On Feeling Alive, Being Productive & At Peace: What Is Missed In The Coarseness Of Experiences

Once in a while I am blessed with beautiful letters from my clients. I am moved to share one I received today (with the client’s permission).

ON FEELING ALIVE, PRODUCTIVE AND BEYOND: WHAT IS MISSED IN THE COARSENESS OF EXPERIENCES

“Our talk today was very helpful to me. I see that i am creating friction around everything I do, creating this layer of stickiness an abrasive ness- and tangles and rough surfaces so that things don’t go smoothly around everything I do, and around everyone I know , my cats included.
I add some kind of a layer so that it feels like there is friction.. which I think I do because otherwise I don’t feel like I’m living or connected if I don’t feel friction.
this keeps me in state of fight or flight all the time, always having to get hooks in, always having to have an edge, always being on the defensive or the offensive.
If I just peacefully went to work and wrote my thesis, without additional thoughts, and peacefully just drove myself over to teach yoga, without additional thoughts of how it might go and what might happen and all this crazy shit that goes through my head all the time, or if I could just notice my cat and not have a million thoughts about how he’s sick or how this is this and how about this and what about this and what about that… I would just do things more smoothly and in peace and tranquility.
I know that would be healthier for me. and things would certainly get done quickly and easily.
I’ve been meditating tonight asking myself why am I doing this? Why am i adding this layer of turmoil to everything when there really is no turmoil?
I know I could easily Sit down and write, it’s easy for me to drive over to somewhere and teach, it’s easy for me to pet my cat everyday and if I need to take him to the vet simply take him and not get all freaked out over what’s going on with him.
like you said its all the additional thoughts that I add to every situation I’m in that get me all riled up and actually make it difficult for me to do things that are otherwise very easy for me to do.
I’ve been lying in bed asking myself what is this doing to serve me? Why have I been doing this?
I don’t feel alive unless I feel turmoil and friction and drama. I think it helps me feel more connected and more alive. So that I don’t just live past things and they go by and then I don’t even realize they were ever there.
I also grew up in a household where it was nonstop friction , fighting, and turmoil, and then I moved to Israel , where its a hundred times worse than that… So it is definitely something that I am used to doing and being and living.
but again I will state this, it is not healthy.
so I proposed to myself in tonight’s meditation that what if I was simply to live peacefully, the same philosophy and the same way I teach yoga to my gentle yoga students. ?
Doing things without that extra layer frenetic frenzy, and without adding the extra layer of turbulence and judgment and questioning and worrying and anxiety and noise.
Is it possible for me, Anna, to live my life doing things in a peaceful tranquil quiet way?
what would I not like about that?
I think I will try to do it that way from now on as an experiment and to see if it improves my physical health as a measurement of how healthy it is for me. And I will also see how I get through things and how much stress is involved and I know that I will see myself get through the writing so quickly, and just get to do all the things I have to do in a day so easily, and maybe they will pass me by quickly because I will not connect myself and attach myself so deeply to them with all this conflict and friction like before. I don’t want my life to pass me by so I guess I want to feel my life, but I’ve never considered feeling it in a different way. The only way I’ve ever known how to feel something is thru a very aggressive stressful way of feeling. i Don’t think I’ve ever done a lot of practice of moving through things in my life in a peaceful flowing quiet tranquil gentle way.
It is time for me to try this and see what it yields.
So that is just a little recap of what came to me after today’s session. thank you so much!
It’s another new thing for me, and so im a little bit uncomfortable and apprehensive about moving towards this new thing, but like you told me almost a year ago, take a breath and push through the fear.
I need to trust the universe that I will be okay to let go of the drama and the attachment and allow myself to quietly gently peacefully flow through things and not to worry that I won’t feel anything, but to have faith that I WILL feel and that I will still be connected to the world, without having to have the friction in the drama.”

My response to my clients and everybody who resonates with her dilemma:

“Sweetheart, what a beautiful insight you derived to from this self-investigation! Bravo!
All that you shared is true…
I know it might feel as if you don’t feel turmoil you don’t feel alive… But the fact is – you ARE alive, so why suffer while at it?
How about try for a month this new way? What I hope you will discover is life beyond I in EVERYTHING you encounter, which right now is all missed in the coarseness of experiences – all beautiful subtle things get missed…
When you are at peace you feel alive and united with ALL that is alive, even a flower, even a tree leaf…
Try it, see how it changes your life…
Much Love…”