When The Body Talks

Þetta reddast! [pronounced 'thetta reddust'] is a popular Icelandic saying which basically translates to ´Things will work themselves out´. F.M. Alexander said something similar, ´The right thing does itself´.

But the right thing doing itself requires participation from us, albeit not in the way we think. What it certainly doesn't require is for us to try to forcibly 'make' things go right (since our idea of what is right is so often very warped, where will this lead us in any case?) In fact, any direct attempt on our part to 'make' things go right will most definitely result in them going wrong (whatever we think that is as well!)

So, what is our part then in this process of ‘things working themselves out’? Well, our part is to raise our consciousness, to cultivate a state of awareness in which we are consciously getting ourselves (and our limited ideas of how we think things should be) out of the way, so that the right thing can happen by itself.

Sometimes we just need to bend a little….

What to do with Undesirable Emotions

Emotions are not who we are. They are something we experience, but they do not define us. They tell us something about the choices we are making in life, and can serve to help steer us away from situations that can cause us harm, and towards those that enliven us. But they are not who we are.

Our true nature is to be happy, blissful. We may sometimes feel sad or unhappy, and these emotions need to be acknowledged as our current experience in order to learn and grow, but they do not define us and cannot take away from our true nature which is an intrinsically happy one.

“I am feeling sad“ is a very different statement to “I am a sad person“. We can simultaneously acknowledge that we are a happy person by nature, and are currently experiencing sadness. The one does not negate the other.

All forms of suffering (sadness) essentially arise out of an attachment that doesn't serve our best interest. From such attachment we experience hankering and lamenting; hankering for what we desire, and lamenting for what is lost. Our feelings give us information about what we are attached to and if that attachment is making us happy or not. Feelings are there to teach us about our choices and whether those choices are aligning us with our true nature or not. As such, feelings of sadness or unhappiness are not our enemy or something to be avoided since they are not actually reflective of our true nature, and furthermore they help us to see where our current choices may be steering us away from living out our true, happy nature.