Our mind is always searching for something to hold onto. Wanting to know what it’s dealing with, what to do, how to go on. But how can life’s mysterious wonder unfold itself to you when everything is fixed and organised into familiar images and concepts?
Can you feel how being in control and wanting to know, leads to inner tension? How it limits your life? Making your work ridgid? Freedom, happiness and being in the flow require letting go of control. Daring to embrace the not-knowing. Only then life can show itself in its full glory. Only then you, your work, or your organisation can reach its full potential.
There is a creative strength in me that always wants to grow and develop. I want to develop myself as a person, be more ‘zen’, allowing me to be there for others in a more pure form. I also want to develop myself in my work, so I can be of better help to others. At times this driving force wants to go faster than the naturally occurring flow of that moment.
My body always gives a clear sign,
when I go against the natural flow
My body always gives a clear sign, when I go against the natural flow. When I am pushing and pulling, not allowing the process the time it needs. But often I am not aware of this. Busy as I am looking for ideas that can shape my longings. Surfing on the internet from one site to the other, filling in to-do lists, wondering whether I should sign up for one of those American type marketing seminars. As long as I know who and what, as long as I have tools and clear-cut action points, I can go on.
If my full attention were on my body, then I would clearly feel the tension. The tightness in my shoulders, my stomach not being completely relaxed, my mind restless and not truly focused. The liveliness is missing and I am definitely not in any flow.
Just as in nature, every creative process requires a time of turning inwards, and a time of growth, of producing fruits or seeds. Sometimes I forget how important it is to let winter do her work. A period of retrieving inwards, moving the attention to the roots. Even when all seems dead and there are no signs of progress, trusting that there still is movement. That my roots become stronger, that the longing becomes grounded.
Precisely in this not-knowing lies the greatest treasure
Time and time again I discover that in the stillness, in the not-knowing, lies the greatest treasure. There where all possibilities are still free to be developed, where there is no interference of the mind, where there are no frameworks that determine direction. When I dare to be present, with everything that is there, patient and trusting, the ripening process is executed at the most favorable pace.
Whatever wants to unfold itself will arise at exactly the right time. Exactly when I am (or the process is) ready. The best ideas usually occur to me when I am not thinking about them. During a shower or when I am out for a walk. When I am doing nothing.
And when I then come into action, this happens naturally. I’m in a flow. It seems as if the entire universe is working with me to materialise my longing. Suddenly the right people come my way, I find support from surprising angles, I myself am alert and receptive and my creative mind works optimally.
We are so afraid of standing still. Our work mustn’t stand still, the economy mustn’t stand still, organisations mustn’t stand still, science mustn’t stand still. What if we would let this fear of standing still go and trust that there is always movement, as long as we remain in tune with our longings and our intentions? Not letting go of our longings but letting of our attachment to direct results. What would that be like?