What people say
I can honestly say that, for the first time in 50 years, I’m learning how to just be. How to relish the present moment, which, magically and mysteriously, unlocks the door to the treasure house that is the rest of my life.
- Jennifer Green, Salem, Oregon
From the moment Jon and I connected, I had this deep experience of loving presence and complete trust. Something bypassed my mind and my ability to figure things out, and communicated directly to my heart and soul that I was safe and in the right place. There was a creation of power in our relationship that he honored and witnessed as being mine. It was my power. I had the experience of being wonderfully, beautifully powerful, in the most loving, energized way.
- Laura Lind-Blum, The Idea Midwife, Waterbury Center, Vermont
Jon can help you recognize where you are, and become more clear. My work with him has not been about plotting out my future, it has been about helping me come into deeper relationship with myself so that next steps unfold easily and effortlessly.
He creates a safe, spacious container for you to go as deep or wide or high as you’re capable of in any given moment. It’s a matter of him being able to see the facets and help me make them real in me.
- Sandra Leader, Carmel, CA
My feelings changed from, “Quick, fix me, I can’t stand how I feel, make it better, hurry,” to, it’s not about hurry, and it’s not about fixing, it’s about staying where you are and getting more and more and deeper and deeper sensations that this is okay. You’re fine, this is okay.
It helps me reframe experience. I don’t see anything that’s happening quite the same as I’ve ever seen it before, because my viewpoint has been enlarged. There’s more, there’s peace, there’s joy, there’s love, there’s health, there’s everything.
- Layne Young, artist, Salem, Oregon
Free Article
Not How, Just What
How do I ... ?
My clients ask me this all the time. How do I ... meditate better? stop analyzing? stop trying? How can I ... be with my feelings? find more peace? let go of attachment?
It’s not how. It’s just what. What do you really want — what is it that’s deeply important?
When you think about how, you start trying to impose your will on the world and on your thoughts and feelings. You start trying to control and “make things happen.”
Don’t misunderstand: the question of “how” is perfectly appropriate when you want to go on vacation to Hawaii, bake a cake, plan a wedding, manage a project at work.
But when you’re going inside yourself, asking the deeper questions of life, creating something new (art, literature, and yes, even a business or a career), crossing the threshold of the Remembering Room and coming home to yourself — in all of this and more, the question of “how” is a barrier, not an aid.
How imposes limits, closes doors to surprises, blinds you to miracles. How creates to-do lists and strangles creativity.
And in those deeper questions, how blocks truth. Stops it dead in its tracks. There’s no trick you can learn to find peace: in searching for a trick, you leave peace behind. There’s no switch to turn on for deeper meditation: in searching for a switch, you’ve stopped allowing what is, and there’s nothing deeper than simply observing the wholeness of what is. There’s likewise no switch in your brain (wouldn’t it be nice?) that you can flip to stop analyzing, let go, relax, give up control. The hunt for a switch only engages your brain even more persistently.
All my clients cringe when I tell them to stop working so hard. You worked hard in school and you work hard at your career. Hard work has brought you success all your life — or so we’re taught, anyway. So much effort! and yes, you have a lot to show for it. But “how” creates struggle: you’re seeking, trying to find something, working hard.
I’ll say it again: “how” creates struggle and suffering. You convince yourself that if you just tried harder you’d find what you want: peace, stillness, your Self. And you suffer, because in trying harder you — bluntly — fail: peace, stillness, and your Self seem distant and elusive.
Hard work is a grand and good thing. My brothers and I grew up working in my father’s feed mill. I know what a good day’s hard physical labor means, and I enjoy it even today (ask me about shoveling snow last winter!).
Nonetheless, there are some things you cannot achieve through hard work. I sympathize with my clients’ struggles in this: I went through it all myself, me with my Midwestern work ethic firmly ingrained.
Peace, stillness, and your Self are already with you. Yet the harder you try to find them, the further away they seem to be.
The next question my clients always ask is, “How do I stop trying, stop working so hard?”
Then — just as you may be doing — we laugh together. How do you stop asking how?
How, indeed. Contradictory as it is to offer ideas, here are a few to consider. (Notice I’m not saying, here are a few to try. These are ideas or pointers. Hold them in awareness and in your heart instead of trying them out.)
Notice
Just notice. Oh, look. There you are, trying again. How interesting!
Be curious
What would happen if you stopped trying? Who’s doing all this trying, anyway? Who wants to stop trying?
Be open
Are you open to giving up trying? Are you open to giving up working hard?
I’m not asking will you give up trying and working hard. That leads immediately to “how” questions and to even more trying.
I’m asking: Are you open to giving them up? It’s a whole different question, and it can lead to deeper understanding.
Not How. Just What.
Relax. Really. You’ve got nothing to lose.
“You have to take risks. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.” Paulo Coelho, Brazilian author, 1947-
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