Relax and Struggle: This is the Way

I don't meditate in a traditional sense. I used to worry about this because so many people that I admire talk about how beneficial it is, but I tried many days and many ways and it never really did much for me. I even had people tell me that I must be doing something wrong, but those people weren't able to clearly explain exactly what was wrong, so I explained to them. That's often just because something that's available to you doesn't mean the ritual or the result is available to someone else in the same way. I came to the conclusion that I'm just not the person who's going to meditate in a traditional way, and that's okay for me to make that decision. Now I meditate by hiking through the woods for a couple hours, sometimes listening to a book, sometimes in complete silence, and I also meditate by losing myself and playing the piano and singing, sometimes for hours at a time. I don't feel like I'm missing a thing, but there is a principle of meditation that I heard that really stuck with me, and it's something I use often in my regular life. I even built my own mantra around it and it's been life changing. Let's talk about that in five, four, three, two, one. I was listening to a guided meditation one day and the guide said pay attention to your breathing. Your mind is going to wander and when you catch yourself wandering, congratulate yourself on catching this and go back to focusing on your breathing. That's it. I woke up from my nap and I wrote that phrase down in my journal, along with a couple other words that came to my mind relax and struggle. When you catch yourself wandering, congratulate yourself for catching it and then get back to the task. What a freeing thought. Instead of being angry with yourself or chastising yourself for not doing the right thing, use this phrase to recognize that perhaps your mind wandering was the right thing and bringing yourself back to the task is also the right thing. Even if the wandering wasn't the right thing, it's gone. There's nothing you can do about it now. So forgive, forget and just move on to the next right thing. Can you imagine, as you set about your tasks for the day, if you gave yourself the freedom to wander and think freely and creatively and then, when you catch yourself doing this, you feel good about what just happened and return to your task? About two years ago, i began running my life this way and a surprising thing happened When I had a difficult task ahead of me, i wasn't worried about it anymore. It was something I had to do anyways. So what is the point of fighting it in my mind? What was the point of allowing all that poisonous thinking to go on and on, thoughts of how much I'm going to hate the task, how I wish I didn't have to do it, or constantly seeking ways to avoid what was coming. All of these negative thoughts did come, but now it was a lot easier to handle because of that practice of pure self-compassion, just allowing myself to come back to what I'm supposed to be doing or what I wanted to be doing my intention. I congratulated myself for catching the thoughts and then moved on to a more productive way of thinking. There's real truth to the fact that we are not our thoughts and that the voice inside our head isn't really us, although it's deceptive enough at times to make us think so. But you're something more than your thoughts, because you are able to be outside of your thoughts, observing them and changing them, just like you're able to be outside of your body, observing your body and changing what your body does. So this phrase relax and struggle that I came up with, no matter what your mission is. The more you tense up against it, the harder it's gonna be. The more you're able to observe the products of your own brain and purposefully choose which to hang on to and which to let go of, the more you're gonna realize how much control you actually have over your mind and your thinking. It's not always easy, but a periodical checkup on your thinking is definitely possible. You can set reminders on your phone every hour, every 15 minutes, however long you think you need to have between checking in to say, hey, what are my thoughts, what am I thinking? right now I'm researching information for a book as we speak. Don't worry, i am not trying to sell it to you here. I can't even promise that it's ever gonna be written or published because of where my dedications are. But the book is called Relax and Struggle. The theme is constant through sports and art and the martial arts, trades and pretty much everywhere I look, the best of the best are able to relax while they struggle. In the martial arts, if you tense up, you are slower and less powerful. Mechanics know how to use the right tool for the right job and contractors know how to let the tool do its work. Piano players stay loose to play those difficult passages and they practice staying loose because tensing up makes it so much harder to play those passages, if not impossible. Magicians are on the lookout to always move. Naturally, they never tense up at the time they do any sleight of hand, because that tension is gonna be recognized by the audience and someone's gonna see what they did or at least expect that something odd happened. Tension blocks movement in your body and your mind. You can relax and let yourself be yourself. If you end up somewhere you don't want to be, congratulate yourself for realizing that and then just head towards somewhere you want to be. All of this started for me when I heard the phrase congratulate yourself and then bring your focus back to what you want to focus on. Now, for example, when it comes time to exercise and I just don't feel like it and I find myself internally fighting about the whole situation, i'm able to observe those thoughts and ask myself why I don't want to, and then let those thoughts fly away or dissipate. While I get to work on exercising, thoughts seem to become heavier and heavier the more you hold on to them, and the thoughts that oppose your purpose can be a stronghold that is difficult to overcome. As soon as you let them go, that weight disappears. I will never say this is easy. It's probably gonna be something that I struggle with all my life, and there are times that I have to remind myself of something I heard Jim Rohn say. He's one of my favorite modern philosophers. He said if it's easy, do it easy. If it's hard, do it hard, just get it done. Hey, thanks for listening. Send me an email at matt at secondmixnet and let me know what you're struggling with. I respond to every email. I'll see you when I see you.