The real title is actually: The question is not “What is broken and how do we fix it?” The question is “What is possible and how shall we create it?”
When we attempt to fix rather than heal we end up in a struggle.
Once you decide that sugar is the enemy and must go, you may find yourself in a struggle, with all your attention on the sugar. Another option is to pull back and shift you attention. “What do I want to be eating?” Simply put more of what you do want to be eating on your plate. Stay focused, keep increasing the foods you do want to be eating and in time they crowd out what you didn’t want to be eating. Move towards what you do want.
Life, energy, Qi, they’re always movement. If you end up in a struggle, in opposition, there’s going to be tension. No movement, so disengage, shift your attention to what you do want and move with it! Drop the struggle, find movement, find flow, find creativity.
Time for cigarettes to go? Resisting cigarettes can lead to what’s known as “white knuckle sobriety” among other folks. Lots of tension. And sugar or nicotine or whatever tend to win the struggle. In my acupuncture practice I don’t team up with one half of you to force the other half to stop smoking. I don’t try to make you stop. I got over that years ago! I spend time coaching you in a range of skills that will enable you to make different choices as well as move you towards what you do want. I’ll walk with you, I avoid getting into a struggle with you!
The secret is to be curious: How have cigarettes supported me, what essential role have they played, what do they bring? Then I can seek other ways to have those gifts that cigarettes have been bringing.
Be curious, pay attention, notice whenever tension shows up in your body. Pull back, be more curious: What do I want to move towards? With a childlike curiosity you can take this principle to all struggles, all areas that seem broken and need fixing - all illnesses.
Had enough of anxiety? Remember, it’s a habit of checking for danger. Hey, it’s on your team! Don’t struggle with it, focus on what you do want to be experiencing: The experience of safety. (See my piece: Hacking Anxiety.)
Drop the struggle. Seek out what’s really possible in your life, what’s your spirit calling for? When we align with what’s true for us, with our authentic nature, it’s powerful and life flows with much greater ease.
Drop the struggle, focus on life, on movement, on something big enough to live in.
