​(Have you ever noticed you can follow the bold print in these writings to get the gist of it for a quick read and to find where you may want to go in more deeply? Yup.)

I meant to get this email out earlier but I got busy googling Can you freeze red lentil soup? and then best lesbian dating apps for Kansas City, then I looked again to make sure I hadn’t missed any of the free NYT daily puzzles.

Just kidding. I HAVE, however, been thinking about how distractions have innocent motives*. Your little or grand time-wasting side trips carry messages & invitations for your greater well-being—if only they can elbow past your self-accusations of lazy distractible unfocused procrastinating or whatever you choose to call it to make yourself feel bad.

(*Thank you to brilliant coach Jude Spacks for giving me this phrase and concept of the innocent motive.)

Ever notice that feeling bad about your behavior (thus yourself) is possibly the LEAST likely way to move away from what you’re not loving? It’s certainly not the easiest, quickest, or kindest way out!

So, wanna drop the judgments with me for a moment and explore what wants to come through that could actually feel good to you? That could in fact usher you right into the next bigger-better version of yourself?

DISCLAIMER: Please don’t misread me and think I’m saying you should never play games or run curious online searches or binge-watch a good show. I’m not saying that at all. I’m addressing the surplus of that—and how you know it’s too much is not related to a concept or number of minutes. Just this: It feels like too much TO YOU. It feels BAD.

See what hits you in this list of possible invitations seeking to come in when you reach for the stuff that zaps your time and messes with your ideas of productivity. Which messages might be for you? Or what else do they bring in as fresh ideas for what you’re really after?

Your (loving, entirely UNscolding) guidance system may be saying:

• Are you sure you’ve been playing enough, honey? Schedule in some fun time more consciously. Stuff that’s REALLY fun, please. Run & play with dogs & children. Ambush a cat who will ambush you back. Dance, laugh, take a field trip somewhere new.
  
  
• Hey, you’re really seeking to alleviate some discomfort here. Move away from your [desk, cubby, work station] more often. Take more small breaks. GO OUTSIDE, even to step out and breathe a bit with your senses activated. Move the body and get energy flowing all through you. Give your eyes the rest and treat of looking up into trees, skies, light.
  
  
• The thing you’re avoiding you actually want to do. There are some [fears, worries, not-sure-how’s] in the way. Come along. Let’s step into the shallow end at your point of least resistance and take one simple step with ease. See how that goes. Watch for the possibility of momentum building.
  
  
• You’re not CLEARLY making certain choices in your life to create & experience more of what’s actually important to you—what you truly want. Where are you abdicating to what others want from or expect of you? Choose what you actually want to be/do/have in order to fully be you (then maybe you won’t choose this piddly-distraction stuff you don’t actually want to give hours to).

It could be so many things! More below for you to see what’s yours or jogs your thinking toward the more precise issue/s for you.​

  

• There’s something you’re [sad, mad, confused, disturbed] about and you’d actually feel better sitting with that a minute. What if you just sat and breathed it without trying to figure it out? Just feel it in the body and give it a kind, compassionate gaze. Pause to breathe in and around it. Don’t go to the head, leave solutioning alone, and instead offer what feels bad a few conscious moments to see what may arise.
  
  
• ACTUALLY, dear one, you’re too obsessed with productivity, and your inner rebel wants to push against that. Consider your natural fluctuations of energy. What if you went with the flow more & consciously chose the nonproductive sometimes? Let it be okay to have ebb & flow. Your experiment with this could show you increased productivity overall! (I dare you to run the experiment!)
  
  
• The more you don’t let yourself be as big as you could be, my love, the more you reach for things that diminish you, that trivialize the fullness of all that you are, and that fill your time with the superfluous & insubstantial.
  
  
• Sweetheart, you’re working too hard, pure & simple. Work easier. Spend more time relaxing & aligning, even in small spurts and transitional moments, so that the quality of your work (your offering to the world!) is imbued with ease, flow, a satisfied sense of well-being.
  
  
• Do less, and opt in fully to what you do choose to do. Don’t allow yourself to be divided.

