Well-being is always present within you. It cannot be given to you by anyone else. Other people cannot take away a single iota of your well-being.
Consider all the many ways that we seek to make ourselves better in the eyes of others. This debilitating drive is borne from the mistaken notion that there is something missing in us, and that others have what we need or want.
Faulty assumptions lead to faulty outcomes. Mistaken beliefs lead to unneeded suffering.
Within you, nothing is missing. Nothing is broken. These may appear as mere words or a nice sentiment, but they point to an important truth that we all share. Well-being is already within you, awaiting but your invitation. The arrival of well-being comes as a result of letting go of your fearful thoughts, and walking through the world with a willingness to stop attacking yourself and others.
Look around you today and realize that everyone suffers. Do we need to contribute more to the suffering of others? Do we need to increase our own personal experience of suffering?
How often do we try to control others, to make them behave differently? How often do we judge others and try to make them guilty? How often do we point our finger at them and try to convince them that they are the cause of our very own suffering?
When you begin see that well-being is not dependent on what other people think, say or do, (or don’t do!), you will begin to see how unhelpful it is to attack others thinking that it will bring you peace. The ways of war do not lead to peace.
Trying to control others is exhausting work and it requires constant vigilance. The time and energy you use in trying to control others comes directly out of the time and energy you could be using in living the life you most deeply desire. Fear is the foundation upon which trying to control others seems reasonable. Unfortunately, fear obscures your awareness of inner well-being. Fear makes promises that it cannot keep: by controlling others, I will make myself safe.
When you stop attacking yourself and others, well-being and safety effortlessly float up into awareness. Take a moment right now and see if this is true for you…
No one needs to earn well-being just as no one needs to earn breathing air. Breathing is. Well-being is.
The essence of who you are is always safe and secure. Tell yourself this over and over throughout the day. Create and strengthen within yourself a knowingness and awareness that your safety and well-being are always present and not at all at the mercy of what other people think, say or do.
Give yourself the gift of release and relief. As you forgive others and forgive yourself for the many injustices you have perceived up until now, you will begin to see the folly of trying to get others’ approval or trying to avoid rejection.. The happy practice of giving up trying to get what you don’t need will be such a welcome gift to yourself, indeed.
No one can make you better than you already are. No one can cause you to be less. Today, practice letting go of trying to get anything from anyone else and you will see that you already have all that you really need.
Your ever-present and gentle opportunity today and every day is to seek and then find the innocence that lies within yourself and then to look past the drama and conflict of others and see their innocence, too.
You will find what you seek. Be on your side and by doing so, you will help others to find what you have found.
