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The other day, I returned home from a short trip, and immediately unpacked and washed my clothes, putting everything away. It felt nice.
The next morning, I was feeling a bit unsettled. So I started cleaning. I cleaned in the kitchen, outside in the yard, swept the garage. I felt so good.
I’ve come to realize that cleaning, organizing, decluttering … for me, it’s a form of self-care. It helps me feel settled, makes me feel like I’m taking care of my life.
Yes, cleaning and organizing can be overwhelming, and is often avoided. But it doesn’t have to be. Take a small corner to tidy up, and let yourself just enjoy the cleaning. Get lost in it. Feel the niceness of making things nicer.
Yes, there’s always more to do. But that’s a disempowering way to think about it. Why does it matter that there will always be more to do? That just means there’s more self-care available, always. Just do a small portion right now, and enjoy it. A good analogy is that there will always be more tea to drink … but I only need to focus on this single cup of tea, and enjoy it fully.
As you clean, you might feel things getting cleaner. As you organize, you might feel the progression of settledness of things. As you declutter, you might feel the slight liberation with everything you toss out.
And of course, we can extend this self-care of cleaning and organization into every part of our lives — today I worked on organizing my finances. I’ve been fixing little things around the house. This morning I deleted a bunch of apps on my phone, and turned off a lot of notifications, to simplify my phone experience. I also unsubscribed from a bunch of newsletters and started clearing out my email inbox.
You can think of taking a task from your task list as a form of this self-care. One item at a time, taking care of your life.
It can be overwhelming and dreaded … or it can be nourishing and lovely. It’s a choice, and I choose to feel the care that I bring to every sweep of the broom or rake.
The post Cleaning as Self-Care appeared first on zen habits.
There is a concept in Japanese tea ceremony from Zen, roughly translated as “one chance in a lifetime,” or “one lifetime, one meeting.” It’s such a beautiful idea: any meeting you have with someone is unique, fleeting, and will never happen again, even if you see this person every day.
What would life be like if we could learn this kind of deep appreciation for any moment?
I notice myself often in a hurry for something I want to happen right away. I want it to be fully finished, yesterday. I’m overlooking the incredible moment that’s happening right now.
I notice myself frustrated with other people, even if I don’t want to admit that frustration. I want the other person to be different than they are, want them to change. I’m missing out on the beauty of being with this person just as they are.
I notice myself wanting to rush around doing things, and wanting to fill every moment with distractions, productive actions, busyness. I’m missing an opportunity for stillness, for stopping and just being in the beauty of the present moment.
I often seem to think (without realizing it) that there is some special moment in life that is coming, that will be more special than life is right now. What I forget is that life doesn’t get more special than what’s happening right now.
This here, this moment happening right now … this is the moment of a lifetime.
How heartachingly gorgeous it is.
The post The Moment of a Lifetime appeared first on zen habits.
Having worked closely with dozens of people’s transformative journeys, I’ve come to recognize a handful of mindset shifts that make an incredible impact.
Those who’ve worked to shift in these ways have remarkable transformations.
I’m going to share them here with you in hopes that they might inspire your own transformation. If you take these on fully, they could be life-changing. This isn’t all there is, but these are a huge, huge foundation.
How do you work with these? I would love to work with you as a coach, because it’s often impossible to do this work without support. We just can’t see what we can’t see. That said, here are some keys to working with these mindset shifts.
First, notice when you have the opposite mindset. Notice when you’re stuck in the old mindset, as often as possible. Notice the impact of the old mindset — what effect is it having on you, on other, on your life? Have grace for yourself, and love, when you notice. Breathe.
Second, practice the new mindset. What if the new mindset were absolutely true? Empower it. Be it.
Third, when you get trapped in the old mindset — you’ll revert to it often — get support. From a coach, from a therapist, from a meditation teacher, from someone outside of yourself. Someone who can help you see it, help you bring love to it, help you practice outside of it.
And then keep practicing! This takes a lot of practice, a lot of messing up the practice, a lot of getting yourself back into it. It’s all a part of the practice. It’s not easy work, but I promise, it’s transformative.
