How to Loosen Up

There is only one thing we need to control and that is our own reactions. And the way to control our reactions is to loosen up by letting go. For instance, it's become clear that blaming other for our painful reactions has proven worse than useless; that answer has turned some of our friends into enemies. The life of real wisdom already lives within us. Choose to make this discovery and we will learn how to loosen up by letting go. You may not be able to think your way out of a nagging problem, but you can see your way clear of it. It is in your seeing that will bring you freedom.

It is our own self-observation that is the key to this higher order of awareness. Self-observation allows us to understand. The silent observer that lives within does not think, it sees light of our new understanding. This higher freedom comes in direct proportion to what we are willing to learn about ourselves. Everything in life should be a learning experience instead of a proving one. We learn for ourselves that we have been teaching ourselves incorrectly. Anything that resists correction is part of what is wrong. So we must learn to let go of those parts of us that do the resisting. We can learn by self-observation, the need to loosen up and then letting go.

Be a willing participant and look in the right direction. At first it will be humiliating to see and then admit that you only thought you were in the driver seat. The good news is we are never trapped by where we are. The trap is always who we are. To learn how to loosen up by letting go can help you to inwardly grow and the easier your whole life flows. Spiritual knowledge is something we think of as mysterious but in fact spiritual understanding is the most important and practical knowledge a person can possess. In loosening up and letting go we learn compassion. We no longer want to add to another person's suffering, even though it may seem to increase our own. We think we must push life in the direction we choose. That is what keeps us in a strained and unhappy relationship with it. We do not need power to flow, so feel free to loosen up by letting go. Allow intelligence to take you where you need to be - which is out of the battle. Whenever we seek some power to make some fear go away, all we do is empower the fear and give it a life that we call ours. Our real safety is what we can see about this world, not what we can win from it.

It is not what life has brought you that you don't want. It is your reactions that turn the gift of life into the resentment of it. It is your own ideas about life that have failed you. What happens when you want what you want? You become nervous and anxious because life may not cooperate with your plans. We were not made in our own image. When you want what life wants you are never disappointed with what happens.

Something to think about: If any want is the source of anxiety or sorrow, that want is yours and not life's. If it has pain, it's in vain. See that you are being washed away and grow tired of it. Learn how to loosen up by letting go. If you want to measure the level of an individuals stress, measure his insistence that life does what he wants. Letting go of old ideas is the only way to really invite something new.

Do not look back at regret. Regret only ties you to the old life level that doesn't know better and keeps you from the one that does. Let the fighting end. Don't let the current of the past dictate the direction of the present. It is never right to feel wrong, no matter how right you think you are. Letting go and walking away from the mental how into the spiritual now teaches you everything you need to know about how to proceed. Life is kind. Life is trying to tell you about it and the vastness of its immeasurable riches that already belong to you.