Wide Awake Living Newsletter

So many of us, myself included, have learned early in life how to make ourselves do the things that we think need to be done. Often that can also include what the people around us think need to be done, or that society dictates need to be done. We spend our lives being obedient to to-do lists that reflect all the permutations of this, and all of it is generated one way or another out of our thinking mind's assumption of our separateness.

Often we set up some ideas for ourselves about what life is supposed to turn out looking like (from our culture, our family, our experiences with what is possible, and whatever examples our life has given us). Out of all of that we decide how life is "supposed" to go, and make our to-do lists and our calendars reflect our best ideas about how to achieve our mind-made goals.

Then life tends to thwart us in some way; maybe we just get exhausted, or else we achieve our goal but it doesn't satisfy us. One way or another we become ready for a different process of being in the world. We stop the pushing and we notice what is already Here.

What is Here in any moment is just what it is. If we stop thinking that it should be something else (our picture of success or anything else) then we can enjoy it as is. Life just turns out exactly the way it does, that's all.

It gets really interesting to see this, to really let this in, and then to continue living without a push to somewhere else. Our first reaction might be that such living would be a static existence, but then we notice that existence isn't static at all! Existence has its own motion, quite separate from the goal-oriented mind-made pushing motion of the separate self.

Existence moves from joy of movement. It moves from the delight in its ability to move. It gets out of bed in the morning just because it happens, not because it has to. It takes a shower not out of some goal to fix itself through cleaning, but for the joy and freedom of having that possibility.

Our lives can now take on the motion of existence itself, moving our bodies, our moods, our jobs, our relationships, or not moving them. We let the energy of existence have us, and do with us what it will. What is Here in each moment is so incredibly perfect, just as it is, even when its painful, and the way that it moves while staying so incredibly perfect all the time is a miracle beyond belief.

I have been realizing as people write to me from the website that what the website offers is particularly helpful for spiritually minded people who are living in more or less isolated areas without the support of like-minded people around them.

I am in an outreach mode at the moment to try to reach out to those people and offer them whatever support and inspiration is possible through this internet based modality. This is really a community project.

The internet is such an amazing tool for networking.

If you know of people who might benefit from being connected in this way, please use the "send to a friend" button below or just send them the Wide Awake Living web site link and let them check it out.

As for the upcoming book, I am in the thick of the content-edit process, and expect to have a manuscript ready in a couple of weeks, but have no clue how long it will take after that to actually be ready to print. Anyone do book layout out there?