The post 6 Powerful Mindset Shifts appeared first on zen habits.
A well-known climbing coach said that the biggest obstacle in the way of people’s growth as climbers is, basically, fear of embarrassment.
When people want to get better at climbing, they try to do it privately, so that no one can see them doing things badly. They’ll go to the climbing gym when no one is watching, or hang out in a corner hoping no one is looking. But they’re missing out on the biggest opportunity — feedback from people who can see things they can’t see.
And the thing getting in the way is fear of embarrassment.
I’ve found that this is true no matter what you’re trying to learn. No matter what you’re trying to grow in. Fear of embarrassment will stop you from getting real growth and transformation.
My belief is not that we should just get over that fear. It’s that we could learn to see embarrassment as an integral part of the growth process.
I’ll talk about why in a moment. But first, let’s look at a few more examples where the fear of embarrassment stops people from growing:
Hopefully you can see that this can be applied anywhere we want to grow — personal development, taking care of ourselves, deepening in a relationship, dealing with the overwhelming chaos of life. We struggle to get beyond where we are, because we are too embarrassed to get support, feedback, coaching that might take us to the next level.
We hope to grow and learn without embarrassing ourselves. If we can learn in private, and then show how good we are //after// we’re really good at it … then we won’t feel embarrassed. We want to avoid that feeling at all costs, even if it means never learning at all.
But that’s not how it works. We have to be willing to be bad at something before we can be good at it. The growth process requires us to mess up, to learn from experience rather than just reading about it or watching videos. The growth process requires us to be messy and stumbling in the unknown … and then to get some support when we stumble, think we’re doing it all wrong, or feel like giving up.
And that is embarrassing. It has to be embarrassing, because we are necessarily pushing beyond the boundaries of the self-image we’ve created for ourselves. We’ve stepped into a new area of growth, which means we can’t be the person who has everything figure out, who has it all together. We want to be the person who has it all together, but that’s only possible if we are not growing.
So we choose to grow and learn, to transform, but that means letting go of who we think we are, and who we’re trying to get others to think we are. That’s a letting go, and it’s embarrassing.
If we avoid that embarrassment (which is natural), we will avoid the growth. We will not step into the unknown, which is where real learning resides. Where meaningful work resides.
OK, so you have a fear of embarrassment (of course!), and you can see how it’s holding you back.
How do you work with this fear? It’s a deep topic, but here are some ways to start working with it:
As you let yourself feel the fear and feel the embarrassment, what will happen is that you start to shed your old self. You no longer need to be constrained by doing things perfectly, impressing anyone, showing the good side of yourself, because you are growing into a new kind of becoming.
What would be possible if you let yourself go through the transformation process? If you’d like to practice deeply with me and others, come talk about being a part of my Fearless Mastery program.
The post Embarrassment is an Integral Part of the Growth Process appeared first on zen habits.
I’m creating a new Fearless Retreat in October that will be a part of my Fearless Mastery program … and it has me reflecting on the most recent retreat I led in Costa Rica in March.
I’m moved to share with you the lessons I learned from the March retreat, because I was so inspired by the transformation that people went through …
Here are some of the lessons I took away from the Fearless Retreat on March:
It was powerful, for me and for my team, not just the people who came to join us.
So with that in mind, we decided to create a Fearless Retreat in October as part of our Fearless Mastery small group coaching program, because we think it’s that important.
I’d love to have you join us. Apply for Fearless Mastery today to have a convo about the 5-month coaching program that’s aimed at transformation.
And included in the price will be a seat at the Fearless Retreat in October, where you’ll come together with us in person and experience something really powerful.
Let’s talk — apply today!
p.s. If you’d like to hear from some of the people who went through the retreat, check out these videos.
The post Lessons from the Fearless Retreat appeared first on zen habits.
One of the things that really humbled me in recent years is the realization that I am often only halfway in on anything I do. I’m rarely ever really all in.
For example, I might join a coaching program with the idea of trying it out, but not really sure if I can do it. Then when things start to get hard or overwhelming … I might be looking for the exit door, or hiding so I don’t have to be embarrassed. This is being halfway in, with an eye on the exit.
