use all 3 centers of intelligence to find your relaxed & open way of being & seeing & DECIDING I want to invite you out of that furrowed-brow, overthinking thing and point you to what could feel & work better. You’ll need a willingness to trust yourself more, and also to trust life. What if you began by committing to EASE around any decision you need to make? Ease in body, heart, and head—your three centers of intelligence. Each lets you know whether you’re on- or off-track for good decision making, and so … whether to LEAVE IT ALONE right now or jump in & run with it—or even dreamily push the pieces around. Let’s walk together through all three centers. Body: LOOK AWAY FROM THE TOPIC when you’re …
In those moments, don’t think about it at all, never mind try to move the decision forward. Seriously. Literally walk away if you need to, and go make your body feel better. Start with a drink of clean water. It’s a great time to come back to the topic when you’re …
Now go! Go ahead & come close to this thing you’re considering. See what wants to be dreamed up, learned, discovered, invented, and maybe fully decided! Heart: DON’T EVEN GO NEAR THE TOPIC, never mind try to make the decision, when you’re …
In your bad feeling states, shift your physical & mental gaze toward what makes you feel better. In fact, just go take care of your heart. Don’t analyze or think about your feelings. Breathe them, soften them, soothe them, carry them around kindly. Take your feelings with you as you go back to the body and do something that will move your limbs & energies and get the blood & breath flowing again. When do you go back into the stuff of your decision? When you feel
All or any of this means you’re ready to dream into your vision again or dive back into the specifics & details of what needs to be known so that the decision can come to you without strain & forcing, never mind agonizing. Head: Screech decision making to a halt when you’re
I mean it. INTERRUPT ALL THOUGHT when that’s the vibe in your headspace. The sooner, the better—before it builds momentum. Get out of your head, please. Back to the body, back to the heart. Take note, in fact, that your body & heart are feeling bad as they sync with those thoughts. Now, go after what makes them feel better. Abandon thinking altogether until you can reach for thoughts that go with a relaxed body and soothed heart. You’ll know you’re ready to bring focus back to the topic when
Now, let your imagination run, do the research, make the phone calls & visits, have the conversations, and make little or large choices that move you toward that readiness to decide—or plunk you right in a decision that you notice kind of made itself. (Byron Katie taught me that decisions make themselves, and I keep finding that when I’m tending my state through my 3 centers, they do just that.) Hey, when you’re in a good place in body-heart-head, I invite you to notice the magic. Are you …
Notice the magic. It will get you where you’re going. (And, um, it’s not magic at all. It’s the way things work when you’re clear & open. You know.) Love & blessings, Jaya
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... and let go of the hard & pointless work of being the doer Want a quicker read? You can simply learn or review the placemat process by starting below the first pic. Scroll down, baby … I was thinking about how hard it is for people to LET GO of trying to control all the parts and believing I’M THE ONE who makes it happen. Doership! We even stir up more confusion by accusing ourselves of being irresponsible or not properly showing up when we’re not doing our utmost (as we tense up & exhaust ourselves) to think of everything and manage all the parts. That’s a problem because
Those who use the G-word sometimes say, Let go and let God. Um, sure, that can be used to go complacent or excuse not stepping up. It can also be used to let go of what you can’t control, and let the greater intelligence do its thing. It will always include you in the doing (some of us think you are God and God is you), but won’t put you in charge of what you just don’t have the capacity to do, manage, or control (since you’re also in this limited ego-reality as an individual human being). When I first heard the term the organizing intelligence of the Universe, it just sang to me. I was already aware of the love force and fully down for that. I hadn’t thought about or even begun to take in (and that will be an ongoing process till I die) the unfathomable intricacies & crazy brilliance of what I now call the orchestration. So how do you come to know that, work with it better, FLOW with it, give yourself to that current? Play your part and put down what’s not yours? The PLACEMAT PROCESS from Abraham-Hicks is my favorite way to put stuff down and get crystal clear about what I’m doing and what I’m not doing. And bee-tee-dubs, it’s called that because Esther (yeah, the nice white lady from Texas who channels Abraham, which or who is actually a group of entities, I know, I know, but stay with me, please, because it’s brilliant)—Esther got this process while she was at a restaurant and used a paper placemat to try it out. For those who like Byron Katie’s 3 kinds of business, note that this allow you to clearly and on paper (where you won’t get sidetracked by all the slippery seaweed in the mind) write down in one area what belongs to the Universe and even to other people, and separately note what’s yours.
