I have been reading a pile of books in the last few months. I have a fiction pile and a nonfiction pile. My nonfiction list includes some of the big names, don Miguel Ruiz, Alberto Villoldo, Vianna Stibal, and a few that are not as well known. I can divide this list into two categories. The first category, I couldn’t put down. Once I started reading, nothing else existed and they include ideas and suggestions that I could integrate into my everyday life, without completely rearranging my entire life. The other category, while great in content, made me feel like I would be better off to just grab the oreos and head back to bed…. There was no way I was going to be able to create shifts that they are talking about… they are too huge, too indefinite, too difficult.
This deflation normally pushes me back to the fiction pile where I can get lost in lands of Dragons and Arthurian Tales {of course, I don’t believe this is fiction, but that’s just the category I find the best material in}. But this time, as I was reading, about the One thing that will change your life, I put the book down and allowed my human brain to swirl around the magnitude of identifying ONE thing that will change my life… is it my diet, my meditation practice, the company I keep?? WHAT is the ONE single most important thing?
All of a sudden I was paralyzed with pressure… and you probably know me well enough to know this is a rare occurrence. Put the book down, breathe, ask myself a series of questions, in an attempt to reconnect with my Truth – you know the one I thought I knew, but now this shit about one thing being the lynch pin of my future success… seriously, too much!
As I tried to divert from the rabbit hole I was allowing to overwhelm me, I realized, my answers are not in that pile of books. I love collecting information and differing perspectives, but those aren’t MY answers. They are mere suggestions stemming from something that has worked for someone else. I know precisely where my answers and truth reside – within me! Of course, accessing those answers and truths is sometimes more of a challenge than unstrapping your own straight jacket, but that can be a conversation for another day!
So welcome the energy of a new year, without the trappings of expectations and allow yourself to explore what rings true for you.
Most importantly, exercise the skill of discernment that allows you to get really well acquainted with what really serves you. And don’t be afraid to just let go of all the rest.
