Stillness 10-28: Treading lightly on the earth is not always easy. We want to make our mark or be of service or feel our feelings or develop our wisdom and experience.
But when we look around we know that simply a leaf being a leaf or a rock being a rock or a kitten being a kitten is enough. It’s plenty. What if we imagined we were enough? What if we imagined that each breath was plenty? What if we walked through the fallen leaves simply for pleasure or talked to a friend not to help them but because we simply loved talking to them? What if inner peace and calm were actually not the result of serious soul-searching but of laughing cheerfully with ourselves? What if joy was not the result of many years of exploring and clearing angst and trauma, but of not taking it so seriously?
There’s a distinction between not believing we are worthy and feeling a lightness of being. Sure we matter–every one of us. Sure life is challenging, sometimes exhausting, but we don’t have to take it so seriously. Astronomers have (so far) counted 100 billion galaxies in outer space for us to explore. At the very least, we can acknowledge that we really are mere specks of dust in the scheme of such enormity.
Ask yourself this: What would happen if you enjoyed yourself? What would happen if you played a game or sang a song? Or decided not to agonize about your future, your health, the upcoming election, the state of the world?
Ask yourself this: What would happen if you took yourself less seriously?