Hey Friends,
This is part 2 of this article from last April:
Okay, yes, it has taken me a while to circle back to this. Divine timing has put it front and center again. So, letโs go a little deeper.
First, I recommend reading that article linked above. Weโll be going into some of the topics I raised in it. Mainly Iโm exploring some benefits of learning how to let go of assumptions and expectations.
How many times have you found yourself in a circular conversation trying to defend your position?
Isnโt that funny how we do that, we humans? We are conditioned to need to be right all the time. Our ego is afraid to be wrong. Maybe because of the need for safety. If weโre right, or if we think weโre right, then things feel more certain.
More than this, itโs also about a need to โknowโ whatโs going on, to have it all figured out. We take this with us into our partnerships, friendships, marriages. We project our notions on the screen of what we think we see in front of us. Our notions are born out of prior experiences. Itโs difficult to meet each conversation and situation with fresh eyes. Our perspective is so often clouded by things that happened in the past.
Misunderstandings can build walls between us. We have a need to be wanted, seen, validated, understood. Those walls divide us and cause more reasons to feel unwanted, misunderstood, and devalued. How did it come to this? When relationships begin, the freshness can feel so right and we feel very connected.
Then life happens. We make mistakes. We get offended, defensive, and competitive. Our wounds get activated. We wonder if the relationship with endure. We have our stories about what we think is going on, based on the past, or based on what others think and say.
Enter Radical Beginnerโs Mind
What if we could stop reacting based on the past? What if we could truly drop the story we have about what we think is going on in the other person and ourselves, let go of any judgment, and simply open up to the moment just as it is, perhaps ask more questions. What if we had no ulterior motive when we do this, no hidden agenda to get what we want? What if we could just be present with one another.
Thatโs what I mean by drop the story. We can just be in each othersโ presence with neutrality and acceptance, appreciating that we are alive, that we are here, that we get to be in relationship.
Since we are changing all the time, maybe each day we encounter someone else, we could meet them with fresh eyes. They are now different, just as you are. Different from what you were yesterday. Hopefully weโve learned new things. We are discovering all kinds of new information. We might decide we feel a different way today than yesterday, see things much differently too.
This can also be applied to how we treat each other out there in the world. I'm imagining what it could be like when we all dropped the stories of the past, applied open curiosity, and resisted the temptation to perpetuate pain.
A great way to support that is to practice openness and humble willingness to be in service to unconditional love. I found that when I decided to give my life to that great endeavor, my life got so much deeper and richer. By committing to the art of non-aggression, a whole world opens up. It can be an aggressive, constrictive act to hold fast to what we โthinkโ is going on.
By letting go of those stories, we are truly available to discover the new wisdom that seeks to develop during what is actually happening in each new moment.
Letโs let life be fresh.