The Joy of Simply Being

How were your holidays?  Filled with joy and laughter? Filled with tiredness, frustration, judgement, heartache and sadness? Or maybe a mix of both? And what is happening in your mind around the New Year? Do you feel that you must whip yourself into shape by setting goals?

On this journey of life, it takes a while to begin to see that with all your wanting (maybe a slimmer body, a kinder parent, a different mate and on and on and on, what you really long for is to simply be! Even though it is one of the most profoundly healing things a human being can do, most of us don’t know how to be.

In the Washington Post there was an article on July 3, 2014, reporting on a series of 11 studies done by psychologist Timothy Wilson and his colleagues at U.VA. and Harvard University. They put people in a room with no distractions for 15 minutes – no window, no music, no phone, no iPad – and there was a buzzer that they could shock themselves with if it became too much just to be. Six of the 24 women shocked themselves, and 12 of the 18 men did so.

We have so deeply forgotten how to simply be that we have to distract ourselves by shocking ourselves! Our minds are usually busy planning what is going to happen, rehashing what did happen and struggling with everything else in between. We love to acquire and do, fix and achieve, attain and figure out. There is nothing wrong with these except when they cut us off from the astounding healing of simply being.

Take a moment, or maybe even a few minutes, to put down this blog, allow a couple of long, slow out breaths and simply be. All the millions of moments of your life have brought you to this moment, the only moment that matters in your whole life. Be as fully present for it as you can.

Maybe you didn’t even try this. Or you tried and your mind took over, talking about how bored it is, or that it doesn’t know how to do this, or it isn’t doing it right, or maybe it just drifted off into a stream of thought.

Your thoughts put a veil between you and the living moment of your life. When you relearn how to simply be, you begin to discover moments where your mind, your body and your heart are all in the same place at the same time. The more you open to what is present, within and around you in this moment, the more connected you become, and the more you live from the wellspring within you that holds all the clarity, peace, wisdom, and joy that you long for.

You then learn how to use your doing mind when you need it, allowing it to fade into the background again as you discover the truth and the beauty of life as it is, right here and right now.

Are you willing to cultivate, at least a few minutes every day, where you open into simply being? Are you willing to give yourself the gift of actually experiencing life as it is in this moment? Your mind may be resisting as you hear this invitation for it is addicted to doing. But be willing to work with it like you would with a two-year-old child, inviting it into the deliciousness of simply being rather than demanding it. I love to say to my mind when it is resisting slowing down, “Remember, this is where the good stuff is!” Because I have created a healthy relationship with my mind, most of the time it says, “Yes.  I remember. I am willing to just be.”

Know just a few minutes every day of simply being will change your life!