It’s a funny thing.

When I allow things to be as they are - when I stop insisting that anything – anything at all – “should” be different than it is – a host of options, ideas, and creative possibilities reveal themselves to me.

When I relax and allow myself to see with clear eyes, instead of contracting around an opinion, everything is so simple and obvious.

The instant I try to impose my will on what already is, everything becomes painfully difficult, obscure, and distorted.

It’s a whole lot easer and more fun to allow what is to be as it is.   Not so incidentally, it’s also a whole lot more effective.

How many years – decades – I struggled to control and manipulate my experience and the world around me.  And how simple it all actually is, despite all those years of trying to make it complicated!

I’m noticing that everyone I’ve looked up to, everyone I’ve felt awed by, everyone who’s given me butterflies in my stomach … makes mistakes.

What a concept, eh?

They’re human. They’re people. Isn’t it delightfully wonderful?

Doesn’t detract one iota from all the reasons why I admire and respect them.  

And in seeing the beauty of their humanity, perhaps I can have a little more respect and compassion for my own.

Instead of doggedly pursuing the unattainable goal of my own perfection, and feeling cheated when those I admire fall short of it, perhaps I can … relax. 

Just a little. 

One wouldn’t, after all, want to get carried away.

It’s funny how we tend to think we need something more or different than we have in order to be happy.

I’ve been noticing how I seem to be working on quite a list these days.

I’ll be happy when …

• the gophers stop digging up my back yard
• I stop feeling anxious every time I write a proposal for a new client
• I get used to my new haircut and stop feeling like it looks weird
• I take time off and go on vacation or on a retreat
• I get a good night’s sleep
• The mountains move closer to my house so I can go hiking without having to drive an hour an a half to get there

Writing it down like that shows how obviously ridiculous it is.  And then I add a new one to the list.

• I’ll be happy when I stop judging myself for things like this

The thing is, I know from my own experience – I know deeply, personally, in my body and being – that happiness is available right here, right now, no matter what else is going on.

No matter what else is going on.

Funny how easy it is to turn away from that simplicity, turn away from myself, and fall into old habits of believing I need something outside myself in order to be happy.

I’ve spent a lot of time these last few weeks revisiting my past.

Relationships with friends and family, relationships with lovers, and, ultimately, the relationship I have with myself.

It’s been painful to see some of the choices I’ve made.  Many of them gave me away, denied who I am, and denigrated and devalued the reality of my wholeness and power.  

I don’t second-guess them.  There are no mistakes, and I have no regrets.  I didn’t know, and it’s easy to forgive the self I was then, with great compassion for her pain and loneliness.

I’ve been considering new choices and actions that challenge these past behaviors.  And that’s what threw me back into them, revisiting not only the memories of the people and events, but also the feelings.

From this has come a profound understanding that I am not my past.

What has happened does not foretell what will happen.

What is to come is, quite simply and beautifully, unknown.  I am free (as I always have been, had I but realized it) to make choices that aren’t dictated by what’s happened.  Choices that do support who and what I truly am.

This realization of freedom arises from the process of feeling, experiencing, and going through the emotions that those memories called up in me.

This realization of freedom comes from recognizing that my memories are only thoughts.  They aren’t real.

When I step aside from the whirlwind of thought and the emotions excited by thought, there is great freedom to simply be.

A few weekends ago, I was driving north to the opening day of the Southern California Renaissance Faire, going to help some friends with their booth.

As I drove, I watched for large white cargo vans, hoping not to see one particular one.  That would be the one belonging to an ex-boyfriend, who I was pretty sure would also be going to Faire, and who I did not want to see.

Pretty silly, really, to be spending time and emotional energy not wanting to see something.

About two-thirds of the way there, I discovered I wasn’t sure about which branch in the road to follow.  Moving at 80 miles an hour, the choice had to be made quickly … and shortly thereafter, I realized my search for the large white van had become a completely different experience.

Now I was hoping I would see it, because that would tell me I’d made the correct choice at the fork in the road.

I had to laugh.

I turned around (yes, I’d taken the wrong turn!) with a new appreciation for the ways the mind sees and experiences life.  And a deeper realization of how the mind’s experience is dictated by what it thinks and believes about what’s happening.

Which doesn’t have much relationship with reality at all!

So here I am, introducing the Finding Another Way blog, describing what we’ll be doing here, and … I’m not sure I know yet.

Perhaps that’s exactly the place to start. 

When Jon and I were talking about this first blog post, he said to me, “It’s about allowing what we say to come from the awareness that informs this work.  We want it to be palpably, vitally alive, so that readers can feel the energy in it.  And we want to allow the ebb and flow of whatever wants to be expressed.”

And that’s what Finding Another Way is all about. 

Listening deeply within the Silence, no matter what else may appear to be happening, to hear what’s true in this moment. 

Describing it in ways that resonate for our readers.  Providing examples through simple, practical stories of real experiences that help illustrate the deep common sense of another way.  Engaging in conversations through the comments on posts that deepen the experience and help develop greater awareness of what’s true for you.

And allowing each person’s experience – what’s true for each individual – to be the guide along the path.

We hope you enjoy what you find here.  Even more than that, we hope you find it helpful in finding your own way – whatever way that may be.

Enjoy yourSelf!