Relax into your being. The first time I heard this, my immediate response was incredulity. Relax? What’s that? As a work-a-holic doer, I must admit that being was something I tended to approach the way I might an arcane subject like the derivatives market or string theory.
Now that I am older and (presumably) wiser, it seems such a basic thing just to rest, rejuvenate and be in the now.
When I get stuck, Spotted Eagle loves to harangue me with this admonition: “It’s not about doing. It’s about being!” Sounds great! Now for the way I experience it, which sounds more like a grammar lesson than an existential moment: Being in a body. Being in my body. Being embodied. Being. Being authentic. Being honest. Being true to myself.
You’ll notice we don’t say, doing authentic or doing honest or doing true to oneself. However, we can truthfully speak about doing, as in doing our work or doing our taxes. And while I know we are capable of being our work, it is not something I would recommend, having been there and done that!
Life breaks into new territory. We don’t say doing life or being life. We do say being alive, or simply that we live. We live feels true. We die, doesn’t feel quite true, but regardless, we don’t say, her body died. We say, she died. Funny that.
Hamlet played with it. To be, or not to be. That really is the question, and after fiddling around with it, I finally came to the conclusion that, when we approach it from the perspective of inner work, to be or not be has nothing to do with living or dying. It has everything to do with being present to my now moment, or dying to my now moment. No more. No less.
And you’ll notice that we don’t say, be relax or do relax. We say simply, Relax! Now, there’s word to live by.
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