“By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try. The world is beyond the winning.”
~Lao Tzu

Indecision…confusion…lack of clarity. If these define your current reality, then this post is for you.

A friend of mine had been living in this state for months. He was facing a major life decision, and although he longed for clarity about it, all he got was uncertainty. He tried figuring it out every which way, but nothing seemed to clear the fog.

Letting Everything Go

Then he did what needed to be done – he died to everything. He let everything go.

• His preferences for what he wanted
• His hopes for how things would turn out
• His identities – the kind of person he prided himself on being
• All attachments – to relationship, money, status, appearance, even to life itself.
• All should’s, all expectations

He opened to things being messy, crazy, and completely up for grabs. He was willing to accept the answer, no matter what it was.

From this emptiness, with everything out of the way he was able to truly listen, and undeniable clarity emerged. No longer iffy or doubtful, the answer shone like a beacon and his path opened up without question.

Clinging Is Resistance

He had been entangled in the mind-stuff, trying to determine the answer without having to face his attachments. He described the conflict as one between his head and his heart. In his head, he was busy bargaining and strategizing. There was too much mental noise, too much grasping, to hear the voice of his heart.

What it took was a willingness to drop everything. And I mean everything. To not resist any possibility, to not know anything, to be so incredibly open beyond any imagining. To be willing to say, “Yes!” to whatever appears.

Your Turn

Now, what about you…are you ready? Are you courageous enough to take off all the blinders and hear the truth? Here is how to die to everything:

• Take everything you know, everything that defines you, and throw it into the holy fire.
• Surrender anything you are holding on to – any ideas, attachments, hopes, desires, preferences.
• Open every cell of your being.
• Listen deeply with nothing in the way, no expectations at all about what you will discover.
• Be so devoid of any personal will that you are willing to embrace whatever path shows itself to you.

Gaining clarity about a decision does not mean that your confusion won’t return for a visit. In fact, expect it. The last thing fear wants is the exhilaration of freedom, so it will beckon you. Here is your job: stay grounded in the clarity that you know to be true. Surrender, die to everything, over and over and over.

Truth is fierce business, as you can see. It is not for those who want the easy way out, not for those who want to cling to what is limited and familiar.

But, oh, the fruits of surrender. Laser-like clarity…the deepest intimacy with all things…peace beyond peace…

Where are you stuck or confused? What is masking truth and clarity? I’d love to hear…

“Whatever you think the world is withholding from you, you are withholding from the world.”
~Eckhart Tolle
Are you pretending that there is something missing? Feeling a sense of lack is so pervasive in our society. And believing in your inadequacy prevents you from recognizing the brilliance that is already always here.

Just watch ten minutes of commercials on TV. You will be told that you aren’t young enough or stylish enough, that you need exactly what you don’t have. We live in a culture of non-acceptance and dis-ease, compounded even further by what we learn from our families as we grow up. It’s a legacy of lack.

A Personal Sense of Lack

Of course, this sense of lack seeps into our personal psyches. Do these sound familiar?

• Piling on the “should’s” – what you should and shouldn’t do or be
• Needing others’ approval to feel OK about yourself
• Criticizing yourself endlessly
• Feeling that there must be something more
• Compulsively seeking objects to fill yourself up

It’s like the bucket is always leaking so you can never feel whole, relaxed, full, and at ease.

The Way Out

If you take one point away from this post, let it be this: there is a way out. It is absolutely possible for you to live the moments of your life in peace rather than poverty, fullness rather than fear and despair.

Do you know how to pay attention?
Are you capable of love?

Then you have the tools to realize the relief you seek. And where do you end up when you use them? Smack in the middle of the land of happiness. The well being you have always wanted is here, available, possible for you. You can stop trying so hard. You can relax and be still.

The Art of Paying Attention

If you are living in lack, then you are caught in a story that has convinced you of your inadequacy. You are giving your most precious resource, your attention, to believing in not being good enough. And this problem will never be solved by thinking more about it.

Know this: what you feed is what will grow. Feed lack, and you get more lack. Bring your attention into what you are experiencing in the moment, and you can be free.

Whenever you spin in the story of inadequacy, stop. See what emotions you are feeling, and welcome them. Notice the sensations in your body, and breathe with them. The story diminishes, and in that moment, you are free.

Add up these moments, and the fire of inadequacy becomes a pile of ash.

Every time the inadequacy rises up, now you know what to do. Bring your attention away from the story in your mind, and be in the moment with your feelings and physical sensations. Time after time…peaceful moment after peaceful moment.

The Art of Loving

Now comes the juicy part. You get to steep yourself in love. Whenever the sense of lack arises, counter it with kindness. Give yourself what you think you are lacking, which is love.

Take every thought, every painful emotion, and bathe it in love. How to do that? Accept it, welcome it, allow it to be as it is. Put down the fight with what is present in your experience, and wholeheartedly let it be.

Can you see how your entire experience can be transformed? No longer stuck in the story of lack, no longer pretending you are a fraction of your true magnificence.

Practice paying attention to your in-the-moment experience. Practice being a loving host to whatever arises. Rinse and repeat in every difficult moment. In the face of this intelligent practice, inadequacy dissolves.

And when it does, You are revealed – shining, open, peaceful, loving. Shed the story of lack, and discover that you are already overflowing.

Do you have problems with inadequacy? Does the practice I am offering here make sense to you? I’d love to hear…

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