Come What May

Let go of what has happened.

Let go of what may come.

Let go of what is happening now.

Don’t try to figure anything out.

Don’t try to make anything happen.

Relax, right now, and rest.

~Tilopa

Maybe I was born this way, or perhaps my work as a lawyer informed my instinct towards this particular complex behavior: analyze what’s before me, anticipate what might happen next and plan around it; never be caught unawares.  Name it.  Label it.  Define it.  As if by doing so I can somehow prevent or create the inevitable.  While this may be a real strength for my business clients, or when planning an event, it can wreak havoc in my personal life.

Like when trying to have a baby.  Who knew it would be so complicated?  I monitor my basal body temperature each morning before I get out of bed.  Then I pee on a very expensive stick to see if I’ve ovulated.  My husband and I time “the deed” around all of this data, at the risk of sucking the joy out of sex.  I take fistfuls of supplements to strengthen my immune system and improve egg quality.  I haven’t had real coffee in over a year, worried about the impact of caffeine on my body and future baby, which may or may not come.  When I do get pregnant again, I’m certain to walk on eggshells for fear of losing the baby to miscarriage like the other two.  I spend a lot of energy trying to shape the outcome of something that time has proven I have very little control over. 

How many times have I tried to make something happen?  Waiting; so focused on what happened in the past; striving to make something happen in the future; trying to figure it all out.  It’s exhausting. 

We’ve all done it to greater or lesser degrees.  The offices of psychotherapists are filled with people who can’t quit doing it—this inclination to look to the future and dwell on the past; to micromanage the way it will all turn out.  It’s maddening, and quite possibly our greatest obstacle to finding true happiness and peace of mind.

Yet how can we be expected to stay grounded in our experience moment by moment when filled with dreams and desires that require some measure of forward thought, planning, vision and movement to make them real? Anyone who has pursued higher education, written a book, started a business, built a house, had a baby, or lived their dreams with any measure of success will tell you that it doesn’t just happen by waking up in the morning and wishing it so.  It takes action, commitment, planning and patience, while the crop ripens or the idea matures.

I’m learning that while having a vision is crucial to creating the life that I desire, things go much more smoothly when I let them unfold in their own time, when I give up control and let the how and why reveal itself, which is no easy task.  I’m not very good at it.

Still, I try. . . to let go, to not try, to just be; to relax right now, and rest; come what may.