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Lesley Riley

Art & Creativity

Sometimes You Just Have to Let Go

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Some of you may have been following my progress to be in the present moment for the last few weeks.

Knowing that it takes at least a month to create a new habit, I wanted to hold myself accountable by blogging about my efforts.Things went really well for 24 days and then the Universe/God decided to test my commitment.

It wasn’t any one thing that derailed me. Even now when I list them they seem trivial. It was the constant barrage of tests that kept thwarting my plans.

I tried. Oh I tried mightily to keep it together. I can easily handle a roadblock or two but they came fast and furious this past week. (Has it really only been a week?)

  • IRS tax audit
  • The request to return next month with paper receipts for 2 years for all business expenses for both  businesses (bank statements won’t suffice)
  • not being able to find the power cord for my old printer in order to print out said receipts from my old computer
  • my daughter moving back home
  • cleaning out my art storage room to make a room for her
  • cleaning my studio of all the stuff we moved from that room
  • babysitting two wonderful granddaughters for two days while their parents finished the move to NJ – a great experience but bad timing with so much to do
  • getting ever more behind on submitting my TAP class to CraftArtEdu
  • running into repeated issues around sending out a reminder for Compose+Yourself – 3 hrs to send a simple reminder email
  • deciding to call it a day early to ease my stress and flipped on the TV to the tragedy in Boston
  • what am I forgetting?
See? Nothing bad at all. Pretty whiny, huh? A woe-is-me list of first-world problems. Even now I question why I was so upset and so depressed that my family was getting worried.
 
And then yesterday my internet decided to stop working.  Not my husband’s, just mine. How was I going to get my newsletter done. Six hours and four calls to Comcast later, I made an appointment for a technician to come out tomorrow. Without intending to I HANDLED THE DAY IN THE PRESENT MOMENT. 
 
All of a sudden, it didn’t matter anymore. I looked up at God and said, “OK, I get it, you want me to stop. Stop and just BE.” The angst, the worry about deadlines, the ‘why me’ pity party I was having just vanished.
 
Last night before lights out I picked up the book I’ve been reading all month and took up where I left off: Chapter 15 – the path of unconditional happiness:
 
The highest spiritual path is life itself. If you know how to live daily life, it all becomes a liberating experience. But first you have to approach life properly, or it can be very confusing….But, in the end you can throw it all away and just make one basic, underlying decision: Do you want to be happy, or do you not want to be happy? It’s really that simple.” 

Then and there I decided to be happy. To let life’s events wash over me. Not just be present, but be happy. Let each moment, no matter how difficult, dissolve into the next rather than hold on to it. I choose happiness.

“Stress only happens when you resist life’s events. If you’re neither pushing life away, nor pulling it toward you, then you are not creating any resistance. You are simply present.”

It’s working. Do you want to know how I know?

I’m writing this newsletter right now using my computer and the internet. Just like when I sat down yesterday and it didn’t work, I sat down this morning and IT DID WORK. No explanation. I did nothing. It just works. I am in awe of the power of intention and divine intervention.

If that’s not a sign and acknowledgement that I survived the tests, I don’t know what is. 

PS. Quote on above Fragment “sketch” reads:

We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey. Stephen Covey (after Pierre Teilhard de Chardin)

Thanks for listening. xox

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Comments

  1. I am reading this book, too!
    Yes, we need to be present in our moments of sunshine and rain~
    I’m in a downpour right now, but I’m going to look for the rainbow~
    Thank you so much for sharing @>————-

  3. Sometimes when it is the most difficult to be present, it is then the most important. Glad things have turned around. And as you said………on not the next challenge!!

  5. My dear Lesley
    Half way down your list I thought my goodness this woman’s plate is WAY TOO FULL! Glad it is going more smoothly.
    xox

    • Yes, it was a lot thrown at me at once, but it sure makes the time move fast. I’m so glad it’s over. On to the next thing!