Effortless Effort
How can a man’s life keep its course
If he will not let it flow?
Those who flow as life flows know
They need no other force:
They feel no wear, they feel no tear,
They need no mending, no repair
The Way of Life According to Lao Tzu, by Witter Bynner
Last week, I found myself in bed at night feeling once again overworked and overcommitted. And to make matters worse, my critical Judge Judy voice commented with a smirk “And guess who is going to teach a workshop on boundaries?” The Shame researcher Brene Brown says that we wear our exhaustion as a status symbol and our productivity is tied to our self-worth. Many years ago, one of my clients told me about attending a dinner party with a group of highly successful entrepreneurs where each one was bragging about how little sleep they managed to get because they were not running one but multiple start-up ventures. Am I hustling for self-worth? I wondered. Examining my exhaustion, I wondered what I could do to create some space for myself and improve my stamina. Recently, I had made some major changes to my schedule and was working far less than before and yet the exhaustion was slowly creeping back up, along with feelings of overwhelm. Along with it, feelings of exasperation. What the heck is the problem NOW? Are you resonating with me?
In utter exhaustion and frustration, I reminded myself that perhaps the best thing to do is to do nothing and just be still and see what happens. Isn’t that what I preach to my clients all the time? About stillness and self-compassion? So, as I started to meditate that night and be still with myself, I was given a vision of how I am always already complete and whole. The gentle voice of the Mother whispered, “My child, there is nothing you need to do or be in order to make yourself whole. I love you unconditionally just the way you are. Do nothing, do everything, it makes no difference to how much I love you and how I see you. To your True Self there is nothing you can do to add to it or subtract from it. It IS. I AM. Be Still and Know that I AM”.
With this vision, the insights slowly started to bubble up. The space I had to create was not on the outside but on the inside. The problem is not with how much I am doing but how I am when I am doing it. In other words, as Eckhart Tolle would put it “what is the quality of my doing?” Then I remembered the words of my beloved mentor Don Hadlock, who taught me everything about being a Therapist. He often talked about “Effortless Effort” and how to be in the room with a client. He would often say “You are enough and You could do more”. That is at the absolute level, you are always already perfect and at the relative level, there is always more to learn, do, practice. I had forgotten what Don taught me all the time — to look at people, especially clients, as always, already complete and whole just the way they are; to look at them as competent beings and to not have an agenda for them; to know that I am always enough and that there is nothing I could do wrong and that the best gift I can give people is the gift of my loving, aware presence and get out of their way of healing themselves.
The spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle did just that when he was giving individual sittings for people in the early days of his career. People would come and vent to him for hours and pour out all their feelings. Very often, he said nothing, just sat in the highest state of consciousness and awareness. He often joked that unconsciously, like the Buddha, he sported a hint of a smile on his face and at times people would get so offended and ask him “what are you smiling about? Is this funny to you?” And he had to apologize. Many felt healed just by his conscious presence and deep listening. Another great example is the Indian saint Ramana Maharishi, who lived in the early 1900s. He took it one step further. He said nothing, his visitors said nothing. He would look at them very deeply from a state of deep awareness and presence, as they sat with him in silence. With nothing being asked nor answered, they would walk away with all the solutions to their queries.
Reminding myself of all these great teachers, the next day, I practiced two things. I consistently and compassionately chanted the mantra of “I am enough. There is nothing I need to do or be to make myself whole. I am always, already, whole. I am unconditionally loved by the Divine”. The second thing I did was to welcome each of my clients as complete, whole and perfect just as they are and to offer them my complete presence. If something had to be said, or done, let it bubble up from deep presence in that moment. With each hour passing, I could feel the effortless efforting happening and when the Judge Judy voice would threaten to bubble up, I compassionately consoled it by saying “we are enough”. What a difference that night! Although I had put in a long day’s work, I felt light, flowing, energized and happy. As Lao Tzu put it, “no wear, no tear, no mending, no repair”. Just flowing with life moment to moment. As Eckhart puts it, “Life is the dancer and you are the dance”.
