Life Is As It Should Be


“Everything is just as it should be.”
Andrew Weil, M.D., Spontaneous Happiness

Most days I need to get out of my own way. I have a lot of “shoulds,” a lot of personal inner-demands and wants that I place on myself, others and even nature. And these mostly irrational demands do nothing less than cause me misery. Life is not about how I want it to be. Life is about how everything actually is, despite my objections. People are who they are, the weather is as it is, the day begins and flows as the universe flows. I am a small, but important part of that flow, and I need to be open to moving with the universal flow. When I am, everything is just as it should be.

Awareness is the key to getting out of the way-- of both myself and the universal flow. Conscious surrender and release of my inner-demands is the next step. And acceptance that life is exactly as it should be—moment by moment—rounds out my active choice to live life as it is.

Living life in the flow requires being focused in the NOW by letting go of my need to control life. Control and flow are opposites. Control hinders the natural flow of life. Going with the flow means accepting that everything in my past is as it should be. Looking back, I may believe much of my past is a mess, but all of its messiness was necessary to make me who I am today. Going with the flow also means that my present, with all of its imperfection, is as it should be. And it means trusting that my future will unfold in its own perfectly imperfect way as it flows with the universal plan. All I have to do is get out of the way and relax into life.

Flowing with the universal plan doesn’t mean I become completely passive, however, like a leaf blowing in the wind. I must be able to discern what I have power to change in the present moment from what I have no power to change. For example, I have power over my thoughts in this very moment, but I have no power over the fact that I am now older—even if only by seconds—than I was when I began typing this page.

Likewise, at work, I have the power and talent to do my job, but I have no power over the interruptions that pop-up throughout my day. Nor do I have any real power over whether or not I will have a job tomorrow. If I do have a job tomorrow, then everything is just as it should be. And if I don’t have a job tomorrow, then everything is still just as it should be. Instead of fretting, I can be at peace by having faith in the Universal plan and believing that a better job is at hand.

Today make the conscious choice to get out of the way. Stop playing God. Relax, unwind and go with the flow of God’s universal plan. And you will begin to see that everything is just as it should be.

Comments

  1. E.S. KraayJanuary 18, 2012 at 2:36 PM

    We are all connected. If you relax and unwind, the world relaxes and unwinds.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

No One Can Calm Your Codependent Crazies, But You

Image
Ah, the codependent crazies. Those needy, needy feelings. I remember well the deep emotional pain in the pit of my stomach: The throbbing sting of shame, fear, loneliness and anxious desperation. Those feelings that are like fingernails on the blackboard of your soul. They eat you alive from within as they dig deeper and deeper into the black hole of your inner-emptiness. Yes, I remember them well. And I remember evenings of mental and emotional insanity-- squirming with a magazine, pacing back and forth, indulging in chocolate, chasing up and down the stairs hoping the doorbell would ring, and staring endlessly at the telephone for a sign of hope. All I needed was a call from my false higher power; a call that would help me to know that I was OK, that I was needed, that I was worth thinking about in some good way. I was dying to be emotionally caressed on the head like a poodle desperate for the attention of his master. And certainly I had made that other person into my mas...
Read more

Happiness is Something We Cultivate and Share

Who makes you happy? In reality, no one can make you happy. People in your life can enhance your happiness through sharing your interests. Or they can add to your frustrations by pushing your buttons. But no one can be responsible for your happiness or your misery—aside from you. One of the biggest problems for codependents is that we too often enter relationships looking for everlasting happiness. We expect that the person we choose to attach our dreams to should be responsible for making us happy. In our minds, we fantasize that he/she will be focused solely on us, will spend every waking hour with us and will do everything in his/her power to insure that we are as happy as we can possibly be. In other words, we assume this person will meet all of our mental, emotional, physical and spiritual needs in the same way that we plan to meet all of his/her needs. In our little dream world we will smother each other with attention and we will both drip with the honey of happiness. R...
Read more

Where There Is Kindness, There Is Goodness

Image
Author’s Note: The next few meditations will be from a retreat I directed recently called The Good News According to Disney . If you aren’t familiar with the films that are referenced, I’d suggest to take time to see them and to look for the deeper meaning within them. Many people today still live by the biblical adage “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” They actually believe that they will be at peace if they achieve revenge or restitution for any mishap that has befallen them at the hands of another. They believe they will reclaim their personal power once they have achieved their revenge, but this is impossible. Disney’s Cinderella (2015) reveals the true secret to owning one’s personal power and to retaining it no matter what we experience in life: “Have courage and be kind.” On the surface this motto looks a bit simple and wimpy. But in reality, it holds great power. That power comes from the heart of a person, or in this case Ella, who sees the world not a...
Read more

Become the Person You Want to Spend Your Life With Everyday

Image
I really don’t have to say much about the above quote. It says it all and it’s so true. We are too often taught faulty ways of thinking as children. So many of us get the wrong message at very young ages: Love is about finding the right person to love you. Looking back I realize I wasted many years trying to find that “right” person— the one who could love me into loving myself— instead of trying to BE that “right” person myself. It never occurred to me that I needed to love myself, nurture myself and accept myself enough to become the right person— the person I really needed most in my life. After all, what is my life without me? Now I know that I’m what’s been missing from my own life for years. My life is empty without me and without my spiritual Higher Power. This is true for all of us.  Once We find ourselves, become the “right” person God intended us to be, and become the person we want to spend the rest of our lives with, then we attract others into our lives who ca...
Read more