Don't Figure It Out: Live It Out!

We spend an inordinate amount of time and energy devoting our literal life essence in an attempt to do, what cannot be done. When we start to shift more and more of that energy over to what can be done, and in alignment with our goals, we are then practicing an incredible power to manifest all that we desire. In this "tell the truth now, tell the truth later" method of success, all of our dreams, with no one and no thing left out, have the greatest possibility of coming true in real time and space. That, more than anything else, is the world I desire to live within. In the online seminar I present, this is the world that is offered to every single one of those who complete the entire thirty weeks, and without exception.

What is it, then, that cannot be done? This thing that we devote so much of our time and energy to? Simple. We cannot, will not, will never, ever, change a single detail of the past, and especially, we won't ever change a single thing that has ever happened, through the futile process of "figuring it out." Yet we have the expectation, whether voiced or not, that through our prodigious efforts, that somehow we can "make right" what we feel "isn't right" through this ineffective means. Yet no matter what we "think" about it, what has happened, has happened, and that cannot be undone. Not with our figuring it out, not with our anger, not with our upset, not with our frustration, not with all the explanations of "why" in the world, and not with our repeating it in our minds over and over and over and over again, not once, not ever. If the snowflake fell, it's on the ground. It can melt, you can stomp on it, you can curse at it, you can even try to punish it for falling by ruining your life trying to get it back for what has already been done, and still, truth is, it fell. Doesn't sound like you? I'm not done yet.

How about the tried and false method of attempting to "figure it out" so that somehow you can make things right? We spend an obscene amount of our very life essence devoting our efforts to trying to figure things out, without ever, not once, not ever, coming up with an answer that ever prevents the past from happening, because the irony is, once we begin our futile attempt to explain what cannot be explained, it's already happened. It's like going to the scene of the crime with all of our equipment, and no matter what we do, the guy's still going to be dead. The difference is, we arrive at the scene of our lives with the expectation that our efforts are going to change, what cannot be changed. Only in the case of our histories, we go with all of our equipment, already knowing who did what and when. So all of our efforts to explain "why" for instance, someone did something, their motivations, their reasons, how they felt and what they meant, is totally, absolutely, and irrevocably, useless. Go figure.

Or don't. How about not trying to figure it out anymore? And instead, simply, live it out. Don't try to analyze why what happened, happened, because even if you do come up with an "answer" it won't matter, it won't change the past, and most likely, very likely in fact, it will simply be something we come up with to cloud over some truth about the past, so our answers will not ever be accurate. What will be accurate, and what would make a difference, is to simply tell the truth about how we feel about what happened, and then if necessary, meaning, if effective, take measures to insure that it will not happen again. For instance, if you once ran up a credit card bill that then acted as a catalyst to bankruptcy, as I once did, you now know, without having to figure out anything, that to do that again would not be a wise choice. You would also know, if you are telling the truth about how you feel, that this all came out of some fear of lack you have, and most likely, still have. In this case, you would then make every attempt to insure that this situation did not happen again. Take a class, ask advice, make a budget, cut up the cards, whatever you have to do, do it. And also, tell the truth about your fear. "Hey, ending up with nothing scares the heck out of me." The invitation here is to use whatever language resonates with the truth about how you feel.

In the case of relationship, we often try to figure out why others did what they did, even when they don't know why they did what they did, and most likely they just did it. Often on autopilot, by the way. Truth is, as the truth is in any of these cases, what happened, happened, and we feel a certain way about it. Since we have been so trained to hide our true feelings, what we do is try to figure out why they did what they did, and then on and on argue with them about trying to fix, change, or somehow mitigate their already taken actions, with apologies, and tears, all while hearing endless explanations from them, along with our own endless explanations, of why, why, why. Whew!

If instead, we all told the truth, and then believed others who also told the truth, what a more powerful world of fulfillment and satisfaction we would live within! And that world is available to each and every one of us, in each and every moment we live, the moment we stop trying to figure it out and instead, begin to live it out.

