The truth is, everything will be okay as soon as you are okay
with everything. And that’s the only time everything will be
okay. Michael Singer
It takes great trust to be okay with everything and everyone. Believing in the inherent goodness of all circumstances and people is challenging enough in today’s climate.
Now add the ability to accept that whatever arises in the moment is exactly what you need. If you are capable of accepting each moment as it presents itself, you have the recipe for living life in an effortless fashion. By effortless, I do not mean without expending any energy, just without expending negative energy. When we expend positive energy, it not only feels effortless, it feels expansive. I vouch that my greatest expenditure of energy that deflates — depression — occurred as a result of my own negative judgment and resistance to what had shown up in my life.
The weight of judgment and resistance tether our soul, not allowing truth, beauty and goodness into our being. If someone turns to you and says, “Life is hard”, don’t believe them. What is hard is when we choose to react to life negatively through our fears. Sadly, human consciousness has more experience with protecting itself from fear than experiencing the expansive nature of love. Fortunately, there comes a time when irrational behaviour becomes obvious even to those enacting it. And, I have reached that time.
In my own life journey, I am currently practicing effortless effort by intently focusing my awareness on the emerging sensations within me. By tuning in and watching these sensations — intuition, taste, touch, smell, sight and sound — I discovered how ever changing, and thus temporary, they are. In holding awareness on one sensation at a time, particularly those in my physical body, I witnessed the letting go of tension surrounding that sensation. Some disturbance in my body has released.
Paying attention to our intuitions and physical sensations allows us to respond to life’s events authentically, that is, without the presence of ego’s filters — judgments, interpretations, past experiences, beliefs, assumptions, perceptions. However, when we react to events from our ego, our subsequent emotions and thoughts are coloured by its filter. Thus, we are not accepting what is (the truth), but instead projecting onto the world what we are afraid of; and herein lies the source of all our suffering. A sure way to reduce suffering is to stop the ego in its tracks by accepting life as it is, which takes considerably less effort than using our will (ego) to manipulate life. My poem below illustrates this experience.
Effortless Effort
To move from effort into effortlessness requires deep listening.
Messages of right action exist in life’s ordinary details
and moment-to-moment experiences.
Awareness marshals these resources on our behalf.
With awareness, the willingness of an open heart
bypasses ego’s willful manipulations of circumstances.
A gentler, joyful patience grows from within as we watch
the body’s instinctual cellular wisdom wed spirit’s intuitive knowing.
By witnessing this union of awareness, intuition and instinct,
we forever shatter illusion. Quietly, hidden meaning is revealed,
and potential, previously held captive by ignorance,
is effortlessly unwrapped.
For more on untethering your soul, click here.