Hey, I recently did a group EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique, or tapping) session that felt like an inspired journey of connecting to and honoring the guidance system that’s unique to each of us. Check it out if drawn! Your guidance system can support you to get out of anything you don’t actually feel good about doing RIGHT NOW and point you to what would truly meet your needs, fulfill your desires, and move you along toward your visions and intentions!

Love & blessings, Jaya

​Warning. This is an invitation to self-love. I promise not to get weird about it. I’ll make it actionable and invite you to keep it up. Now & now & now.

Sometimes someone I’m working with tells me they don’t know how to get through some specific moment and actually apply the things we talk about.

I then typically give them a few simple reminders. I invite them to simplify things. Just remembering a few simple things, you can learn to walk yourself through KINDLY. As in, ACTUALLY, be your own best ally and make yourself feel better instead of worse.

That’s a great start right there. To simply value feeling good so much that you’re committed to catching yourself feeling bad, interrupting it, and quickly pivoting to walk yourself toward feeling better. That’s already HUGE.

I love to remind folks to BRING IT TO NOW. The now part is crucial.

Don’t try to figure out how to fix everything or fix something in some done-with-it-once-and-for-all forever sort of way. That dip into everything and forevermore is overwhelming and feels bad. (It also puts you in the Universe’s business, which you’re not qualified to manage.)

Don’t do a quick, warped scan backward over the past. You might mistakenly grab the lens that makes it look like you’ve never gotten it right and it’s not getting any better. (And, yup, you’ll be in the Universe’s business again.)

Just RIGHT NOW. What would feel kinder, truer, better now? Do that.

And keep doing that. Now and now and now and now. Do not ALLOW yourself to sink down into the worst of what you’re able to believe about yourself. If you stop walking yourself kindly toward what feels better, that probably means you’re using a bunch of NOW moments to accept being mean to yourself. And just to accept feeling bad (which is not that nice).

I’d like you to HABITUATE to walking yourself through as if you were aware of your younger selves that need and deserve to be gently guided along. That, my friend, is self-love in action.

At some point in my growth journey, when I was having some obvious successes and actually feeling better a lot of the time, and I was ALSO feeling bad or impatient about what I wanted to manage better or have success with faster, I started thinking in terms of NOW much more.

Right now, am how am I walking myself through? Right now, how am I talking to myself about what's happening? Right now, am I making myself feel worse or better?

3 directions to focus how you walk yourself through
Here’s a great clue about what to do for yourself, your entire self, in any NOW moment you realize things aren’t feeling good. Know and remind yourself that you’re a 3-centered being. That is, you have

1. A body
2. A heart
3. A head

They all three need tending kindly. And they all three have wisdom and guidance for you (that comes in NOW, in the actual moment you need it). And if you’re stuck in one center, either tend it, or GET OUT. Reach for one or both of the others.

Body tending
Ask yourself, Right now, am I even in my body? Am I taking in that my body is tense, contracted, agitated, overrun with adrenaline [whatever it may be]? Am I moving nervously or frenetically, or am I going frozen or stagnant and need to rev things up? Your body wants you to tend that, soothe it, calm your nervous system. There’s also simple stuff like HYDRATE. EAT GOOD FOOD.

Back to body basics: ground; connect to the felt sense of the breath (and stay with that a while, even as you go about your business); connect to the five senses (or however many you’ve got).

Do something that feels good physically: Move, dance, exercise, stretch, do yoga or qigong, walk. Take a bath, take a nap, take yourself to a natural setting where your senses will be filled with life-giving, soul-soothing stuff.

Take an action: The realm of the body is also the realm of action. Is there one thing I could do right now that would feel good to do? That would make me feel good about tending any corner of my world? That would move something forward and potentially start some momentum toward what I actually want to be, do, have? Find your point of least resistance and do one thing.

Heart tending
Right now, as I notice I feel bad emotionally (frustrated, angry, sad, discouraged, scared, disappointed), am I making room for it and soothing it, or am I judging it or evaluating how I’m doing or telling myself what I should be feeling itself? Heart tending isn’t about thoughts, so stop analyzing or evaluating or explaining your emotions. Maybe stop talking (to yourself or others) about them. FEEL THEM.

