We all have asked for guidance on occasion. We have asked for help. Sometimes we have begged. We have pleaded or demanded. I recently realized when you start to believe that everything is guidance in some form or another life gets a whole lot easier (not to be confused with easy, my friends). When you stop questioning whether this is a sign or this is a stepping stone and assume that it is, things speed up.

If you get stuck in traffic. Then you are late to work. Then your boss yells at you, this is a sign. If you really look at what’s been happening, you may notice that you’ve been staying up too late, not getting enough sleep, so you hit snooze 3x too many. Then you left late, you hit extra traffic etc. This is about taking a step back to evaluate a situation.

If things seem to be piling up and you are having a bad string of luck, ask yourself: What have I been thinking lately? How have I been using my mind? This is where things get a little tricky. This can send the most serious and intense of us (I mean me) into guilt and shame. I did this. It’s all my fault. When in fact it’s your life saying, “Hey friend, we need a little course correction here.”

Nobody intentionally gets themselves in a jam. It’s never quite that simple. But what is rather simple is that our mind is incredibly powerful and when we learn to harness it for our own good, we can do amazing things.

For years, I used to say things like, “I can’t help it” when it came to worry or how I was doing something. But the truth is, I just didn’t know, yet, that I could help it. It was a choice. I had just been acting in that way for so long I didn’t know I was choosing it. But with consistency and awareness, you can find that space to ask, “Umm there is a better way, right?”

You have all probably heard some variation of the quotes “Worry is a prayer for chaos,” or “If you are going to pray, don’t worry. And if you are going to worry, don’t pray.” Basically decide what you are going to have faith in. That sounds easy when you are giving someone else advice. Way less easy when you are the receiver. “What we focus on flourishes. What we resist, persists.” All these phrases are sayings because they are TRUTH. They can be irritating when you are in a hole because you want to yell “How can I do anything but resist this, I am in a hole???!!! And more importantly, I want out. Now!

Where our thoughts go our energy does, in fact, flow. If we are so focused on what’s wrong, we cannot, quite literally, see what’s right. And when we see what’s right, our stress level goes down, our body chemistry changes and we can allow a different state to begin to enter our body almost immediately. And with that comes the ever-helpful friend, clarity.

I have spent many months thinking I needed to make something happen. But all the stress, tension and intensity I put into trying to make something happen — pushed me in the same direction I was already going. You follow? If I want to be calmer, more at ease it’s rather counterintuitive to do that with a high level of intensity and single-pointed focus and yet I was so strung out I couldn’t SEE that is exactly what I was doing. I was trying to use force and will, when allowing and opening was the answer.

Silly example: I won’t speak for you but I have, more than once, been late, desperately searching for my phone while talking to someone only to realize several minutes later I was talking on my phone. I already had it with me. The stress, the anxiety of running late made it impossible for me to see, even feel or be mindful enough to drop down into my body and realize I was holding it all along.

This is precisely what stress does to us and if we are in mortal danger we want that level of run fast, think later. But many of us operate like this when we are waiting in line at the post office, running through our minds all the things we need to do and ramping up our stress even higher. When we could use that time for something good. Send a nice text to a friend, meet someone to chat with in line. List things you are grateful for in your mind. Seems silly but you are going to be in that line regardless. It can be heaven or hell. You decide.

I have, somewhat slowly, come to realize that much of life doesn’t need to be about force, except when opening a jar. It’s about allowing and we humans kinda suck at that. We think we are doers by nature but we are called Human Beings. It’s our way of being in this life that determines so much.

How do you show up to life? How are you being?

Are you a big stress ball always thinking that if you imagine every bad thing that could happen and prepare for it you’ll be safe?

Are you the person who lounges on the couch, super chill and yet complains you haven’t found the dream job?

These, of course, are extremes but the truth is that allowing isn’t overworking and it’s not under-working. It’s working within our realm and leaving the rest of the work up to God, the Universe, The Big Guy, The Goddess, Mother Nature, whatever your door to a higher power is.

If we can work ourselves into a panic attack with merely our thoughts and repeating habits. What could we do if we change the quality of those thoughts and habits? WHAT COULD YOU DO?

Sunshine & Sarcasm,
Lowi & G