The mind is designed to solve problems. This is a beautiful gift, a great tool and also funnily enough often a big problem. From the minds perspective life is a duality. It is either in one way or another and the two can not co-exist. One of the strongest dualities is right and wrong. Since our mind is always looking to solve problems for us it is also constantly in a goal oriented state – where reality needs to be looking in a certain and preferred way. 

In reality this is not how it works, this is only the concepts of our mind. Reality does not have any preferences. It simply is. It exists and everything that happens and arises is right because it happened and it did arise. Otherwise it wouldn’t have. When we take this in from a mental place it seems totally illogical – which is true, it is not logical. It goes beyond the logical mind. 

Basically when something is perceived as unpleasant the mind labels it as wrong and in need of fixing. This is in many situations very helpful. For example when we want to fix a flat tire or build a house or recover from an illness. 

THERE IS NOTHING TO FIX IN US 

The problem is when we start to relate to our feelings and inner movements from the perspective of the problem-solving mind. Which leads to us trying to “fix ourselves”. But what we are saying when we do so is indirectly that we are wrong and our experience is wrong, it would be better if it looked in a different way. 

From this perspective our feelings are categorized in sadness, pain, hurt, fear or any unpleasantness as something wrong and joy, blizz, energy, passion and any pleasant experiences into something right. As an effect, if we believe in our mind, we start to want to manipulate our inner experience – rejecting pain and desire pleasure. 

Since life does not happen like this, which I believe that most people will agree upon, it is not only hard but also an impossible task. No matter how much we try, we will not be able to only experience happy feelings. In all this escaping, controlling, fixing, comforting, avoiding that we engage into when rejecting our experience and desire a more pleasant one – we are not only failing but also struggling and fighting with ourselves inside. Reality never changes for us. All we can do is to hide from it. And when doing so we also miss out on life, we stop being alive. 

So when sadness arises in us we say “I don’t like you. I don’t want you here. It would be better if I was happy.” How is that for that part of our soul that existence is expressing sadness through? Not only are we experience sadness and pain but also worry and frustration because we are sad and the more we start to try to manipulate it the more frustrated we become and the more tired we become. Until all of our day become an escape plan for avoiding ourselves. And it is a big work, it creates a lot of stress in our system and a lot of destructive patterns and habits. 

Understand me right, sometimes escaping is great. We all need it sometimes. We need to have the space of presence to be with our experience to be able to stay with it – without presence there is not healing. This is just an invitation to try something different – another way to relate to our experience. From allowance, from love. 

THE HEART KNOWS LOVE & THE BEAUTY IN EXISTENCE 

The heart knows a different perspective which is called Love. It is quite the opposite. It is to include and allow everything to be as it is, unconditionally if it is pleasant or not. For the heart it does not matter, it is irrelevant. What is there is valuable, no matter how the face might look like. Love knows the beauty in all existence and that each experience is a unique expression of reality. 

From this place we say to our sadness “Welcome. I see you. I allow you to be here, just as you are. I am here. I am holding you.” For each experience has its own place. 

Not only do we stop to fight with reality and can relax, we can also allow whatever arises to move through us. This is the alchemy of existence – nothing stays, everything always changes. It is only when we resist something that it persists. The law of reality is that everything needs to be included, without exceptions. Only then can we know love. Only then can we fully be open to be moved by life and let ourselves experience oneness with life. Only then can we be at peace. 

INVITATION FOR SELF INQUIRY INTO NON-FIXING:

• Explore how it is the next time you are experiencing something challenging to stay with it, feeling it in your body if only for a few seconds. 

• Inquiry: What is right about not feeling you feelings? What do you think it would give you if you could start to relate to your inner experience from a space of allowance?

• Write for 20-30 minutes free-flowing (without stopping) all the strategies you have to avoid unpleasant experiences and what the effect is. 

• Practice next time you experience sadness, pain, insecurity or fear say internarly “I see that you are sad/in pain/feeling insecure/afraid. I am here.” And notice the effect.