If you must bring the head in, then notice whether you keep going from one thought to the next to keep matching and probably revving up what feels bad. And could you instead tell yourself kind things that are likely to make you feel better?

The heart wants you to ground yourself (see body tending above), feel the feeling in the body, breathe it (make room for it with the breath), allow it. Just let it be, let it have its life, and give it 2 things:

1. Awareness
2. Breath

How simple is that? That’s it folks. Your heart space, when in pain or discomfort of any kind, wants those two things. Review them: awareness & breath, awareness & breath, awareness & breath.

Head tending
Right now, am I believing and carrying on with thoughts that feel bad or interrupting them? As you notice that thoughts are making you feel bad, consider some version of this: maybe they don’t match what your Inner Being knows to be true; or they don’t match the way Source gazes upon you; or they represent an assessment that isn’t useful and isn’t coming from the part of you that’s seeking to believe in yourself and step consciously toward your full potential, or the best you’ve got right now, or the truth of who you are.

You can simply reach for better-feeling thoughts. Just tell yourself or write down one thing after another that makes you feel better instead of worse. Go general at first (I don’t have to figure this out right now, I’m okay and my needs are met, I’ve gotten through worse before and other human beings have too). And go from there.

You can do a focus wheel. (I just did one this morning when I noticed I felt bad about something and wanted to clear that up before I moved anything else forward!)

You can do some inquiry (including a short-cut version of processing unhelpful thoughts).

You can check out whose business you’re in and then look for what your actual business is here (where you have agency and what’s yours to manage). (Hint, it’s always your business to soothe yourself and to shift your state if you don’t like the state you’re in—or, to keep it simple, if you don’t like how you feel.)

Bring it to now, and walk yourself (all the parts of you, body, heart, and head) toward what feels better right now.

My intention for myself and my ongoing practice are to keep going deeper with this, keep getting more subtle. I invite you to it. You are worth your own kind, gentle, patient walking-yourself-through. You are worth feeling good much more of the time. You are worth interrupting quickly what doesn’t feel good and responding kindly to what feels bad. Take care of yourself, body, heart, and head. Walk yourself through, lovingly. Then you can truly feel good much more of the time.

Love & blessings, Jaya

​I think of mouse view as what you see and how it feels when you’re down in the nitty-gritty details, and eagle view as what you see and how that feels when you rise up to get the bigger picture or the greater perspective.

There’s more space up there, and you get more spacious in your assessments.

There’s more room for everything, and more points of entry for new characters and resources to come in.

There’s room for surprise.

Let me relate this to something I’ve talked about plenty and some of you know outside of my work—because you, too, listen to Abraham-Hicks to be inspired and to get reminders about how to live as a happy creator of your reality. Remember GO GENERAL? (Skip down to below the eagle pic if you don’t want the review.)

The idea is that stress comes in when we get into the details—how, when, who? Where will the money come from? What about the parts I don’t know how to do? Is there enough time for this? In other words, stress happens in MOUSE VIEW. Look up the totem or symbolic meaning of mouse and you’ll see the word fear all over the place! (Oh, little trembly mouse.)

The teaching, then, is to GO GENERAL when you find yourself in stress. In other words, TAKE EAGLE VIEW. Remind yourself in general terms what you’re doing, what you’re after, what’s likely to work out over time, how you’re doing okay, how it’s all unfolding just fine. Give yourself general, nonspecific reminders of what you can believe that makes you feel better, soothed, and eventually empowered to go back in. (Ah, powerful eagle, soaring above it all.)

And go back in you will! No one’s inviting you to ignore details. I’m very much inviting you to get out of that realm when you’re stressed (at the first whiff of stress!), and go general to get realigned, to gather up courage and hope, to trust life and whatever process you’re in. THEN, go back to the details. Until you get stressed again (and maybe try to catch that first whiff and RESPOND) …
Some things eagle view can do for you:

Shift your perspective of time from all the cutural not-enough message to way more spaciousness to play in.

Remind your body that contraction feels bad and opening, relaxing, breathing good air feels GOOD.

