There's bad news and good news. Is stress building up in you? Is it lowering the quality of your life a bit? Try this right now: pause in your busy day for a moment to notice how you feel. Is your jaw clenched, your shoulders tight, your body tensed? Do you notice a part of your body that is feeling tension around something you're worried about or feeling anxiety about? Is there a part of your mind that's feeling the same kind of tension? Most of us have stress throughout the day in some form, whether we realize it or not. The good news is that we can let go of it.
Why do we get stressed out, feel anxiety, feel overwhelmed or out of control? It's because the world isn't the perfect, calm, orderly, simple place we'd like it to be. We want things to be comfortable, nice, pretty and ordered. Unfortunately, work is hectic, people demand our attention, we aren't as disciplined as we'd like, people do things that frustrate us, and there's just too much to do and read and learn and process. The problem isn't the world, or other people; these will always be messy, disordered, unideal. The problem is that we are holding onto what we want everyone else to be, what we want ourselves to be, what we'd like our work and families and life to be. Our attachment to these ideals is causing our struggles. Our reluctance to accept the way things are is causing our struggles. And we don't want to feel these struggles, so we try to avoid thinking about them with distraction. But there's good news! We can relax the struggling, and find the joy of the reality in front of us.
Whenever you feel stress, anxiety, frustration, or other kinds of struggle: Find the joy of the rediscovery of this goodness in yourself and this moment. This is the practice of letting go of the struggle, and accepting this moment as it is, and yourself as you are. You can do this in every moment. You can practice with seeing the goodness in others as well. Seeing the goodness in our struggles and complicated relationships and busyness. You can uncover the joy that's always there.What You're Struggling With
The Joy of Letting Go