Another example: I commit to meditating every day. Then when I’m meditating, instead of being fully in the meditation, maybe I’m waiting for it to be over, or giving myself reasons I should end early. Then two days into it, maybe I really don’t feel like it, so I skip it. Then I find reasons to keep skipping it. This is even less than halfway in.
Most of us do this in just about everything we do. And it has a really corrosive effect on whatever we’re taking on.
Does it have to be this way? Let’s take a look at what it looks like to be all in, and why we rarely do that. And then look at how it can create something powerful in your life.
Some of us have an experience of being all in, somewhere in our lives. Some places that might be true for you:
If you can relate to one of these — like having kids — then imagine what it would be like to have that kind of all-in commitment to whatever you do.
Imagine working on a creative project and having no question that you’re going to complete it. Even when things get hard, you’re working with the difficulties. Even when you feel like giving up, you don’t give yourself the option. Even when you miss a few days, you come back without any questions. Even if you die with it incomplete … you will die knowing you gave it your all.
Your heart is fully in it. Doubts might come up, but those are expected.
This is full devotion.
We rarely let ourselves be all in, fully devoted … because it’s hard and scary.
We don’t think we can do it. We don’t think we’re strong enough. We have lots of evidence that we will screw it up, based on past experience. We don’t trust ourselves.
We don’t trust the other person. We fear what they really think of us, we think they’ll abandon or hurt us, or let us down. Yet again.
We don’t think we can work out the hard problems. They feel intractable, overwhelming, too complex, to out of our control. We hate not having full control.
It’s easier to run. But it leaves our full heart, our full power, on the table.
What you’ll find if you’re all in:
Imagine that instead of heading for the exit door, you’re committed to working things out the best you can. (Not that you should stay in an abusive relationship or anything that’s harmful to you.) When you want to run, you stand and find something deeper within you.
What would that do for the projects that are most meaningful to you? For the relationships you care about most? How would you show up differently for your purpose in life?
What would have to shift? What would you have to let go of? What could be created from this place?
This is not another set of expectations and shoulds to judge yourself by. This is about practicing deepening.
Here’s how you might practice:
This isn’t easy practice. I highly recommend you get some support. This is why I’ve created my Fearless Mastery small group coaching program — apply today and let’s talk!
The post Be All In: Unlock Your Full Power appeared first on zen habits.
Most people think that if they’re struggling, that means something is wrong. If you’re struggling to write, to meditate, to eat healthily, to be focused and productive … or struggling in a relationship or job … that means something is wrong with you, or you need to change your circumstances, or this just isn’t right for you.
If we think something is wrong with the struggle, we will usually try to fix it, get out of the struggle, change ourselves … so we don’t have to have this problem anymore.
I’d like to propose a different view: that struggle is the place of growth, learning, curiosity, love, creativity. Struggle is an incredible opportunity for being creative.
Let’s take a couple examples so you can see what I mean, then let’s talk about how to work with this.
Let’s say I’m trying to write a book or a blog post … and I feel frozen by the unknown of it all. What to write about, how to approach the topic, how to be original or valuable, how to avoid people judging me.
So I’m frozen up and don’t know what to write. My instinct might be to avoid this struggle and do something else easier, like answer emails, take care of urgent tasks, check social media. But what would it be like to stay in this struggle?
Instead of avoiding the writing … I could commit myself to staying here. Staring at the blank screen, and letting myself sit with the discomfort that I’m feeling. Let myself sit with the unknown, and feel what it feels like. Get comfortable with this unknown, with the struggle.
After sitting for a few minutes, I might start to settle in and relax with the struggle. The unknown isn’t so scary. I can breathe deeper, and find the beauty in this moment of unknown.
From this place, I might find some creativity. OK, I don’t know what to write … but could I try something silly? Write about a superhero penguin, or an accountant that can shoot rainbows out of his belly button. Maybe I could write about not knowing what to write about, and sing a song as I write (“Oh I wish I knew what to wriiiiite!”).
