Don't Hold Your Plans Too Tightly | Be Open To Possibilities

When we get too attached to our plans for the future, when things don't go the way we expect, we find ourselves with a lot of disappointment and unhappiness. Alternatively when we have a plan and add in "Let's see" we are more open to the possibilities of each moment - the wonder and awe of our lives.

Transcript

So you caught yourself yesterday,

Your son is moving,

Moves back from Germany August 1st,

Where your ego created this whole story,

Yay,

Now I'll be happy,

Now all my loneliness will disappear.

And then yesterday he told me he's expanding his job search to include Europe.

All the teachings came flooding in and you were disappointed,

But now I'm once again living in this moment.

But yeah,

And it's,

I mean,

You can see that the disappointment was proportionate to the I'll be so happy,

Right,

Because you got attached to something.

But then the teachings came right back in,

Like,

Yeah,

Oh,

Okay,

Oh,

I see what's going on.

Okay,

I see what's going on here.

Yep.

And disappointment,

Like,

It's okay to feel that.

And it's okay also,

Like,

To feel the joy of like,

Oh,

My son's,

You know,

He might be coming back.

That's nice.

That would be really nice to have him in the same country.

Not to get too far into the story,

Because that's when we start,

The tentacles come out,

And we start getting attached to it.

But,

And then just always,

I just find always to be like,

Yeah,

You know,

That would be nice if that were to happen like that.

Like,

Yeah,

That would be really cool,

But let's see.

Let's see.

Because there literally are millions of options in each moment.

Millions of options of things that could be happening.

And the moment we get fixated on one option is the moment that,

A,

We suffer,

Because,

You know,

It may not happen exactly the way we were thinking.

And maybe a better plan came across,

But we were so busy attaching to our original plan and suffering because it wasn't going that way,

We couldn't even see it.

So,

You know,

I do find we want to be more open.

Like,

We say,

We want the awe,

You want the wonder.

You want that lightness to go through life,

Right?

Yeah,

Make a plan,

And then let's see.

And now let's see what happens.

So that when the plan changes,

Because many times it does change,

Even if it's just little changes,

Like,

No problem.

Even if it's just little things.

Oh,

I thought I was going to leave the house and do this,

But then someone came by.

Oh,

Okay,

A little change of plans,

Right?

Or,

I mean,

In so many ways,

It's like there's,

The probabilities of each moment,

Like we get stuck in our heads that,

I mean,

I think this is why we get stuck and we think our lives are so boring and we spend so much time fantasizing about how I'm going to be happy out there.

Because again,

Seeing part of reality,

Or sorry,

Not part of reality,

But seeing,

Seeing in all the cause and effect that we can see from a material level,

Like from a Newtonian physics level,

Right,

That we can see,

You know,

More clearly.

Let's not forget,

Below all that is the quantum level.

And we know that in quantum theory,

The superposition is that it's saying that,

Like,

You can't measure where something,

Where a particle is until you,

Excuse me,

You can't know where a particle is until it's observed.

But until that observing moment,

There are a million probabilities,

All at the same time.

All at the same time.

And so,

You know,

It's also to see this,

Like,

Oh,

I mean,

There's a million probabilities happening in each moment,

And so to not get so caught up in it,

But to see the possibility in each moment,

Not to go,

Oh,

My life,

My mundane,

Boring life doing the same thing.

We're not seeing,

We're not paying attention.

We're not seeing all the probabilities that are out,

Not that we need to see all the probabilities,

But just to know all the probabilities.

We get so fixated,

Oh,

This sucks,

And why do I have to do this,

And nothing's going on,

And it's so boring,

Right,

And we just kind of get in our little bubble of our misperception of reality and who we are,

Instead of remembering,

You know what?

That's just a little bubble,

A little thought bubble that arose,

Old patterns,

Old habits.

And like you were saying,

Ward,

Also,

That kind of addiction to that energy that we're so used to of the ego,

Of the separate self,

Of chasing happiness,

Doesn't feel good.

