Just roll over and take it? No way!

My friend Patti decided to give up preferences.

What?

We are supposed to be working on how to be true to ourselves, stand up for ourselves and not let anyone push us down! We are working on being strong of mind, body and soul! Why would we GIVE UP what we deserve: To be treated with kindness, compassion and respect?

Is she going to just roll over and take it?

No way!

Patti wasn’t giving up preferences in a hopeless way. She wasn’t throwing in the towel and giving up on wanting anything so that she would stop being disappointed.

She was claiming her power and becoming freer than she ever thought possible.

What is it be like to give up “preferences”?

Here is a secret: we can’t be pulled down unless we allow ourselves to be. There are always people that will be mean to us, or disappoint us because of their own limitations, but this doesn’t have to alter us. Accidents happen, sometimes things don’t go our way, we get passed over, or unnoticed. It happens.

If we stop preferring that our lives be perfect and smooth, we would live so much freer.

We spend our lives searching for the quick fix to all our problems, while the answer is right under our nose. Teasing us again and again with its obviousness once we remember, till our foreheads are red from smacking them.

I should have known this.

No. Judgement doesn’t help. That is part of the problem. It stops us from celebrating and integrating that which would benefit us. 


Maybe we don’t deserve to benefit.

Yes, you do. Yes, you do. Yes, you do!

This is the “quick fix” you have been searching for!

The elixir of a good life.

It’s probably hard.

No. Only when you think it is.

This one tip, by far, is the single most important skill you can learn to adjust to whatever life might throw at you. And the best thing about it is that it is available to everyone and it is not just ONE THING. It is the opposite of one thing.

Ready?

The best thing you can do for yourself is: Be flexible.

Yes, that is it. Just be flexible.

Give up wanting things to be a certain way and grow joy in what already is. Going with the flow feels amazing! People who are laid back are a whole lot happier.

When circumstances outside (or inside) of us have us feeling out of control, we tend to become more rigid (emotionally and physically) as we attempt to get ahold of our world. This is a missed opportunity, because the one thing we have to control is the only thing that matters.

I can control me–my responses-my expectations-my preferences. I can go with the flow and bend- enjoying myself and what is around me- or I can lament my misfortunes about what is not, what I am not, or what I don’t have.

My response to life makes the meaning that will set up the stories in my life. It is these meanings that I will feel. It is these that will make me happy or not.

Not wishing to be other than we are, is called content. It is called being.

But it is painful to be here.

The suffering is wanting to be different.

We like things a certain way. “If only they were that way, then it’ll be easier.” This makes us feel separate and undeserving. If we take what’s here, lemons and all, and make lemonade, we are connected. We are deserving.

Expectation leads to suffering. Defining yourself by what is out of your control is suffering. Wanting is suffering.

Allowing, not judging, and being flexible, are how to be happy.

Are you wanting? Or are you being?