The specifics of what I try here don’t matter. What matters is I can just try something. Maybe I make a list. Maybe I dance around until something comes up. Maybe I meditate and become one with the universe, and then the universe channels and answer through me. Maybe I trust whatever my heart says. I don’t know — but that’s the place of discovery, in the “I don’t know”.
Let’s say I wanted to practice yoga every morning for 30 minutes. I commit myself, I set a reminder, I feel excited about it! I might even do it for a few days. Then one day when it’s time to do my yoga … now I don’t feel like it, and check my messages instead. This happens for a few days, where I avoid it and feel bad about myself.
Normally, we might just give up, and tell ourselves it wasn’t worth it. Or be harsh with ourselves about the failure. But what else could be found in this struggle?
Imagine that I could pause for a few minutes and feel the struggle. Let myself feel how I am disappointed in myself and discouraged. What if I could bring curiosity into this place, and maybe even compassion and love? What if the real yoga is in this place, where I feel lost and want to beat myself up or give up?
If I stay in this space of the unknown for a little bit, I can find something new. This is where real learning, real growth, real transformation takes place. I might be able to get creative and try something new, if I stay here for a little longer.
We mostly want to get out of this place, because it’s uncomfortable. But maybe staying is exactly the spot where I could grow beyond my current reality.
As you can see, this requires a growth mindset — a mindset that the struggle isn’t the end, but the place of learning and creativity.
So when struggle shows up, here’s how I might practice:
I invite you to practice this, and see what you can discover. You might find that there’s more depth to this space of the unknown than you imagined.
The post Turn Struggle into Creativity appeared first on zen habits.
Creating a new habit like meditation, journaling or exercise isn’t incredibly complicated — at the most basic level, you tie the habit to a trigger that’s already in your life, start small, and find ways to encourage yourself to remember it and actually do it.
But it becomes a much more complicated and much messier ordeal because:
This is an almost universal thing, in my experience. No one escapes this trap.
So how do we work with it? We can make things really simple (that’s not to say easy) by getting to the heart of this: the resistance.
In addition, it helps to have a way to deal with feeling bad about ourselves when we give in to the resistance. I’ll talk about that after I talk about getting to the heart of resistance.
Let’s say you decide to do a morning habit like writing, meditation, yoga, or journaling …
You commit yourself to doing it every morning when you wake up (after coffee of course). You set a reminder. You wake up. Then …
Suddenly, you really need to check your email and messages. That leads to a bunch of other things that need to be done. Then you decide it’s time to check the news, or social media. Now you have to get ready. You’ll do that habit later.
What I didn’t describe above — and what most people don’t even acknowledge or notice — is the most important part. The resistance. If you can deal with the resistance, you can form a new habit. If you aren’t even aware of it, you’ll think there’s something wrong with you, or you’ll keep looking for better answers to fix this problem you have.
No amount of systems, books, answers will fix the problem of resistance. It’s something we can work with, but it doesn’t go away when you find the right answer. It’s simply fear and uncertainty.
If we can learn to work with that resistance, new habits will form.
Incidentally, it’s the same thing when you want to change an old “bad” habit — like quitting smoking or chewing your nails or eating too many chips. We have the urge to do the old habit (smoke a cigarette), and we have resistance to just letting the urge arise and fall. It’s like checking the email instead of meditating — we think we have no choice but to give in to the resistance.
So what if we didn’t need to give in to the resistance? What if it could be a place to embrace?
Here’s a way you might work with the resistance:
There isn’t a right answer here. Play with it. Keep working with it. Our desire for it to be over and to not have resistance is our greatest stumbling block. Keep creating something new, each time the resistance / urge happens. Eventually, you’ll discover something that works. And along the way, you’ll discover something new about yourself.
You hope that this will go perfectly. You’ll work with the resistance and you’ll crush this new habit. Yep! That’s exactly how it will go!
Except that part of it going perfectly is that it will include failure. That’s just a part of the growth process. You fail, you struggle, and you find something new in that.
The difficulty is that people take the failure to mean something meaningful about themselves. It becomes such a big deal. I failed! I must suck. Or I can’t do this. Or I’ll never be able to do this. Or What the hell is wrong with me?
Isn’t it interesting that a simple thing like failure carries such huge emotional significance? We feel bad about ourselves, we get discouraged, and we quit.
