I ponder that question during one of the most intense healing moments I’ve ever felt – a visceral sensation that takes me back to childhood; to a time, I felt helpless, alone and unworthy. It’s my own mind that makes this difficult. I realize my resistance, and in a split second the whole universe is open to me; every possibility mine to pursue, including letting this difficult, seemingly impossible healing moment be easy.
Everything is easy if you think it is.
Everything is impossible if you think it is. When I realized that through disciplining my thoughts I could have an experience of life that I chose, my eyes widened. I had just discovered one of the most amazing secrets – through the thoughts, feelings, and emotions, but especially through my awareness of and response to them, I had a ticket to happiness and freedom.
Byron Katie tells us to love what is. Her work is this work of awareness. Part of loving what is and creating ease and flow in your life is realizing that what is is perceived through your own unique lens, different from everyone and anyone around you. How you perceive, think about, react to and then take action on these thoughts dictates your experience, your future, your everything.
So anything can be easy. Really, anything. “This feels_____,” is one of my favorite go-to exercises when something feels hard, difficult, scary or impossible. I break down the thought into a physical feeling with my awareness. This powerful tool will bring you from thinking to sensing, from left to right brain and from putting any extra meaning on something, to allowing it to just be what is.
A friend texted me the other day, “She hasn’t responded yet. That must mean she’s angry.” I replied, “What if she’s just busy and hasn’t been able to respond yet? Don’t add extra meaning to something you don’t know yet.” It’s the meaning we put on the reality that messes with our heads. It’s how we think something is, rather than how it actually is that creates the difficult feeling in our life events and relationships.
The reality for my friend? He texted someone. They hadn’t responded yet. That’s it. Even though the circumstances around that exchange had been somewhat dramatic and complicated, the reality in that moment was simple. Easy.
It’s easy if you think it’s easy.
So instead of reacting, over-thinking and then adding meaning to a situation, stop, take a deep breath, drop down into your physical body and ask yourself, “What does this feel like?” When you flip the switch and let your body drive your moment, all that really exists is a physical sensation of one form or another. You can begin to get curious about those sensations. What they mean for you, what messages they are giving you about your moment.
My most anxious moments are made ten times worse when I forget to do this one simple thing. I feel tense and anxious about something and then my mind goes into an overdrive fix-it mode, creating every possible scenario, both good and bad, that could occur. It sorts it all out, without having all the information. It seems desperate to move from the moment to a future moment with a solution, instead of just riding the current moment and it’s feeling.
The problem is we’ve been taught to do this, to fix things, to solve the problems, to not feel but instead to think; to be lost in our past memories or future plans. And that right there is when it gets difficult. We think we should be able to fix things, or that they should be different, so when we can’t fix it panic ensues. And this creates more over-thinking which creates a vicious cycle of resistance, anxiety, doubt, fear and stuckness.
From a feeling state, we can let the present moment be our guide and respond from a different place. “It’s not easy to feel,” I hear some of my brave healer colleagues say. “It’s not easy to be vulnerable,” is another one I hear. But moving to this state of feeling vs. thinking is only as difficult as you think it is. Your mind is what’s getting in the way of it being easy.
I talk about the difficult, sometimes impossible work of healing and what I mean is – it’s difficult because you think it is. It’s difficult because you think there’s something to be fixed. It’s difficult because you’re not letting your body drive the bus. Instead, you’re letting yourself get caught up in an old, conditioned way of thinking and believing; that life has to be hard.
Whatever scenario of life you’re experiencing this week, practice being present and in a feeling state. Practice observing your thoughts about it all. Watch how you slip into the past or future thinking, the fix-it mode, and right out of your feeling body again. Be persistent about dropping back in, and feeling instead.
Make this easy. Start telling yourself it is. Start believing it. Choose another way. It’s all up to you! Freedom and happiness is one aware moment away.
– Laura
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Laura Di Franco, MPT is an intuitive writing strategist, holistic physical therapist, published author, poet and third-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do with over two decades of experience in healing. She teaches transformational tools and powerful strategy for nourishing and inspiring your fiercely alive whole self. Learn more about Laura on her website.
