Is the thing you want the thing you need?
Sometimes it is.
I need my husband.
And I want him.
Win-win.
I also want to have my retirement fully funded.
But that’s not what I need.
I need the stress and the grind of saving the money, investing the money and riding the roller coaster ride of investing in the stock market.
I need the struggle.
I need to make mistakes and then make course corrections.
The struggle is what makes me proud of the way I have created my own destiny.
If I inherited the money… if I won the lottery… the journey is not the same.
I need the struggle that creates the container for my personal growth.
With the struggle I learn.
I’m investing in my character.
Is the thing you want the thing you need?
You know what the opposite of sitting with your feelings looks like…
Poor sleep. A thousand different ideas flying here, there and everywhere. Some with substance. Most without.
Busyness as a coping mechanism.
Everything and anything to avoid sitting with your feelings.
Sitting with your feelings is the opposite.
It looks like sitting.
But you are feeling all the feelings.
Without judgment.
Only curiosity and compassion.
You feel the sensations in your body.
And they pass.
It’s a painful and glorious part of the human experience.
Try it the next time you feel overwhelmed or tumultuous or frightened.
Just sitting and feeling.
And releasing.
And then try it the next time you feel exuberant or joyful or happy.
Take the opportunity to sit and feel the good feelings.
Explore the contrast.
Try it right now.
It’s delicious!
There are a lot of results we want in life.
We want a certain candidate to win the election.
We want to reach specific goals in our career.
We want to live in a town, or kind of house, or in my case with a particular hunky blond guy.
We can visualize the results.
We can taste the results.
And we ideally want the path to go from where we are now, directly to that goal.
Here’s where the frustration comes in.
We are looking for a linear path in a floaty world.
We want Google Maps instructions when all the while we are feathers in the wind.
Most of the time we don’t even have the correct target.
We think the result is an outcome, when what we are really longing for is a feeling.
We want our candidate to win so we feel safe.
We want a career goal, so we feel proud. Or financially safe.
We want to live with that hunky blond guy so we feel loved and cherished. And emotionally safe.
Not having a clear step towards what you want can feel unsafe.
But what would it look like if safety is you floating around on life’s breeze?
How can we embrace the floaty world?
How would life be different if you changed your expectations from living in a linear world to a world of flow?