Living a Relaxed Life

This article appeared in the August 2014 edition of Creative Thought Magazine & was written by Reverend Dr. Christian Sorensen

The lazy days of summer are a great reminder to slow down and relax.  The mind gets so busy always wanting to be somewhere else, as if here isn’t good enough. If there’s something else you should be doing go do it, or chill out. Why bother yourself with anxiety as if worrying is really going to change anything anyway. Worse yet, why lose sleep over something you can’t do anything about at 2:00 am?  It’s just not really logical, is it? Don’t live in the “it will be” mode but rather choose to live in the  “I am-ness” of who you are.

Who’s in charge of your mind? If Merriam Webster were to ask me for a definition of needless anxiety, I would say, it’s when your mind hijacks you and possesses you to the point you don’t even know you’re possessed.  The gift of living a relaxed life is that it allows you to detach enough to observe the mind thinking and realize the racing thoughts are not you. You are the one watching your thoughts. In a state of relaxation, you, the observer, have become more conscious with an elevated perspective.

A challenge in your life can get your mind spinning, but remember contrary to your natural reactionary response, you can always choose to relax. In fact, stepping back in those moments can be the best way to move forward. You’ll come to see a crisis is a birth. I’ve always been one who never wanted to waste a good crisis, because it always serves as an opening to the self.  But, if the mind is quick to jump in and take charge to eliminate pain, then your evolutionary impulses will be squelched by the domination of the controlling mind. You must find a quiet space to sit and embrace the matter at hand, not bury or suppress your feelings about it.  The gift that awaits you in the crisis is your ticket to a greater way of being. Your anxiousness and worry is what you bury your treasure with.

It’s tough to achieve greatness without a challenge.  Who would have cared about David if he’d gone up to Goliath and said this isn’t fair?  Who would have cared if Jesus said he could walk on water and then proceeded to drown?  What matters isn’t whether those things happened as much as, are you able to walk on the troubled waters of your crisis' in your life right now?  Are you able to face the giant battles in your life with a relaxed attitude without giving your power away by freaking out? The answers to what you face are always available. A mind running around with a chicken little panic isn’t open to new answers from the subtler realm that can only be accessed through a calm place. When life gets stirred, are you relaxed enough to hear the answers from the Infinite?

Don’t fall into whining prayers for resolution.  Relax enough to know there is always an answer waiting for you. There was a village in Africa where a service project dug a deep well for the village, but had no ongoing means to keep a generator going to bring the water to the surface.  The sponsors of the project put out a crowd sourcing request on the internet for a solution that was usable, affordable and simplistic. Boy oh boy did ideas come back in droves.  The one they chose put a child’s merry-go-round at the well. The children joyously pushed it around and around, playing on it endlessly throughout the day and into the evening, while turning effortlessly pumped the water for all the village. Brilliant resolution all around.

Your true complaint rests on the condition of your world. Is your world filled with stress or are you able to relax in the moment enough to listen to your observing self?  Don’t be like the folks who are always complaining about something.  Rather in your calm meditative time use those points of contention as your spiritual practice to see what’s in you that I need to know and dance with.  What gift is waiting to be born through this expanded awareness. I might add a word of caution to remember that you aren’t here to demonstrate things though. Not that there’s anything wrong with demonstrations because I’m the first one to say it’s fun to be a masterful manifester. The caution comes to ward off any stress that might be hanging around needing to see the demonstration.  Life is more about demonstrating you, not things!

From a relaxed place it’s easier to know when the timing is right.  When it is right, walk in the direction of your prayers, but until that moment arrives live in a peaceful state.  When it’s time, move!  Not moving when it’s your time is a spiritual constipation that doesn’t serve you. Your potential will always exceed your appearances and to know that for sure you must take the action in your life when it’s time and not a minute before. We live in an evolutionary cosmos, where Dr. Ernest Holmes says, “The Infinite is forever seeking to express Itself through you.” A big challenge comes when we want it all to be familiar and secure.  You can’t hold onto what has already been and reach out for what is yet to unfold.

You must learn to live a relaxed life, find peace now,  trust the process and let go. When you live in the unknown it’s very exciting and tough to go back to the placid lifestyle of the status quo. Those who are living their passion and following their call aren’t here to get what they can but to give who they are.  They live to give what they have to share with this world. The artist stays up all night to create; the writer gets up early and stays up late in the effortless effort of what he/she must share with the world.  There’s a drive that gives rise to that which is new.  It’s an ecstatic urgency that comes from a peaceful knowingness.  Your evolutionary impulse is not scared by your personal human experience. 

If you want to make a difference, you’ve got to relax and get over yourself and out of the little controlling mind who thinks it’s in charge. I’ll give you a hint, it gets easier to get over yourself when you give way to your creative impulse.  When you have a bigger purpose for living you’ll always be in touch with the excitement of life.  If you don’t follow your dream it’ll feel as if you are dying inside.  You can’t figure out an inspiration, it’s something you’ve got to let out.  None of us are where we were and yet none are where we are going, so relax and enjoy your life. It’s an ever unfolding journey and your calm state is receptive to the invitation for the greater yet to be, to be known by you.