Remind you of the greater journey you’re on and have been on. Bring in that comparative of how you were doing before or how you used to handle this, and WOW-LOOK-HOW-MUCH-BETTER-YOU’RE-DOING-NOW. Just look how far you’ve come.

Remind you of a larger vision that the current task is in service of—and what you CARE ABOUT, perhaps are passionate about, all of which is way larger than any frustrations related to this moment or this task. There’s a reason you’re doing this thing. It’s NOT to plow through it or check it off a list. This task is actually a worthwhile stepping stone toward somewhere you really want to go, something you really want to create.

Call you back to your place in this picture, and even the fact that ultimately, yes you are replaceable. Maybe there’s stuff you can let go, delegate, stop micromanaging or controlling at all, leave alone entirely. Resign from a few jobs you’ve taken on. Let go of micromanaging even yourself according to some pre-chosen standard that doesn’t fit this now-moment. And maybe you can drop back into your right place, your right role, and let it all be easier and more manageable. (LET it be easier & more manageable.)

Bring in a sense of peace and well-being that always exists beyond any tiny or overly precise realm of focus. Beyond what they’re presenting in the news, beyond the thing that’s not working right now, beyond how others in your field are currently showing up, beyond what you have or haven’t figured out up to now, etc, etc.

Remind you that YOU DON’T NEED TO FIGURE IT OUT RIGHT NOW. Or probably ever. Pan out, look away. At the risk of mixing metaphors: Something wants to come in through the back door when you’re looking out the front.

Get you back to LOVE when you’re all focused on what bothers you about someone, what they’re doing wrong, how you’re not getting what you want from them. Beyond this moment’s frustration or fear or resurgence of distress over all you can’t control—there’s nothing but love.

Come back to There’s no problem. It really is all okay. Take satellite view. Take galactic view. It’s really all okay.

Love & blessings, Jaya

p.s. Check out the simple process of zoom in, zoom out from Abraham-Hicks to find more language for the same idea of stretching your way of looking at things for maximum alignment & well-being. They started talking in these terms in late 2024/early 2025.

​You can set up your life (or this hour, this day, this week, this era) so that it’s more and more and more frustrating.

Or you can set it up so that it’s more and more and more easy and flowy and fine.

Basically, what follows is a simple story to illustrate.

I just had a typical bout of grand frustration while doing taxes. (Not tax time you say? Um, some of us file for an extension when you’re getting yours done on time, so our due date is coming right up.) (Are you starting to get my relationship with taxes?)

So it all started with some thorny stuff. I got frustrated fast, because I came in with the idea that I really wasn’t into this. (Ah, the power of opting in 100 percent.) I was also soothing the frustration as I went, not just letting it rip. I was doing fine. But I wasn’t all joy and sunshine. Let’s say that soft, expansive belly breaths maybe weren’t predominant. Or maybe not in the vicinity.

And then, things got thornier. And I got more frustrated trying to get help from customer service or even trying to get to a human being. Even the chat was intercepted by a mean-girl kind of robot. And I permitted myself a bit of railing to my mother, whose house I’m living in for the purpose of being helpful and uplifting, so … mission not accomplished.

And then a bunch of data got purged from Quickbooks. It all seemed very random, like someone flushed a toilet in a parallel Universe and my data went down the invisible pipes.

I have standards and quite refuse to literally slam my forehead repeatedly into the wall, so I did not do that. I did get up and move away from the task.

If you’re getting anxious, let me tell you this would all end well. I would later be involved in an interesting hours-long process getting data transferred back in. I would learn some stuff. When I solved the puzzle (and I would solve the puzzle), it would be an almost funny and cute matter of two little bunny-eared quotation marks that had hopped away to a distant field, probably very sweetly, maybe in that same parallel universe where that mysterious toilet was, when they were very much needed for the purposes of proper coding within a bunch of crammed-together words and numbers in a tiny font that cryptically contained both my data and a secret code. This code, properly presented, would then allow Quickbooks to open the door to let in the data that I wanted there. I would manage to understand the pattern and see where it was disrupted and …  I would fix it. No bunnies would be hurt in the righting of this data. I wouldn’t even be rough on the computer keys or even my own system. I would breathe lovely, soft belly breaths, while sitting and working in positions that would require no chiropractic adjustments down the line. All would work out.