By way of practical example, we often find ourselves in relationships where we hide the way we really feel by either attacking our partner with claims of having figured out their motivations, or being attacked by our partner with claims of having figured out our motivations. Danger Will Robinson! That is the perfect scenario for upset and argument, a totally avoidable scenario by the way, if only one or the other would tell the truth about how they feel! Not that it's always easy, because sometimes I only realize how I feel after a day has passed, but if you begin to practice immediately revealing how you feel the moment you do realize that truth, then the time spent not knowing how you feel will begin to diminish. So will the time spent arguing over figuring it out! Where once it was two days, then one, now it's closer to a few hours before authentic communication takes place after a breakdown between us. And that's a whole lot better, time wise, than it was in the past! Not perfect yet, as if it will ever be, because that's not what relationship is all about, but more and more of the time we are devoting less and less of our life energy over to what cannot be done, and instead, over to what can be done.

What can be done? What can be done is to tell the truth about yourself, and to give up trying to figure out or explain the motivations of others entirely. For instance, I do not know why, unless I am told directly, the motivations behind my partner's upsets. I have no idea. What I do know is, when she gets upset, she often comes up with the most elaborate explanations for my behavior, why I did it, what I was feeling, what my motivations were, when in truth, she does not know a single one of these things. That's when I stopped listening to her stories, and began to search for how she really felt. Turns out, she, and any one of us, can only feel one of two ways: either loving, or fearful. If instead of listening to her stories, I ask her how she truly feels, the whole argument, the whole blame game, the whole pointing her finger "out there" in an attempt to "figure out" why what has already happened, happened, goes away, and what comes to the surface is the simple truth, usually "That really scared me." That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. As simple as that. And any and all stories that flow from that fear? They're stories, maybe with some grains of truth that you need to work on to make the relationship more agreeable, maybe not. In every case the bottom line was: I was scared. That's it.

How then, does this look, in reality? An example would be driving home on one snowy night, in two separate cars. I was behind her, and given that I come from New England, I know how to drive safely on the ice and snow. I'm careful, but I don't want to go a single mile per hour slower than I have to in order to be safe. When I realized she was going slower than I was able to safely go, I passed her, thinking that she would be fine since she was creeping along, and I simply was impatient to get home after a long night out. I kept my phone on, knowing that she could call if she needed me to come back out, and I also knew exactly what route she was taking. Everything seemed to be fine, at least to me!

When she got home, from the look on her face, I knew that I had made a big mistake! Her upset over me "abandoning her" in the ice and snow, went on for so long, that it dawned on me that all these stories came from her past and her past fears she had never expressed before, about being left alone, about her impressions of what a "man" should do in relationship to his "woman" and how it must have meant that I felt she wasn't important to me because I left her, and on and on and on, all about what I felt, what I thought, and what my motivations were! That's when I realized that something else must have been going on here than what she was saying, because there was no way, she could know these things about me in her normal state of mind, and now especially since she was in the middle of an upset, she couldn't know them either, since upset only serves to further cloud our minds!

That's when I asked her, and in asking, was authentically willing to listen. I asked her how she felt. At first, this was resisted greatly, but after she realized that the truth was, my going past her simply brought up all these fears, and that she was in truth, simply scared, there was nothing more for her to say, and nothing to do but for her to allow herself to feel the fear that she was feeling. What did it mean? That she was afraid. What did my actions mean? That I drove home. Nothing more, nothing less, than that. Once I realized that she was afraid, I could hug her and tell her that I was truly sorry that fear had come up for her, while at the same time happy that she had an opportunity to look at all these other autopilot explanations, thoughts, emotions, figuring it out, and upsets, that had for so long been lurking under the skin, making her tired just keeping the maintenance of them up for so many years. It was like a bubble of truth bursting for her, and the freedom any of us gain through this process can only be met with the following words when our fears bring up all this junk: Thank You! Now that's what relationship is really for, like it or not! Because such truth and realization gains us enormous freedom to be ourselves, regardless of what's happening around us, or more importantly, what's happened around us, that we cannot ever change.

Thank you is the most powerful response to say for giving me this opportunity to realize the truth about all this stuff every single one of us, without exception, carry around with us, and that comes out at times of upset. In this way, upset then becomes something valuable for us, a trigger mechanism for cleaning house. And the most obvious signal that we are upset is the process of trying to "figure it out." Because the mind will have you attempt to do, what cannot be done, in order to cover up what you feel. It's either scared or loving, so deal with it!