What if failure (and feeling bad about ourselves) was simply a part of the growth process? Not a big deal, but something to learn from? How would you approach it then?
I won’t give you the “answer” (because there’s not just one) … but I invite you to get creative. What can you try that will help with this part of the growth process? How can failure be embraced, loved, and be a place for curiosity and discovery?
If you can work with this, you will be liberated.
The post Simplify Habits: Get to the True Heart of Change appeared first on zen habits.
I’ve noticed that so many of us are incredibly focused on getting stuff done. Productivity systems and tools, anxiety about being behind on all the things we have to do, a complete focus on all the stuff to do, at the exclusion of all else …
But here’s the thing: if you ever get really really good at executing and getting stuff done … you realize that it’s an empty, meaningless game. I’m a testimony to that — I’m very good at getting things done. And I can absolutely crush my task list for months on end. And at the end of all of that, I still don’t feel much more satisfied.
There’s some satisfaction in getting a bunch of things done, but that’s not what really drives us. What drives us is fear — fear of what will happen if we fall too far behind, if we drop all the balls we have in the air, if we can’t get a sense of self-worth through accomplishment. Our fear is really about what it will mean about ourselves if we don’t get stuff done.
That fear never goes away, no matter how much you get done. It’s like a sex addict who has a ton of sex, and still doesn’t feel fulfilled, and has to go get more. We’re addicts who are never fulfilled.
What would happen if we decided not to play that game? If we could set aside for a moment the fears that drive us, the hope that we’ll ever finish everything, the hope that we’ll somehow get a feeling of being good enough if we are good at getting things done?
What’s beyond all of that?
I don’t know the answer, but here’s what I’m finding:
Those are a few observations I’ve found in the space beyond getting stuff done. What might you find there?
The post Beyond Getting Stuff Done appeared first on zen habits.
By Leo Babauta
I’ve noticed that most people (myself often included) make complicated task and organizational systems. Today I’d like to talk about why and how to simplify that.
Task systems that are overcomplicated require a lot of overhead work — if you have to spend a lot of time organizing and going through your system, you’re spending time on the system that could be spend doing something more meaningful.
Having better productivity systems doesn’t make us more productive. Actually being able to do the hard stuff isn’t down to the system — it’s down to your ability to face uncertainty and resistance. And that’s something you can train in — but it won’t be found in a productivity system.
Having better organizational or note-taking systems doesn’t make us more organized. It is busywork to distract us. Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Why do we spend so much time figuring out our systems and making them so complicated? It’s simply fear. We’re overwhelmed and afraid we can’t handle it all. We think if we get a better system it’ll be the answer we need to start crushing things. We are afraid of dropping one of the many balls we have in the air. It’s simply fear, and everyone has it.
What I’m going to share here is a simple system — it’s not meant to be the perfect system, or the one you have to adopt to start crushing things. It’s meant to be a simple model that can show how simple things can be.
But perhaps more important is the mental view of tasks that underlies this simple system. I’ll talk about that as well. And then I’ll get to the most common obstacles or objections to this kind of simplicity.
Here’s the system: make a single list of your tasks. One List. Put everything you have to do here. Each day, pick some things from that One List to focus on.
That’s the system.
Go through your emails, and for each one that’s been sitting there, add a task to the One List. Star the email and archive it so it’s out of your inbox. Repeat until your inbox is empty. Do the same with messages you haven’t responded to because they contain a task or decision. Emails and message apps aren’t meant to store your tasks.
Maybe you have a bunch of things on your computer desktop. Go through those and put them on the One List.
Go through your Ten Thousand Browser Tabs and take the tasks each one represents, put it on your One List, and bookmark and close the tab.
OK, now you have One List. Things should be a lot simpler (some possible additions are below in the last section). There’s a good chance you’re feeling overwhelmed. That means we need to talk about the underlying mental model of this One List simple system.
The reason why a long list is overwhelming is because underneath the task list is a view: 1) we think this is a list that we need to finish; and 2) we fear that if we can’t finish it or at least stay on top of it, we will be inadequate in some way. We base our self-worth and safety on whether we can finish this list … but it’s too long to finish! In fact, a task list will never be done, even when you die.
