Do you want to have a really good time of things? If so I suggest your best success will be had when you finally stop trying.

Everything that goes up must come down. Every flow ebbs. Every wave’s peak is defined by the fact of the trough.

As King Canute found to his chagrin, we’re likely to have a miserable time until we give up trying to stop the rise and fall of the tide. It’s as though in doing so we deny the fact of nature, then end up all distressed like three year olds whose Mum’s won’t buy them lollies.

In a sense the issue seems to be we judge the high times as good and seek to hold them still and stuck in time unchanging. Then as they inevitably slip from our tense grip we suffer fearfully.

The bit that’s missing in our mind is the awareness of the opportunity the troughs offer. Indeed without the fall no new high rise beckons. In letting go we learn to fly from feeling fear to feeling excitement instead.

Stop trying to stop pain, instead falling with its ebb and floating with its flow. Rather than pushing what you don’t want away, let the pain be present fully. You’ll find your pain’s urgency increases like a complainant finally getting their shrill day in court. Then your pain will naturally diminish since what needed to be spoken was finally said.

Rather than struggling against the inevitable I suggest you allow the following compelling sentence to sink into your psyche.

“It‘s possible things might just fall into place with an effortless grace and elegance”.

This contention contains a magic that offers the supplicant relief from tension and in turn a more practical and functional foundation for clear thinking.

Embedded in the notion of trying is an honouring of the potential for failure and fear. Be aware that hope rhymes with nope! Instead remember roller coasters rides are fun because they’re exciting. So loosen up and listen to, then dance in tune with the rhythms that wash through your life.

Martin Hunter Jones