Week 23 It’s suppose to be easy…..

This week is suppose to be easy! All I have to do is accept everything and everyone including myself as we are in this moment. I have to taking responsibility for my situation and for all the events that I see as problems. I do not blame anyone or anything for my situation including myself. I know that every problem is an opportunity in disguise and I take this moment and transform it into a great benefit. And finally, defenselessness. I relinquish the need to defend my point of view and I remain open to all points of view without being rigidly attached to any one of them. In short:
I apply the the Law of Least Effort by living each day with these three things.
1. Acceptance
2. Responsibility
3. Defenselessness

Ok, acceptance, that makes sense to me. Responsibility for everyone and everything, I know too well, but to take responsibility without blame is a huge relief! I can finally set that burden down after all these years and transform it into a treasure! Wow, I feel so much lighter!!! So what stopped me stone cold in my tracks? Defenselessness!! I have spent my whole life defending myself, protecting myself. It is so engrained in me that I defend myself before I am even conscious of what I am doing or saying. I apologies before I even know what I’ve done wrong. (I must have done something if he/she is upset with me.) Now I need to relinquish the need to defend my point of view!?! My whole world just went tilt! So where do I begin? I know this is huge for me, as tears are streaming down my face. I’m scared, can I be that vulnerable? What would happen if I left my heart wide open? Oh I take myself much too seriously. What if I just take it one day and one step at a time? What if like the Mary Oliver poem, I am destined to save the only life I can save, my own.

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice–
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do–
determined to save
the only life you could save.

By Mary Oliver