This is an unhelpful mental model that produces stress and overwhelm.
Instead, I propose a different view: Tasks are options that we can use as we create the art of our lives.
Imagine you have a big palette of paints, and you get to use them to paint your art on a canvas. You don’t feel like you need to finish all the paints on the palette, right? It’s not a matter of getting them all done so you can avoid feeling inadequate.
Instead, the paints are your supplies for making art. They’re things you can dip your brush into, to create the art of your life.
You can have fun with your art. You can fully express yourself and the deepest truth of yourself. It’s a whole different game.
Just having One List is perhaps too simple for people, so let’s take a look at some possible modifications based on questions you might have …
Q: The list is too long, how do I find focus?
A: Have a shorter Today list. Pick things from the One List and put it on the Today list. Do that at the end of each day for tomorrow, so you can start your day with a plan already done.
Q: How do I choose what to focus on each day?
A: If you’re struggling to decide what to put on your Today list … you might be struggling with uncertainty. This can cause a lot of people to get stuck, because if you don’t know … then what? I would encourage you to stay for a minute in this stuckness, in the “I don’t know,” in the uncertainty. The answers will come to you if you sit in the not knowing for a minute or two. It’s good to create a daily ritual where you create your Today list for the next day … and in that ritual, allow yourself to sit for a moment to get some clarity on what to add to the list. And as you create the list … allow it to be like creating art out of your life!
Q: I never end up finishing my Today list, what can I do?
A: If you are creating art and you don’t finish it … what do you do? You might continue to work on it tomorrow. Or abandon it and start afresh! Or incorporate some of it in your next art piece. But not finishing it isn’t a problem. It’s just a part of the process.
Q: What about meetings, calls, appointments?
A: I like to put those on a calendar instead of a task list. So the calendar can be a part of the simple system. I check my calendar the evening before to see what I have coming up, and again in the morning.
Q: What if I want to have all my financial tasks in one place, all my calls in another, all my errands in another, etc etc?
A: That’s fine! One List is just an example. If you want to have One List for your main work tasks, but another list for your finances and administrative tasks that you do on certain days, go for it. Just keep it fairly simple.
Q: What if I find myself dropping tasks and feeling disorganized?
A: If you were painting a huge canvas, and you kept forgetting to paint certain parts of it … what would you do? Probably you’d set aside some time to paint those parts, if they’re important. Sometimes they’re not important, so you don’t set aside the time. So you can decide how to work with that. The bigger problem is the feeling of being disorganized. This is simply a feeling. It’s a feeling of chaos, of change, of not having everything in perfect order. Can you create art with that feeling?
The post We Overcomplicate Our Task Systems appeared first on zen habits.
By Leo Babauta
The boy awoke one morning to a startling discovery — that everything he believed was not the truth. He realized that the way he’d been seeing things was only one way of seeing things. His view of things was not absolute but tentative.
What he saw this morning is that everything was made up of a luminous cloudlike substance, an energy. Including himself. Including the air and wind and light. Luminous and full of wonder.
His body was made up of this energy — there was no difference between inside himself and out. Even his emotions were forms of it — anger, sadness, love, fear, grief, frustration, loneliness, all were made up of this luminous, wondrous, cloudlike energy.
The energy was all the same everywhere, but it was swirlying and cloudlike and changing in form. His body, for example, might have seemed like a separate thing from everything else, but it was constantly shifting like a cloud, breathing out and emanating parts of itself to the rest, taking in new parts from the rest.
This discovery of the luminous energy making up all of reality … it changed his life that day. He felt connected to everything around him, because it was not separate from him.
He was no longer held back by anything. He could do things he was afraid of before, because he saw that fear was just the same energy as everything else, beautiful and delicious. His old habit of avoidance melted away, as he had no difficult feelings to avoid — all was luminous energy.
He was no longer a slave to his addictions, because the craving that caused the addictions was simply a form of this wondrous energy. He could simply feel the craving, and love it as he loved everything else.
