You need not do anything
Remain sitting at your table and listen
You need not even listen, just wait
You need not even wait
Just become quiet and still and solitary
and the world will offer itself to you to be unmasked
It has no choice
It will roll in ecstasy at your feet
It has no choice.
–Franz Kafka
Tell me about a time you gave up and stopped trying to make things happen. What happened then?
You can post your response to this prompt in the Comment Section below.
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--Nancy London MSW, author, "Hot Flashes, Warm Bottles: First-Time Mothers Over Forty"
"Laura Davis's Writer's Journey is about possibilities. Not about being published or receiving accolades, but the possibility of discovery: discovery of my creativity, my joys and sorrows, the discovery of me. Laura supports that journey through a wide range of prompts that are ever changing, always interesting, and many times seems tailored to my personal experience. With each of her prompts, I frequently find myself saying, "How did she know?"
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"I signed up for the retreat, unsure what to expect. I went with trepidation: 'Would I be good enough?' 'Would it get too personal?' 'Was it worth the money?' I came home extremely glad I had gone. It wasn't about being good enough; it was about being encouraged to find my voice. I rediscovered how much I love to write and was relieved to meet other people like me, who need to write as much as they need to breathe."
--Stephanie Huff, Director of Marketing for firstRain, a software company
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Oh, Laura, I am not doing anything. It was just enough to follow your Kafka´s quote and your invitation for my eyes to shine in dry tears… what is touching me when I stop trying? What ancestral sadness comes to me that moves me so deeply? Is it because of my age? Is it because of my reluctancy to accept the given cultural drift to succed at any rate? Am I giving up becoming a champion and a number one? Or is it that I just allowed to show up the spirit of humaness which has been mistreated so much and long? Yes, I have this hunch, yes, this is it. My tears are now rolling down all over my cheeks and neck. Yes, Laura, my tears are tears of wisdom and eternal love.
Hoping my English is ok, I shared.
Fernando
Fernando, your English is fine! Thanks for posting. Come back again.
I tell myself all the time: stop trying to make it happen. Let it happen. Let life happen to you, allow yourself to be surprised by what comes your way naturally. It’s a sort of bliss when it does but you need to have the patience for it. And that seems to be my problem, this lack of being able to wait a thing out, to see what grows from seeds you planted months ago. Years even. Sometimes, it will take that long. I know this to be very true and yet, I still struggle, I still sob, I still close myself up tightly, neatly wrapped up in this shell, and then hate the walls I’ve created. I push my feet up against them and try to force my way out, not realizing when I struggle and fight against the tide like this, what I’m truly closing myself off from is possibility and the magic of growth. And it is so magical; I planted seeds in little clay pots in the middle of February, hopeful seeds. It was still icy cold but I planted them all the same. You water, you say a little blessing in your head but then, you forget about them. You simply wait and see what happens next – it’s not up to you. Until one day, you take a good look and little green shoots are pushing themselves up and out of the soil and it’s absolutely beautiful, to see this tiny miracle of something growing, something coming alive. I use it as a metaphor, a sign for myself and my days: just let it be. Live your life, grow your days, take good care of yourself, get out into the sunlight, feed your heart and soul some beauty and all will be well.
Nicole, welcome to the Roadmap blog and thanks for sharing such an intimate story.
I am a doer, a mover and shaker, a bit of a control freak and to stop trying to make things happen – or make things in general is stunningly hard for me. It is parenting that finally taught me the art of just sitting, just being in one place, without the fidget and the need to fix.
When I stop, when I stand still the world unfurls just a little.
Yes, isn’t it glorious to stop? And how hard it is to get there….
I wrote about this at my blog today- I hope you will visit:
http://theconstipatedwriter.wordpress.com/2011/04/12/i-want-it-and-it-wants-me/
I’m enjoying the writing exercises. Thank you.
I am one who is constantly striving to accomplish all that I can ,I have always felt that life isn’t what happens to you , it is what you make it. The problem is that when it comes to expression of whats on my mind or in my heart I just can’t seem to make this happen. It was one afternoon, after class, my assignment was to write a short essay on someone in my life who had made an impression on me. I filled a waste basket with my attempts and had all but given up feeling fully defeated and helpless. I closed my eyes and resigned myself to just giving up . When I open my eyes I saw the sunlight streaming through the window and felt the cool breeze on my face ,I thought maybe I would just enjoy this moment and then with startling clarity the entire essay came to me. My hand could not keep up with my mind and the words flowed like a river moving so smoothly and without effort. It was more than a hour before I finished and what I had written brought tears to my eyes and still does. It was then that I had found that intangible something that I had spent my whole life searching for ,like a runners high, the beauty that I felt in that precious hour stirred a thrill in me that still shadows my thoughts.
Now that I relinquish
If you were here now
you would see things
that I often need to miss
the way the light slants
through tall windows
falling on their shoulders, hair
a hand so soft
they seem to carry on unaware
like a child knowing
in some deep way
that benevolence
is a given
the way a small breeze
floats through a slight opening
and plays with the candle flame
tiny agitations asking
“what if I push here,
pull there, ever so minute?”
you would notice
it would matter, Something changes
when you let this in
the truth is that we are on the edge
and it could all collapse
in one breathe
walls down
bodies inside out
words gone
you saw this, didn’t you
when I needed
to not know
now energy swirls through
uncharted paths that hold me
rapt and ignorant
an infant rediscovering fingers
and familiar sounds from an inland sea
with ever-curving shores
S. Rizk 4-16-11
Sharon, thanks for posting. Welcome to the Roadmap….