The Work of Not Doing

Sitting still is largely frowned upon in the world as I know it. For most of my life, I felt I had to be moving in order to be of value. I know I am not alone. This constant doing has been my downfall: always in a hurry, juggling multiple things at once, angry at traffic and slow drivers and slow walkers, trying to control the outside world so I could feel some sense of calm amidst the turbulence I unconsciously created. I've made a career of running away from my insecurities, covering them up with "doing."

Finally, life handed me enough lemons that making lemonade was no longer possible. So I went to yoga. It gave me something else to do. Slowly I discovered the concept of being. After turning myself into a pretzel (both in body and mind), I allowed myself to rest. I struggled with the concept of letting go - how exactly does one do that?

Precisely. What if there's nothing to do? What if, as spirituality teaches, my job as a human being is to allow life and its experiences pass through me? What if I'm here to be a conduit, not a reservoir of angst and neuroses? Rather than letting go, what if I don't pick "it" up in the first place? If my path is one of acceptance, I have to learn to make peace with the things that drive me crazy. And there are many of them.

The external things that I want to fix or change don't need fixing or changing. The work is in the not doing: it is in the willingness to be with my emotions without reacting, to suspend judgment of myself and others, in allowing the moment to unfold, and trusting it to unfold perfectly and divinely without any interception from me.