If you stop what you are doing right now and sit back in your chair, ask yourself, “If this was to be my life forever, would I be happy? Would it be enough for me?”
What would you say? Would you be able to take a deep breath and say smilingly, “yes, I am content” or would you immediately say “No, this sucks!” Or, is it somewhere in between?
I hesitantly did this a few times this weekend, scared to know what my true answer would be. But luckily from my gut and heart, I honestly answered “yes.”
Since I consider myself to be a bit of a “go-getter” by always creating and producing things, it seemed as though nothing could be enough. There was always MORE to do, MORE to create, MORE to produce, MORE, MORE, MORE!!! And this MORE, only causes a lack of contentment (santosha – one of the five niyamas from the eight limbs of astanga yoga), which naturally causes stress. I would accept this stress because I felt my intentions were pure – to help others become happier by spreading yoga positively throughout the community and hopefully the world! But, the reality is that regardless of the intention, stress is stress and answering this simple question of “when is enough?” allowed me to say, now is enough.
Can you be content with what you have right now and truly be at peace with it? Or does the thought of this life as you are living it right now scare you? If so, why?
For some time I can say that it did scare me and it may scare me in the future, but for now, I am accepting things as they come and go. Less need for control, more flow… there we go again… MORE… but this “more flow” just happens naturally, not from one DOING anything, but from one just BEING.
I understand that things change and life shifts, but I feel that we get so caught up in producing for the future of what we THINK we want to see manifest that we miss what we ARE doing right now. My mind has been trained in a forward-thinking motion and this weekend I had to catch it and pull it back a few times. I let my mind realize that everything is right where it needs to be and that this form of understanding is “forward-thinking” so to speak.
This weekend I had the pleasure of teaching yoga to some of my closest friends and family and made new friends too. It’s really not about the quantity of people, money, things, but the quality of them. We had a quality group of 14 people, raised $150 for a charity and shared in our own sacred space. What a privilege and an honor to provide such a service; the way that it was meant to be.
Now, I just have to remind myself of this every day and retrain my mind from being “forward-thinking” to being “present-experiencing.”
I hope you can join me…