It never feels good,

But we're so fixated on what the story is in our head,

On the icon,

We don't even realize it.

So the more that we can recognize when we're doing that,

And to pull ourselves out,

And to go,

You know what,

I know that I am imputing ordinariness on this moment,

Repetitiveness on this moment,

Nothing going on in this moment,

But that is not the reality.

There are,

You know,

And just in pulling back from that,

Like,

And again,

Just using our mindfulness practice for that,

And pulling back on that,

You know,

We start to see,

You know,

We start to open up to all these possibilities,

Like,

Yeah,

I don't know what's going to happen next.

I mean,

It seems like kind of just a normal routine day,

Kind of going around,

Feeding the dogs,

Taking them for a walk,

Seems kind of normal,

And then something happens.

And you're,

There's a lightness to it,

Because there's a heavy weight to this separate self,

Right?

I mean,

I keep pointing up here with my head,

Like,

You know,

The little thoughts up here,

But every time we do that,

It's like we're all of a sudden carrying like a 50-pound weight around.

It's a heaviness.

And so when we let it go,

And we go,

Ah,

You're just an icon,

It's not reality,

I'm just,

It's the way this brain is,

It tricks us to survive,

Okay,

Understand that,

Know that,

That's good,

That's helpful,

Super helpful to know that,

Yeah,

Question,

Question these things,

Right?

So that it falls away,

And then you're open more,

And look up,

Look up more,

Even if you're just looking up inside,

But definitely when you're outside,

That again gives us this bigger picture of the world.

You know,

We get,

When we're in our little separate self,

We're so narrow,

We're so focused on me and my little problems,

And I've got to get over there,

And then we open it up,

And we're like,

Oh my God,

This is amazing,

Right?

So we want more awe,

We want more wonder,

We want more joy,

And you're not going to find it in the icon,

In the separate self,

In the ego.

It's just stress,

Stress and stress,

Moments of relief when it goes away,

When you got the object,

Not because you got the object,

I'm not saying a little bit of happiness can't come from the object,

A little bit of excitement,

A little bit of high arousal feelings,

But what really feels so good when we get the object is that for a few minutes,

The ego went away,

Only to start back up again,

Here we go,

On to the next thing now,

And we just keep believing it,

We don't question it.

So it's the questioning it,

Every time we question it,

Who is it that needs to get over there?

Who is it that feels guilty for what happened five years ago,

Right?

Not saying that we can't come in and feel that,

Question that there's no separate self,

And also from that place say,

You know what would be really good is an apology,

Maybe that's what I need to do,

Yeah,

Not from the place of a separate self,

But acting out of wisdom and compassion.

So again it doesn't mean that we're not acting in the world,

But that we're acting more in accord with the,

More in harmony,

You know,

We have,

There are,

We're recognizing what needs to be done and we're doing it,

Not with oh I need to go and apologize and they better forgive me and tell me I'm a good person because I can't handle if they tell me I'm a bad person,

Is it just the apologies because I recognize I hurt someone?

Too many egos are apologizing,

Looking for validation,

I probably put a number,

I'll put a number on it,

I would venture to say,

This is not scientific at all,

But I would venture to say more than 80% of apologies are simply from the ego wanting to get validation for themselves,

Right,

Instead of recognizing when we've hurt someone,

Very insincere apologies we can tell when they're insincere,

We can tell when they're ego apologies,

Right,

So,

Oh so you're going to post on your bathroom wall,

Bathroom mirror,

Let's see,

Yeah,

Isn't there a lot of freedom in that,

Let's see,

Let's see how the rest of the call goes,

Let's see,

We don't know.

Reviews

Thank you very much. ‘Let’s see’ is so soothing to think!

I’ll probably be listening to this one every day for a while. It’s like my own personal cheerleader lol. Let’s see 😊👍⭐️😊👍⭐️😊👍⭐️😊👍⭐️😊👍