Fucking Eureka. And bonus, it’s really kind of fun and wondrous to crack a code, right?

Honestly, most of the time I affirm that everything’s always working out for me. I lost track of it for a minute there.

Okay but let me backtrack. How did I get there? Note that I was already witnessing myself FROM THE BEGINNING because my policy and preference is not to live with frustration. I don’t judge it when it comes. However, I witness it coming in and feel the effects and then I usher it out.

(This takes practice, folks, and just noticing when the judgments come in and dropping them again. Keep dropping your self-judgments. They serve nothing except to keep you in modes that better match frustration than flow. They’re not fun, they’re not kind, they don’t make you a better person. They literally serve nothing you’re after.)

Speaking again from my policy and preference (to be clear, not what I was doing with this round of tax work), I do whatever it takes to release any grip on an outcome, a timing, a way the process must go. As quickly as I notice such interference, I let it go and align with reality. I soothe myself with presence in body and breath. I look away from the thorny task and get my alignment back, then I come back again—even if that means no more than a 5-minute break to look up at the sky and breathe and watch the breeze move some leaves around or drink some water or do some stretches or wash a few dishes or whatever.

Back to presence, back to body and breath, back to alignment THEN back to work.

So I wasn’t exactly doing this with tax work. I was watching the frustration (self-witnessing is good and helpful) and I was not entirely believing the messages the mind was forming about what was supposed to go differently or feel better (seeing thoughts as thoughts, not reality, and not believing them is good and helpful), but I also did not properly and fully INTERRUPT it.

So more frustration accrued.

By the time I sat down to spend some comfortable hours cracking the code, a true interruption had taken place. I had stopped. Surrendered. Let go of alllll the things I wanted that I wasn’t getting in this scenario.

I happened to be slated that day to do some EFT/tapping with a group of people on zoom and when we had some minutes left at the end, I brought in this topic. It yielded this 10-min EFT session you might try when you have some frustration about techno-trouble, or about current customer-service realities, or about anything that you believe should be less fraught with trickiness, thus making you more frustrated in the face of reality.

I felt so much better after the tapping.

And then I didn’t go back to frustration. I went back to work already breathing well, and I just settled in, staying conscious of the breath, for whatever was ahead. Which turned out to be some hours. And I got into the puzzle of it in that way that puzzles are actually fun, even when you’re kind of frowning at them going, Well, NOW what?

Because Now what? is in fact a very good question and typically invites the next one thing to try. Especially if you’re in your body, and your breath is flowing.

Also, I played soothing music on YouTube while I worked. Whenever I happened to stop in and see who was swimming by in the ocean footage that went with the music, I kind of wanted to cry, but not the way cruel techno-trouble games in the multiverse make you cry. Just the way dolphins swishing through blue love with little half-smiles on their relaxed and earnest faces makes you cry. Don’t even get me started with the giant turtles. (Though the soothing-music video does start with a giant turtle.)

I didn’t even finish in that sitting. I went to bed early when I felt the first whiff of frustration coming back in. I got up and started fresh and full of hope. I found those two missing quotation marks very quickly, gently grabbed two new ones by the ears, plunked them in, and carried on with a flowy version of finishing my taxes.

Seriously, folks. There’s no problem if we get super frustrated by life’s potentially frustrating things. And we don’t need to fault ourselves for that. Most others wouldn’t fault us.

But we also don’t need to rev up the frustration, and feel justified in it, and rail (and keep railing, and rail to a bunch of people) (and keep railing inside our own minds), and keep creating more of that. Because that will and must keep creating more of that.

As soon as you can interrupt it, INTERRUPT IT. And do whatever you know to do to get your alignment back. And then, if you’ve revved up a bunch of frustration, you may need to take a while in the unraveling, so drop in for whatever it takes. Breathe. Listen to soothing music. Let some part of you weep quietly with achy joy because, in the meantime, there are sea creatures somewhere being too wondrous for words and truly embodying the flow.

