Say sayonara to striving

I found this sentence inside a blog written by Susan Piver. She was talking to Stephen Mitchell about the difference between positive thinking and wishful thinking.

Susan wrote,

I asked him if, in his lifelong study of the core teachings of all religions, he’d ever come across this idea. I wrote down what he said, because it was so excellent. Here it is:

The teaching of every one of the great sacred texts is that control is an illusion. When you understand that ultimately you are not the doer, you can step back from yourself. That is the only path to serenity.  In other words, letting go of the illusion of control, and realizing that you never had it in the first place, allows you to live in the most dazzlingly intelligent, beautiful, and kind reality that you could ever have imagined—and beyond what you could have imagined.

"All I have to do is relax, to allow the world to dazzle me instead of the other way around."

STOP. STOP READING NOW.

GO BACK AND READ THAT SENTENCE AGAIN AND SAY IT OUT LOUD. TAKE SOME TIME TO PAUSE AND ALLOW YOU BODY-HEART-MIND TO PROCESS THAT SENTENCE.

WHEW!!! What a relief.

An underlying, background striving tension just  slips away and long, deep breaths get sucked into my body where the tension used to be. I’m going to make this my modus operandi for a while.

I am Cheshire-cat-curious about what will come!