Hi there,
You know those insanely long to-do lists we create for any given day of our lives? For work, for taking care of our homes, for all the things we want to do over the weekend, for our next steps in life? You name it. Lists we work on stressed, so we complete them and cheer for five minutes, before we press repeat and create brand new lists.
Here is the thing: we donāt have to do everything, and check all boxes.
But whatever we do, we can do it divinely.
In full presence. With joy, with pleasure, with understanding, with purpose. With heart. Breathing, relaxing. Filling it with goodness and love.
Let's eat rejoicing in our food. Let's answer to emails the same way we would like to be treated by others in person. Let's be in meetings making an effort to understand other people's perspectives. Let's share our perspectives with acceptance and ease, not to attack, criticize or separate ourselves from others. Let's honor our hearts every time we open our mouths. Let's grocery shop feeling the veggies and fruits. Let's feel the bedsheets playing in our legs as we go to bed.
Not because we have to, but because we want to live this life.
Let's breathe in between each thing and remember why we are doing what we are about to do for? What is the point? What matters and what doesn't?
Letās do less, but letās do it much better. In connection.
The Gods and Goddesses
I can't possibly conceive the Goddess excited about crashing the day's to-do list, or getting upset at the end of the day for not doing this or that. āGee, will have to continue creating oceans tomorrow. Bummer".
I can, however, conceive the Goddess creating, expressing, shining and being non-stop, from a place of goodness and joy, as a mere continuation of being herself.
That's how she appears to me: excited about each new day as it begins (or rather about how life just continuously keeps going) thrilled about all the new things she gets to do, moment after moment. Nonstop, for the wholeness of her eternity.
How does your inner God look like?
It's not about doing things perfectly. It's about giving ourselves 100% to life, with presence, intention, and joy.Ā
Clearly, there are no limits to how productive we can become. Every new methodology, technology, and tool allows us to do more in less timeāāābecause that is what we programmed ourselves to focus on. But what if instead, we focused on how to do things with more presence, more connection, and purpose?Ā
Divine beings we are, here to be ourselves, to create, to express - connected every moment of being.
We lose a bit of ourselves, of our own divinity, every time we don't live from this divine place. Every time we get caught up, we disconnect a bit more from our essence.
Sometimes we are afraid of shining our light. We think we are not worth it, and so our rush drives us away from the goodness of ourselves. Other times, we are so disconnected that we can't see the trail anymore.
There is nowhere to go. Everything is already right here, right now. Including the totality of you - if you dare to reclaim it.
To-dos vs States of Being
Success (whatever your definition of it is), happiness, connection, joy are all beyond a check-list. They are more like states. Don't get me wrong, we can definitely work on these states and they are not by chance: we can have practices and establish routines that contribute to them. We can create awareness of what leads us closer to them, and what takes us out of them and take aligned actions.
The challenge is not as much to achieve happiness, connection, joy and success, as much as to prolongĀ them.Ā
However, nothing can actually guarantee them without our own state of mind - good luck forcing yourself to have ādrop negativityā on your to do list, check it, just to write it again 5 seconds later.
The problem is not the list itself, but how we approach the list (or rather, how we approach our lives, as if it could be contained in a list). We live a bucket list, that contains everything that is yet to be done but NOW, the absolute present moment.
Check-lists have a concept of things being marked when completed, yet life is continuously running and never completed - at least until you die. How eager are you to complete that one?
Life is divine.
Less, but much better, from the right place. A joyful, divine place.
There is nowhere to go and for those who enjoy living: there is only a life to be lived. There are dreams to materialize, there are longings of the heart to be met, all of which take time and effort. If we don't learn to enjoy every moment of the process, we reduce our lives and ourselves drastically.
As if life was a one-hour long line for a five-minute roller-coaster ride. As the creators, we have the power to not stay in line in our own lives.
We can see our work as that work of a God(dess) creating something from within themselves to the outside world which is nothing but a reflection of their own being, of their own power.
The Remedy
If you have eight things to do today, could you possibly select four of them which, if done well, in complete presence and joy, would make you more than satisfied with this day of your life? The rest is bonus.
In a society so caught up in hurry and worry, the remedy is to slow down and hunt ourselves. We do this by catching ourselves every time we get out of this Divine zone into what I call āautopilot". Then, we take a breather, and return to the Divine zone. Over and over again, until we reprogram ourselves.
It's ok if we don't catch ourselves every time. Practice leads us to take ourselves back more and more often.
The Practice
How much love, abundance and joy are you willing to allow in your life?
Letās focus on how we do what we do. How we live, how we share, how we connect. Staying a little bit more in our hearts every day, and letting it expand.
Close your eyes and think about a great moment of your life, one of your favorite memories. Connect to that moment, for that moment lives within you. Connect to that feeling, and let it expand in you. See how eternal it can be, how you can go back to it at any time. Like a radio station, all joy there is is right here, right now, if you simply allow yourself to find its frequency.
Allow yourself to enjoy more every moment more. Feeling love in your heart right now? Looking at something pretty? Just had a huge laughter? Stay with it and carry it on, just a tiny bit longer.
What is common is that we sabotage ourselves and start thinking of problems to solve, old sad memories or possible future failures and to-do's as scapes from the goodness of this moment. We all have a repertoire of experiences and possibilities, some full of connection and joy, others neutral, and of course, hurtful ones. Why is it we so easily choose the hurtful ones? It's like we are addicted to drama - or as if our beings can't handle too much joy.
Pay attention next time good feelings come by. How fast are you to get out of it? When you see your mind carrying you to negativity this fast, cut it, and go back to where you were before.
Allow yourself to stay there, in the joy, just a little bit more.
Final Wordsā¦
The world wonāt end because we didnāt do every single thing - but it might become a bit more pleasant. A bit more Divine.
And, just like that, we can honor the divinity within us, by being.Ā
See you next week,
Aline
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