We can live in peace and flow. Or we can live in frustration. And that’s true with hard things and things that go wrong and things that are just wrong on this planet and in our current setups at our current level of evolution. And it’s also true when things are relatively wrinkle-free and flowing along.

The more we flow peacefully, present, opting in, the more things flow in general. The more we create frustration and amplify that, the more things bump along uncomfortably or screech to a halt.

So don’t expect yourself to flow nonstop. Do interrupt yourself when you’re out of the flow. And gently soothe yourself back into alignment. Create more and more and more alignment and more and more flow.

Love & blessings, Jaya

Here’s what I’m not saying. I’m not saying BE more and DO less.

That’s an old construct that was nice to talk about when we first thought to bring the concept of being front and center. (That is so way yesterday!) And maybe no one had dared think in terms of doing less as something sane and good because we were just all about efficiency and cramming in more.

It’s truer to say that being & doing go together. Be vs. Do is an example of a binary, which is always ultimately a false construct. In fact, if you’re doing, you’re being, and if you’re being, you’re doing. They are inextricable one from the other.

So don’t be versus do. Be fully. Be in the fullness of all that you are. Do fully. Do with all your caring and creative verve, and opt in fully wherever you opt in. Be present in body, mind, and heart to what you’re doing. (That is, make it your doing to come back to being.)

Do nothing just to get through it. Do everything because this is your beautiful life and this is the thing to do right now in support of your beautiful life, and all its beautiful parts.

• Do the dishes that way
• Do conversations that way, even with customer service
• Do lovemaking and even hugs that way
• Do walking that way, whether moving away from or moving toward
• Do creative brainstorming that way
• Do work tasks that way
• Do dancing that way
• Do connecting to nature that way
• Do all connecting and dropping in with another and bouncing energies back and forth that way

If you’re being while doing, you’re inhabiting this moment and opting in fully to what you’re doing. You’re here, in presence. You’re inhabiting the body. You’re connected to breath. (Or, again, just coming back. Keep coming back.)

So why did I title this DO LESS?

When you’re doing without being, you’re doing unconsciously.  You’ve literally withdrawn your consciousness from the doing. You’re in autopilot. You’re just doing the thing to do it and check it off the list. You might actually do less (or do more things one at a time, with a more one-pointed focus) in order to marry doing & being together in the most beautiful way.

So here are some things you might consider playing with, more or less:

• Multitask less.
• Put your phone down more.
• Ruminate way less.
• Come back to the breath way more.
• Do less while talking and listening.
• Go outside more.
• Do less figuring.
• Tell yourself way more often you don’t have to figure it out right now.
• Do less staying with thoughts & feelings that feel bad.
• Do more interrupting of what feels off, early & often.
• Do less because you think you have to do it or someone will be disappointed or this is the way you always do it or [fill in your own old bullshit concept that still gets you]
• Do more because it feels good, it makes you laugh, it’s kind, it brings you to this precious moment here & no
• Watch squirrels more, run with the chickens more, look up at the sky more

THESE TWO PARAGRAPHS ARE FOR MILDLY-BUT-TENACIOUSLY ADDICTED ADDICTS. (Oh, yeah. That’s everybody.)

Do the things you feel divided about in a single focus and opt in fully. (Eating, smoking, drinking, playing the game, watching whatever …) What do you keep telling yourself you should quit or do less of or do differently? Start by giving it your full permission and full opt-in and full presence as you do it.

Example: go sit outside and smoke, and do nothing else. Experience it, because you’re not NOT smoking, so SMOKE. Don’t be divided. If you’re not ready to quit, drop in for real. Do it while being, while being present to alllllllll that comes in for you as you do it, including pleasure, self-disapproval, old voices, your own guidance system. Witness it all. Get present to it. Your experience will shift.

The best (and EASIEST) way to marry together doing and being is to come back to presence, often, in anything you’re doing. Inhabit your body (drop in consciously and feel it, ground it). Inhabit the breath (take MANY moments to feel what breathing feels like right now). (Stay with that for at least a full breath cycle.)

Let every moment and your whole being and life be fuller and more conscious. Do less. Do more while being. Appreciate this beautiful life and the fullness of all that you are.

Love & blessings, Jaya