Let Life Be What It Is

This morning I spent some time sitting, drinking my tea, listening to the sounds of life happening around me, and watching my thoughts come and go. I can string my thoughts together with such passion and dedication when I am invested in communicating them in order to achieve a certain outcome.

Sometimes I catch myself and I decide to let go of trying for that outcome and just let life be what it is. Today when I let go, I realized the sadness that was underneath striving for that specific outcome. I spent so much time and energy trying to avoid feeling the sadness, but when it washed over me I felt relief because it was an honest experience and the movement through it led me to a prayer: Dear God, Thank you for my life. Please help me.

Acknowledging the great mystery of God, feeling gratitude for life, and being humble enough to ask for help from all that wishes me well is vulnerable. It’s scary to admit to myself that I don’t know what is happening in my life or how it will work out. I found a way to trick my brain years ago by acknowledging that I can’t know for sure that things won’t work out really well. That helps me stay connected to hope.

What I do know for sure is that I am available for connection and that people consistently show up in my life who are also seeking connection. The details are always different. The levels of desire for and the quality of the connections vary so much, but these are the threads of my life that I weave as I move forward.

Most of my important teachings come from listening to and observing trees, plants, earth, water, animals, sounds, and breaths that I take when I am making time to connect with myself. What I am really experiencing though is how connected I already am to the richness of life that exists in all its forms all the time. So much pain and suffering happen when I forget that I am always connected. I can invent stories about people who don’t care or reasons I’m not worthy. None of these stories are true.

I can’t explain anything about God or praying or life. I’m so grateful to have witnessed and listened to so many sincere people make deep heartfelt prayers for their lives. Listening and watching these sacred moments between a person and their creator taught me how and why to pray because I saw the relief on their faces and in their bodies and I knew I wanted that without having to do or believe anything that didn’t feel right or true.

I don’t know how asking for help works, I just experience that it works if I can allow it to. Allowing life to happen and love to be present is my prayer that applies to all the details of my life I don’t need to mention.

All of my true efforts in life are to know love more deeply and to be a point of access for love to those who seek it in a sincere way. It’s much too large a task to remain conscious of for long periods of time, but I try to make space to remember daily that this is what I’m here to do and all I have ever really been interested in. I’m teaching and re-teaching myself, my brain, my heart, my body, and my spirit what matters most, and how to continually let go of everything else.