You have a set way of doing things. You brush your teeth a certain way; go about your morning ritual a certain way; take a certain route to work; dress, talk, style your hair, even eat a certain way.

You might say that these ways are just how you do things.

“This is who I am,” you might possibly say. And you would be right, on a certain level.

On another level though, any way of doing anything in your life is learned behavior.

Starting from a very young age, you learned how to be the “You” that you now live through.

And depending on how tightly you hold on to these learned ways of being and thinking, they could be the cause of stress, tension, rigidity.

In a word, suffering.

If we instead embrace just a bit of flexibility with each situation, in each moment, we’ve suddenly opened things up a bit.

We’ve relaxed when our initial impulse was to tighten up and “stick to our guns.”

Instead of preaching our rightness like we usually do, we’ve invited lightness.

With enough of these impromptu moments of sudden relaxation, we begin to change.

We begin to see a less stressful way…..that was there all the time.

And with awareness, we can see where to take action.

To act with less rigidity is to be with less stress.

Sounds like a cure to me.

Quick Meditation Tip

Paying attention to the breath, to releasing tension, to the feeling of being in the body — all aspects of the present moment — we descend beneath the scattered thoughts of the mind and touch peace and stillness. If only for that moment, it is enough. With each breath there is another moment, another chance to renew our focus on the present.

Mindful Homework

Choose to relax your traditionally held viewpoint today. Instead of defending yourself, just say “Ok.” You aren’t accepting defeat, but you are accepting that you don’t want to fight anymore. Allow the other person to think whatever they want to think. They were going to, anway. At first, this could feel almost intolerable — “I can’t believe I just let them get away with saying that to me!” — but it gets easier. Practice surrender. Practice relaxation. Practice peace.

Quote From Adam

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few.”
– Shunryu Suzuki