You live in two worlds. One of them you share with everyone else. But I'm not talking about that one here. The other one, your own inner world, is yours and yours only. So you best make it nice in there.
The fact of the matter is, we make our inner worlds a living hell. We kill ourselves daily and then expect something else to fix us down the line. That's why we need the pay raise, the vacation, and the big house to make us feel better. We're struggling, and we think getting those things will end the struggle, or at least make the struggle worth it.
But there's an alternate approach, which is to just learn to feel better without all of those things. It's to stop making yourself miserable, to learn how to be okay with not being okay.
This is hard work, and it's the work of a lifetime. But so is struggling until your deathbed. So which avenue will you take? Continue to fight against reality trying to fix the outside world so that your inner world is okay? Or, just work directly with your inner world?
I'd say the latter is the more logical approach. Who said spirituality wasn't practical? It's about the most practical thing on Earth, if you ask me.
So here's how you work with things. The minute you notice a disturbance inside, you relax. Not your mind, your heart, or your body. But you. You who notices the disturbance needs to relax. It's okay that everything else wants to blow up and throw a tantrum. All you need to do is to remember you're in there, aware of the mess inside of you, and then let it be.
Everything you normally do in those situations of disturbance is just an attempt to avoid what's uncomfortable. But no, you're wiser than that. You know better.
Instead of trying to fix the situation, just relax around the discomfort.
When we learn to leave things alone rather than getting involved, they'll eventually come and go. The reason nothing seems to go now is because you're still holding onto it.
In the end, it's your world in there. You were given free will to decide how you respond to the outside world. And so it all comes down to one question. Do you want your inner world to be nice, or not?
I think we both know the answer.
Live with substance!
Gabe Orlowitz
