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Mary O’Malley
Imagine a day where everything was totally okay. You may have just fallen in love; or you received something you have wanted for a long time; or you're on vacation with no pressures, lying on a beach in deep contentment. Allow the imaginings of your okay day to completely fill you. Fully let the okayness in. Let it flood your mind, your body and your heart.
Now notice what you are experiencing as you use your imagination to open up to the joy of everything being okay. In your mind there is probably a sense that nothing needs to be different than it is. In your body, there is an experience of deep relaxation that allows for the glow of joy. And your heart is open, spacious and light. Can you feel it? It feels like Ahhhhh.
What would it be like if you knew that everything would always be okay? Not that you wouldn't have challenges. You just wouldn't turn them into problems and would be able to respond from a clear place. What would it be like to live from this open, relaxed, engaged, spacious place? Isn't this what we deeply long for - that place where we are no longer struggling with life and instead we are available to the experience of life as it is right here, right now? And doesn't this longing fuel most everything we do?
If we could step back and observe what is going on inside of us all day long, we would see that we are constantly searching for something better - a better body, a better mate, a better meditation, a better car, a better mind. We hope that if we can just get life the way we want it to be, then we will feel this okayness. So we search for love, hoping it will finally make us happy (and it does - for awhile). We try to purchase this okayness through clothes, fancy cars, jewelry, plastic surgery, degrees, etc. We hope these things will finally soothe the raging beast of the voice in our head that says our lives and our selves need to be different in order to have everything be okay. When these things don't bring us the lasting satisfaction we long for, we then numb ourselves with whatever our favorite compulsion is - food, alcohol, TV, internet, shopping, etc.
When we look honestly at this endless search for a better experience, we see that it doesn't really work! It does appear to work for moments, but this only keeps us caught in the belief that if we just do it right - if we change ourselves and our lives enough - we will then know that illusive okayness we so deeply long for. But haven't you noticed that even when you think you have gotten it all together, it doesn't stay that way?
The strange and wondrous thing is that this okayness we long for is our natural state. And it is always with us no matter what is happening in our lives! We just don't see it because we are always trying to find it! And we can't find it, for we have never lost it. It is possible to see that you have been conditioned to struggle with life. It is also possible to become smarter than your addiction to struggle so that you can know the peace and the joy that is your birthright.
I invite you to go back to the first two paragraphs and tune in to the okayness that is with you right now, in the midst of whatever challenges you may be facing. Now focus on a challenge and notice the shift in how you feel. Then go back into the okayness. Know that it is always here and that you can access it at any time just by shifting your awareness.
Be light, Mary
Quote: "The okayness we long for is our natural state, and it is always with us no matter what is happening in our lives." --Mary O'Malley
To learn more about this work, please visit our web site at www.maryomalley.com. Her latest book is The Magical Forest of Aliveness
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