity + Faith
We talk a bunch about energy in this day and age, but what exactly does it all mean? It's kinda different for everyone, (which doesn't make this any less confusing, I know) but when I talk about it, I mean the thoughts that surround the goal, the way you feel when you take action toward it, and the beliefs that you have about its achievement.Positivity is crucial to achieving goals. If you are negative about what you want to achieve, you will likely sabotage yourself. Disbelief that goal achievement is possible can justify away actions that keep you from your goals, because, what's the point of trying if it isn't possible? Similarly, negativity surrounding your goals (such as repetitive thoughts like, "this sucks," "I'm not good at this," or any other kind of dwelling on the difficulty of life-change) can talk you out of the actions you must take to achieve change in your life.The way you think has a great deal to do with what you physically manifest; it can make goal achievement a hell of a lot easier, or it can make it near-impossible.To get positive, you have to start by becoming aware of negativity as it strikes. Start trying to catch yourself as negative thoughts surface. When do you complain, and do you do so without intention to take action to make it better? When do you find yourself hemming and hawing about having to work out, eat healthy or writing in your gratitude journal even though you know these are necessary steps to open up the life you want?This worthless negativity is energy spent on obstacles. Instead, re-focus all the work you're putting into dreading, complaining, and other negativity into concentrating on why you're doing all this in the first place.
Eating healthy allows your body to function more optimally as a lean, strong being capable of breaking personal records every day.
Taking the time to be grateful is an essential step on your way to beating depression an anxiety. You write in your gratitude journal to devote yourself to that end, because you know your time is worth more than halfway living.
Pushing through tough workouts increases your aerobic endurance, strengthens your muscle and bone, and makes you an effing badass. Need I convince you further?
With awareness, you can begin to redirect your thoughts and energy to more constructive ones instead. What mantras can you start repeating to yourself when this negativity comes up? I always choose something that roots me in my deep why. For instance, I've recently adopted two new ones (which I will go into more detail on very soon). One of which is, "make yourself proud."It speaks to my motivation to become more than what people expect of me, and more than what my depressive mind says I deserve. I like to prove to myself and to others that I'm more than meets the eye. That makes me proud, and it reminds me of why I'm doing the hard work in the first place. It almost always shuts the complain-y resistance up, and replaces it with the determination that has won me everything I have now.No luck here. Just drive and focus.
Focused Effort
Here's the element that gives intention the power of creation: focused effort. You have so much strength and might within you; without this part of the equation, your dreams might be all for naught.Becoming deliberate about the actions you take unveils the possibility of your goals. It allows you to see other avenues toward their achievement, and it fuels motivation as you realize your ability to create life as you envision it.Depressives in particular need this element in order to climb out of the vacuum of darkness. Without it, our ability to think positively will wane. We need something substantial such as action to give our positive thoughts the strength to grow and suction onto our brains! I make it sound like some kind of mind-suck alien, but hear me out:Without focused effort, hope remains discarnate and intangible. Adding action with intention gives you the reigns; it gives you the ability to drive your life in the direction of your choosing.Simply thinking it in the right direction is as realistic a tactic as hoping a guy you like asks you out without ever looking at him. You must take focused action: look at him, give him the eyes, smile, say hi, talk to him! You can't just expect and hope that it will come to fruition. You have to go after it. The girls who land those guys are the ones who do.
...and THEN you allow it to happen
When you are striving toward physical changes in your body, your rest days are just as important as your work days (if not more so, especially for those of us who use fitness as an outlet for stress). This same principle applies to every other goal in your life.After positive energy and focused effort are in place, yes, you have to allow for your hard work and intention to make things happen. There reaches a point where you need to sit back and rest so that changes can come to you.There comes a point at which forcing, trying and pushing won't get you any further. In fact, after this point, they might regress you.Look, guys. I use words like "universe," "energy," and "mantra" like I'm describing the weather. It makes me sound like the new age hippie that I am. But here's the thing, whether you want to call it universe, God or "whatever's out there," there's something bigger at play here, and it wants to help you if you allow it to... and it's like the tooth fairy: it only works when you're not staring straight at it.I think this is what Yoga Teacher was getting at: that we live in a world in which busy is glorified. We can never be doing enough according to our peers and the people who will hire us in the future.What we're working so hard for, however, may be waiting for us in our weekends. On our rest days. In our silence.But this doesn't mean that we stop striving altogether, otherwise our weekends won't be so rewarding. We won't treasure that time to rest if we don't work for it first.But Yoga Teacher is right; most of us work too much, too hard and without enough rest, which is why many of us feel unfulfilled.As much as I talk about goals, it is essential not to lose sight of joy that can be found in the moment. There's so much joy to be found in relaxation, rest and allowance. Work up a sweat, then sit back and enjoy your hard-earned bounty.Let the universe step in and help you sometimes. Just know that it probably won't bother if it doesn't feel the weight of your intention and drive.Stay strong,Amy