The act of writing it down is also a literal and symbolic putting it down. Placing it in those larger hands, or into that great holding net where everything’s being gorgeously woven together in a way that works for the good of all concerned. So in your area on the paper, you write down only what you’ll do today. Abraham says, Mean it. Whatever you put there, you know for sure you’ll get to it. Cool if you get this wrong, folks. Use it to take in how confused you still are about how much you’re supposed to and can get into a day. We’re actually not meant to CRAM OUR DAYS full with productive activity. Ay, that’s the great cultural lie of doership and what it means to be good little worker bees. (I imagine real bees are relaxed & having a good time as they bop around collecting pretty powdered nectar & turning it into exquisite golden honey.) But it’s not just that I’m NOT DOING the things I put down in the Universal Manager area. The organizing intelligence, or what A-H calls the Universal Manager, is all over it. Bringing things together with that uncanny right-place right-time precision, flowing things your way, getting people queued up to enter stage left or bump into you as you round the corner, in short—orchestrating. Or … lining up cooperative components that will support you to get to where you’re going. Do watch if you choose to experiment with this. Notice how things moved forward that you didn’t touch because you gave them, for real, to the UM who knows how to effortlessly make it all happen & come together gorgeously. So ANYTHING you’re thinking about, worried about, wishing you could get to, thinking you should already have gotten to (but truth is, you won’t get to it or can’t do anything about it today), PUT IT DOWN. You’ll know as you write (and after) you really are putting it and did put it down when you feel some RELIEF. When you relax. When you feel light instead of heavy. When you feel you’re doing enough, it’s good enough, all is well. (Notice the trust in this?) Put down all that you don’t need to carry today because it’s really not what’s up for YOU to manage, hold, do, or orchestrate. Examples:
When you can look at your little (way littler) list and feel good about THAT being the stuff of your activity today, you’re on the right track. Maybe you’ll even remember that the ACTUAL stuff of your day is not just what you check off the to-do list but …
Hey, I’ve heard Abraham gently & playfully scold people for acting like they’re delegating things to the Universal Manager, and then they have the right to be upset if something didn’t move something forward the way they’d hoped. You’re getting the benefits of the process when you feel RELIEF. Intend relief. Note relief means less resistance. It means you’re entering or you’re in the flow. It means you’ll give yourself a much easier time of it. There’s more going on too but … that’s enough, isn’t it? Love & blessings, Jaya Easiest way to sift through thoughts that work for or against you I love super-simple ways to bring in greater ease, clarity, and joy. Since our thoughts shape our reality—and also show us how we’re viewing, holding, and moving through our reality—I love looking at thoughts to notice, very simply … Is this an upstream thought or a downstream thought? I got this from Abraham-Hicks. Is this thought taking me toward stress, fear, disempowerment, a sense of doing it wrong [or not doing enough, or working with the cards stacked against me, or keep filling in the blank to match what you steer yourself into]? Or is it taking me toward greater ease, trust, joy [or empowerment, or a sense of potential & possibility, or keep filling in the blank to match what you prefer]? Upstream or downstream? Am I riding the current to get to where I want to go with ease and efficiency? Or am I pushing against the current and costing myself a whole lot of wasted energy as I feel increasingly exhausted and lose any sense of well-being? And note that thoughts, much like potato chips, aren’t really interacted with one at a time. So in a series or sequence of thoughts, you might notice what’s upstream and what’s downstream. I can’t seem to get ahead. Upstream thought. I work so hard but it’s not really getting me anywhere. Upstream. I’m really just bad at the whole money thing. Upstream. Things really aren’t great in my field for anyone right now. Upstream—maybe thinking about pointing downstream, because now it’s less personal and contains less self-blame, but it has a victim component and isn’t exactly hopeful or empowering. Still, maybe you’re trying to tilt the paddle the way the instructor showed you works better. … I’m really trying. Upstream (maybe masquerading as downstream, but nope, still no). I just can’t seem to get ahead. Squarely back upstream. Um, so how do you get downstream from there? The problem with those potato-chip thoughts is, you keep grabbing the next one, the next one, the next one, and there’s a momentum that revs up. It gets harder and harder to go in the other direction.
So just reach. One thought at a time. Reach for the easiest downstream or canoe-shifting or oar-reposition thought you can see to reach for. I’m actually okay right now. Definitely heading the right direction. My basic needs are met. Downstream. I’m actually well. Downstream. I usually like my life. Angling a bit upstream, especially if the focus is on usually, but not bad, not bad. I’ve really come a long way with money stuff. Downstream. I’m doing better than ever. Downstream. I wasn’t sure I could pay off that credit card debt, but I totally did. Downstream. Of course, I still have no savings. Upstream! I’m fortunate to have a job that many would be happy to have. Okay, heading roughly in the right direction. Especially if you’re not feeling that in any way that resembles, I really should be grateful or this job, too, will be snatched away. (Ay, the gratitude thing can be slippery.) I actually like my job. Downstream. They’re not paying me what I’m worth, though. Upstream. I mean, I often love my job. Downstream. And I’m getting better and better at what I do. Downstream. That could actually mean more money. Downstream. Someday. Um … But with my luck-- Upstream! I did get a raise last year. Downstream. From there, you could go upstream (So Goddess knows how many years till the next one) or downstream. You can always next go upstream or down with your next thought. Let’s string together a bunch of downstream thoughts, because that’s where I want to invite you to take yourself when you do this at home. (Go ahead! Boldly try this on your own at home!) So between that and the debt I paid off, it really is better. And there are more ways to make money besides raises. And in the meantime, I love my life. I don’t need to figure this money thing out right now. I don’t even need to give it my focus. I’m open to inspired ways to bring money in and feel good about what goes out. I’ve gotten so much better at things I used to think I’d never do better with [even better, name one or more specific things], so I can get better at money too. Money, to the Universe, is no thornier or trickier than any other topic, and I’m willing to keep shedding old ideas about my identity as hopelessly money-challenged. Nothing is hopeless. Everything is hopeful. In fact, things work out for me. Things are always working out for me. It really helps to do this out loud or on paper, not in that morass of the mind. Write down your thoughts about money (or whatever) so you can see a sequence in black and white. Do that, then go back and ask about each one, Upstream or downstream? Or ask someone you love to hear you speak your thoughts out loud, and do that one sentence at a time. Have them simply ask after each sentence: Upstream or downstream? And you answer. Say a few typical thoughts, and once you get the feel of what you’re doing to yourself with your upstream line of thinking, consciously head downstream! With a little practice, you could get really good at cultivating downstream thoughts, and living the downstream life! Love & blessings, Jaya It's up to you 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 Be more, right inside the doing 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.
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:
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 |
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