Get out of your own way

The more I tap into experience. The more I sit quietly and observe. The more I realize that I am getting in my own way. 

It’s so natural to imagine that we have to do something. Constantly doing. Constantly striving. Evolution has required it of us. Society has expected it of us. So it’s only natural to take this doing into our meditative of mindful living practice.
But the more I sit. The more I allow. The more I realize that the doing, itself, is a form of resistance. And the thing I was trying to achieve is already right there. 

I mean that literally and figuratively. Each sense, every experience, is already right here. 

Try it out for yourself. 

Sound. - Right there. Listening is already happening behind the thoughts.

Sight - Right there. Seeing has already occurred before you can even tell yourself to see. 

Touch - Right there. The sensation is lingering behind the world your mind has created. 

The soft pointer is the allow this experience to be itself. 

The harsher version is to get out of your own way. 

In practice this can look like an intention without effort. We start by making the intention to hear, without going and trying to listen. Again, listening is already there. What do you need to try to listen for? Often, for me, it’s the doing of the listening that wakes up the mind. The doing, that brings on thoughts and emotions. But if I just sit back, rest, and let the listening happen…. Well, then I realize that it was already there. And I have nothing to do, but rest, and let listening occur.

How many ways do do get in our own way by thinking there is something to do to make this experience more meaningful? How often do we brush past the beauty, tragedy, and amazement of life only in search of the minds version of a perfect experience? When, all along, the perfect experience was already here. Already happening while we were off day dreaming of a different version of perfection.