Principle 1 - Letting Whatever Happens Be OK

Over the next few days I want to write about some filters I have found to be very useful. These come from a series called "The Nine Principles of Conscious Living", a class series I have used in various places ranging from adult education in churches to prisons and recovery centers. The original Nine Principles was written and compiled by Bill Harris, founder and director of the Centerpointe Research Institute.

The Principle of "Letting Whatever Happens Be Okay"


Most of us spend a lot of time trying to avoid suffering. We dislike the feelings of discomfort - and we really don't want to be miserable. Nothing really newsworthy there...

So consider this - the amount any of us suffers in our life is directly related to how much we are resisting the fact that "things are the way they are." If there is suffering or discomfort, there is resistance. Those two go together like peanut butter and jelly.

A few years ago I worked for a small company where six or seven of us worked together in a small building. I'm a bit of a tidy freak (perhaps an understatement) and so if I was feeling anxious or bored, I'd go around and straighten up the desks of my co-workers. Amazingly, people found that offensive! Who'd of thought? So, it finally reached the point where they spoke to the boss and the boss called me into his office for a chat about it...

Bill (the boss) has been one of the major (positive) influences in my life - and always had a really positive and insightful take on things.

"So," he said, "I understand that you have a need to have things look orderly and tidy. I'd like you to consider upgrading your need for order, to a preference for order. Then, while you prefer things to be tidy, or orderly, if they're not, you won't suffer as much."

Something about the way he put that clicked with me and the lightbulbs went off. "Ah ha," I thought. A preference rather than a need. Powerful. And a shift happened.

Addictions or attachments to things being different than they are can be upgraded to preferences, so when "what is" is not what you want it to be, you do not suffer over it and your happiness and peace are therefore not controlled by forces outside of your control. 
Powerful. You might want to read this paragraph a second time...the principle can change your life.

To the degree a person is willing and able to let whatever happens be okay, they do not suffer. People with many rules about how things are suppose to be suffer more because no matter how much care they take to protect their rules and see that they and the world follows their rules, these rules are often going to be violated. This does not mean a person cannot be goal oriented and work toward making things they way they want; however, the emotionally healthy person prefers the outcomes they seek rather than being addicted to them.

The key, then, to handling challenging situations, thoughts, and feelings is not in resisting them, but rather becoming as fully accepting of them as possible. Accept what happens to you and what you think and feel, even if it is uncomfortable. Though it looks as if the discomfort is created by the thing we are resisting, in actual fact the discomfort we feel is 98-99% from our resistance to it and only 1-2% from the thing itself. When we stop resisting, the discomfort stops also. Through acceptance, you empower yourself to heal, transform, or release any unresolved mental or emotional material. When you sense resistance, meet it with acceptance. Ironically, once you stop resisting, you are much more effective in creating any external change you may have a preference for (and not an attachment to). 



The opportunities for applications for this principle are as numerous as Facebook friends. Once something has happened, wishing it hadn't happened serves no useful purpose. Yet many of us spend HOURS daily running our "this shouldn't have happened", or "that shouldn't have happened" and feeling bad about it. Well, it did and since it's past - there's nothing we can do about it. Sound simple? It is.

All of us have stuff in our lives we wish could be otherwise, or things we regret having said or done. That's OK, but to constantly spend our time beating ourselves up about it, or to feel frustrated (or worse) about the unfairness of it all is a total and complete waste of our time, and really keeps us from devoting any serious energy to fixing things so that there won't be a next time.

"Letting whatever happens be OK" doesn't mean we have to like everything that happens - it just means we have to release it, and acknowledge that there is nothing we can do to change or alter the past. It's done. We can move on. "Letting whatever happens be OK" doesn't mean we don't need to work, and sometimes work hard, to create changes in the future. The main value is just in knowing, really knowing, that no matter how much we think things should have been different (notice the past tense), they weren't.

A regular practice of this principle will change your life, no matter what your circumstances. Today, try it for short periods. If someone cuts you off in traffic, or does something you didn't like, don't think "That shouldn't have happened." or "That was unfair." Just think, "Wow, that happened - my preference would have been that it didn't, but since it did - OK. Time to move on."

Be aware of any shift in how you get through your day. I bet you'll notice a difference.

(Continued tomorrow...)