He no longer felt worried about being adequate, because there is no fear of inadequacy when you are a part of the luminous energy of everything. He no longer had to worry about getting love, because he was a part of the love of everything.
He was liberated. And so he decided to liberate all other beings by sharing his story of awakening to luminous reality.
The post The Parable of Luminous Reality appeared first on zen habits.
By Leo Babauta
I’ve noticed that most of us let ourselves be driven by our resistance to something difficult, scary, unknown.
We take on a hard task — creating something, for example — and then we feel some kind of resistance. Or maybe it feels like overwhelm. It’s simply uncertainty, and fear of the unknown.
This is quite normal, to feel uncertainty, fear, resistance, overwhelm. Then we let it drive our actions, letting the fear be in the drivers seat. That’s pretty normal too, and very understandable.
What would it be like if we didn’t need ot let this resistance drive us?
What if we could let ourselves stay in the uncertainty, feel the resistance … and then transform it into creativity and action?
Let’s take a look at the two parts of that.
So the first thing is you have to set aside some space for whatever you’re resisting. Warning: this step can be a doozy. We somehow always find ourselves too busy to make time for the thing we’re resisting. We’re so busy! We don’t have time for that scary thing! Funny how that works.
So if you notice that you never have time for it … make the time. Set aside some time. Maybe 15 minutes in the morning, maybe 30. Cut out some Netflix, Youtube, or social media time, and make time for this. Put it on the calendar, and commit yourself fully.
OK, let’s say you do that … now you find yourself in that block of time, and all of a sudden, everything else seems so much more urgent! Your emails are suddenly irresistible. Your kitchen magically needs some cleaning.
Stay here, don’t abandon the task. Your resistance wants to drive you away, but you’re going to try something different. An act of leadership rather than letting life happen to you.
Sit still for a minute. Let yourself feel the resistance. Not the thoughts about how you can’t do this, or how you should do it later … but the sensation of resistance in your body. The sensation of overwhelm and fear and uncertainty. It’s simply a sensation, an experience.
Be with it. If it feels like more than you can handle, stay a few moments longer. It’s a training, to be able to stay mindfully present with the feeling of resistance.
With practice, you learn that it’s not a big deal. You can be with it, with non-judgment, gentleness, even love.
Once you’ve done that, there’s another incredible way to work with this energy in your body. It feels like something you don’t want … but actually, it’s just energy.
This is the energy of life. Of being human. Of fear and meaning. Of learning and creating. Of discovering something new. Of connecting and falling in love.
This energy is not something to expel from your life, but rather to use in your creation. What can you create in this place of resistance, in the unknown? Can you let yourself stay curious, and explore? What might emerge, if you stay open here?
From this place, your deepest creation will be uncovered. You begin to realize that you are not the inventor of your creations but the discoverer of them. You begin to get excited about what might be unearthed in the unknown.
This is magic. What are you waiting for?
The post Creating When You Feel Resistance appeared first on zen habits.
By Leo Babauta
I’m on my first international flight since the pandemic started, and I got lucky enough to have a window seat. Flying to Costa Rica by way of Guatemala to lead a retreat, I’m looking out at a vast expanse of mountains in Mexico … and I’m in absolute awe.
What a miracle this is, to be flying so magically through the air, over such majestic stretches of this Earth!
I noticed that when I was traveling a lot before, I got pretty jaded about flights. Ho hum, another flight, let’s get this over with, no big deal, I’m an experienced traveler, not some wide-eyed child. How did I get this jaded to the wonders of life? How do any of us get so jaded?
Life is miraculous. Life is filled with wonders. Life is majestic and magical.
And I don’t just mean the magic of flight — which our ancestors would have thought was sorcery, by the way. I mean the magic of toasters and heating and houseplants. I mean the miracles of each human being we encounter on the street, the wonder of having someone love you, the sacredness of grief and heartbreak, the joys of a berry.
Every moment, we have the opportunity to wake up to wonder, to awe, to everyday miracles. It is enough to make your heart leap with joy, to overwhelm your soul, if you let it. Every day, we have access to this, in so much abundance.
Will you let it in?
The post Everyday Wonder appeared first on zen habits.
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