Are you living in your mind?
How you respond in each moment defines the quality of your life
What I find very interesting is that in any given moment, you have two ways to respond or act. You can either respond based on your “thinking” or your mind, the source of which comes from your past experiences…or you can respond based on your intuition.
The path you take leads to how happy, peaceful, and fulfilled you are in life.
Taking action that comes from “thinking”
When we respond based on our “thinking”, we miss opportunities and signs the Universe is giving to us.
And so our response or action coming from this source often feels forced or not supported. The cloud of thoughts block us from seeing reality as it really is and we often don’t participate in the way the Universe is guiding us to.
Think about all the times we just run through schedules, meetings, deadlines and task lists that sit in our mind all day. How often do we drop all that and observe the present moment and all it has to offer in a state of non-thinking?
We are living life in our minds.
Taking action based on what’s in our minds rather than what’s present leads to forcing outcomes and subsequent overthinking about trying to control the outcomes. And thinking always leads to suffering, psychologically speaking.
Taking action that comes from your intuition
On the other hand, when we clear our mind from thinking, we have space. Now, we are open and receptive to what the present moment has to offer. In this space, we can observe things just as they are and respond from our intuition.
In other words, we can follow nudges of curiosity and inspiration without the cloud of fear, judgment, or our past. That’s what brings about miracles! Because now we respond and play alongside the Universe and not against it.
In Taoism, Wu Wei means effortless action. It means to flow like water with the way of the Universe. In other words, we are not forcing things to happen but rather accepting the moment as it is and seeing possibilities with fresh eyes. It means listening to the signs of the Universe and responding to them.
Flowing like water
Think about how water flows through cracks, crevices, and even across large rocks through erosion. It’s not about force but about a gentle, calm, and creative persistence.
When we live like this, we live in a state of joy, peace, and love and get what we want effortlessly.
Effortlessly doesn’t mean no action. It means our action is play and feels effortless. We are not engaging in the effort to “think” and rather just act in a state of flow. It’s a bit crazy to believe but we can exist and act constantly in a state of non-thinking.
At this point, you may be questioning this very rigorously brushing it off as craziness…or perhaps you are intrigued.
We already know what to do at every moment… as does every matter in life whether passive or alive. And this knowledge is not through our rational thinking mind but from our intuition.
Think about how you know to digest your food or how you know to treat a wound when you’re hurt. You don’t engage in conscious thought for this.
This is not just limited to Taoism. If you have listened to Sadhguru, a spiritual leader and a mystic, he speaks about how the present moment is inevitable. It is already happening. You can’t change or fight the present moment but you can accept it fully and wholly and then respond to it.
This moment to moment awareness and response is how we live life effortlessly.
Modern hustle culture blocks our intuition
When we are too focused on rigid schedules, deadlines, and milestones…we are often forcing things against the way of nature. I can recall several times in my career and personal life where I’ve forced through things that didn’t seem to want to happen because I thought I needed to make it happen.
If you want something, go get it no matter what, right?
Sure… but the question is do you want to play the I vs. Universe game or do you want to play the I am the Universe game?
The first way leads to stress, anxiety, hard rigor, and often a lot of overthinking and suffering. The first way is celebrated by our society. And it’s not to say that it doesn’t work…sometimes it does…but what do we really mean by “it works”?
Is success really about just the end goal, the victory of which lasts momentarily as you immediately get on with the next goal? What about the journey that is arguably 99.9% of life? Is life 99.9% hustle and stress for that 0.1% of momentary achievement?
An alternate, effortless way of living
The second way seems mysterious or possibly delusional if this is all new to you. I get it…I was there most of my life and still go back and forth. You don’t have to believe it because I’m saying so…in fact, if you take time to observe life and notice how things are happening to you or for you, you can experience this for yourself.
If we are actually open and receptive in each moment, we can hear our intuition clearly. You already know what to do…This intelligence already exists in you and in everything around us. For us, it comes in the form of our intuition. You don’t need to “think” to access it…On the contrary, “thinking” blocks this boundless intelligence.
This is the same intelligence in you that helped you grow from a single-celled embryo to a full grown adult without any conscious thinking.
It knows infinitely more than our rational minds could possibly imagine.
The thinking trap
Thinking blocks this intelligence because “thinking” comes from your mind, which like your other organs, has a definite role of processing your past to seemingly protect you from danger.
Like most tools, it has its flaws. It often inaccurately perceives the unknown as danger because it’s very conservative. But if we see it as a machine doing its job, we can use it when useful and not let it drive our life.
So rather than living in our minds (again, which are machines that take past experiences and try to project scary futures), we can live in the moment…and actually respond from a place of non-thinking. It is in this state we access our intuition or this infinite intelligence.
So that means not fighting obstacles when things don’t work out but rather, flowing like water does - persistently, gracefully, and calmly. When an obstacle shows up, we embrace it and find creative opportunities around it rather than pushing through using sheet force. When we push through, we ignore the signs the Universe is showing us.
Effortless action doesn’t mean wasting away on the couch
On the contrary, being in flow with life means taking action from a place of openness, curiosity, and inspiration in each and every moment. It’s living intelligently.
It means seeing the moment as it is without your past baggage or your limited future projections. And responding using your intuition not your “thinking.”
This feels off because our intuition is not always rational. And we’ve grown up to believe in data-driven, logical decision making so how can we choose a seemingly random inclination over reason?
So we scrap our curiosity and stick to our 6-month action plan and set goals. We choose “effort” and what we think is a “safe” plan over effortless action and unknown, boundless possibilities.
Quitter attitude?
Accepting the moment and especially obstacles seems like that’s something a quitter does. Note accepting does not mean giving up. On the contrary, it’s an attitude where we going around the obstacles as water does through crevices and finding an intelligent way.
When we take this route and follow our intuition, it feels expansive, light, joyful, and peaceful. You get to the same (or perhaps better) destination as with hustle culture but now we live fully in every moment. Life is now about the 99.9% journey.
And if you’re read my past posts, you already know that life is about the journey because the source of your desires and the path to it comes from the Creator in you.
In other words, if you don’t “think” and just “get out of the way,” your end goals are inevitable. And if they’re inevitable, it’s not about the end goals. It’s about the marvelous experience of the human journey.
The Universe is a mysterious organism
If you are wondering why I capitalize the Universe, it’s because of how I perceive it. The Universe is one marvelous, incredibly massive organism, if you will, and we are a part of it just as a drop is part of the ocean and the ocean itself. Similarly, we can imagine ourselves as a cell in this infinitely large organism.
Contrary to what we grow up believing, we are not human beings planted in an independent, external universe that we need to “conquer.” Rather, we are very much a part of this interconnected intelligent organism.
When we want something in life, the Universe collaborates with all its different parts to bring it to life. That’s because your desire for that something originates from the Universe itself. This is how miracles happen! And they are happening all around us all the time…but usually, we just miss them.
We are too busy living in our minds.
If you’re curious about how this works, check out my post on The Way of the Universe where I go into a lot more detail.
Until next time!
Loved the way you have explained Flowing like water; effortlessly, perseveringly and calmly ❤️