It is early in the morning, a candle is burning next to me and I am surrounded by the magical stillness of the woods amidst which our house is located. I can feel the world around me waking up, a noise every now and then, some traffic on our little country lane, the first glimpse of dawn…
My body is warm, gradually preparing for the tasks of the day and feeling so yummy today. Still, something in me tries to suggest that I am wrong as I have not done what I had thought needed to be done this morning.
Yet I feel perfectly at ease and I know that everything is right just as it is. What just dawned on me is that I am rhythmically living each moment – living, instead of trying to master life.
Before, there were endless lists – written down or just imagined – packed with things to do and time limits by when they should be completed. This meant constant stress and tension; the feeling of failure was a well-known companion.
I would never meet my expectations.
I would override what I felt would be good to do in favour of what was next on my lists.
Over the last month I have developed a different approach. Now there still is a constant rhythm in my life, like going to bed early and getting up early and some of the basic structures of my day, but this rhythm is only followed because I can feel how much it supports me.
I could not let go of my beloved lists instantly and so turned them from ‘to do lists’ into ‘might be done’ lists – this took enormous pressure out of my life. These new lists now help me remember things that do need to be done, but I am not at their mercy anymore.
Now I will feel what needs to be done next and will go for it, even if my mind might try to tell me that this cannot be right.
My experience is that what I feel from deep inside of me is the biggest support that I have, as by following this inner knowing I am flowing with my days instead of trying to catch up with them: just being and being present with what I do, no thinking ahead or having another project on my mind.
This has been one of the most profound changes in my life. I have developed so much more trust in and love for myself by realising that in fact I already know all that I need to know and that it is about just letting this knowing come out again.
Feeling no need or pressure – at least most of the time – is such a blessing. Sitting with myself in the glorious stillness of this morning, looking forward to the day, knowing that all will be cared for and all that I have to do is be me to the best of my ability… no perfection needed.
Thank you Serge Benhayon for inspiring me to find and walk this way back to my stillness again.
By Michael Kremer, Personal Assistant, Buchholz, Germany
Further Reading:
Stillness
The Body Is The Marker Of All Truth
Time: How I Changed my Relationship with the Invisible Tyrant
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
I loved reading this statement, “I have developed so much more trust in and love for myself by realising that in fact I already know all that I need to know and that it is about just letting this knowing come out again”. What a confirmation that within all of us, we have this knowing that offers us what is next. That no list will be needed with this knowing and life could be lived from this place.
Could this be the antidote to our exhaustion too?..To stop the doing and running around? Worth pondering over.
“no perfection needed” Letting go of the drive for perfection allows us to be true to who we are.
It is interesting how we can put so much pressure upon ourselves, place so much expectations on ourselves and then be hard on ourselves for not completing a list that is near impossible to get done. What does this achieve? Nothing truly beneficial – and so if we had a boss like this we could consider them abusive, but yet it is what we do to ourselves and so it is high time that we began to appreciate ourselves and the qualities that we bring to the jobs we do rather than making it about the amount of things that get completed on the ‘To Do’ List.
Wow Henrietta what a revelation about creating our own lists, and not seeing it as abusive. Yet when another makes one, we see it as abusive. So then in that revelation, if we simply allow for us to simply be, then no amount of lists thrown at us by another will affect us, as we are in the appreciation of the offerings…
I love that feeling of having a list to do and yet letting yourself work through it in a way that is not from a priority list offered from the head but rather from a feeling of the body sharing what needs to be done next.
Michael, I love what you have shared here and it is something I too can relate to so well – it is a great example of how we can depend on something or give ourselves away/dis-empower ourselves if we do not use the tool (lists) responsibly: “I could not let go of my beloved lists instantly and so turned them from ‘to do lists’ into ‘might be done’ lists – this took enormous pressure out of my life. These new lists now help me remember things that do need to be done, but I am not at their mercy anymore.”
Being with our body, and being present with what we do supports a flow, ‘just being and being present with what I do, no thinking ahead or having another project on my mind.’
Appreciating the connection or essences that you are sharing Michael, is also a great step in holding onto our stillness, in everything we do.
Thank you Michael for your wonderful blog and I very much be inspired by your ‘might be done’ lists. What a wonderful thing to have just to remember things that needs to be done without the pressure to do it in a certain time. That feels indeed very freeing for me too!
Taking any external pressure off our day makes life flow so the natural order can be lived as you have shared Michael.
And how lovely life feels with a flow, ‘what I feel from deep inside of me is the biggest support that I have, as by following this inner knowing I am flowing with my days instead of trying to catch up with them’.
To come to a place where “I am rhythmically living each moment – living, instead of trying to master life” means I am no longer trying to plan ahead or trying to make things go the way I want, but simply allowing each moment to be the only one I have. What a different way to live than when I would continually live moments in the past and possible moments in the future and then wonder why the present just wasn’t happening the way I wanted it to.
Well said Ingrid – and this letting go of control is not about not having a willingness to do the jobs needed, but rather about getting them done in a rhythm that supports all.
“I would never meet my expectations.” When we put this pressure on ourselves it is like having a boss who is never appreciative of our work whatever we do.
The ease of your morning rhythm is beautiful, it inspires me to look at ways in which I can bring more rituals into my morning routine.
I was always a great one for lists, if it needed to be done it was on the list, then I started realising that I needed to trust myself, and maybe the lists were in fact making me feel less confident, so I now only list things that are really urgent like a prompt list and give it a quick glance over to see if I missed anything, the lovely thing is my soul steers me in the right direction without me having to think about what I need to do.
‘Feeling no need or pressure – at least most of the time – is such a blessing’, yes it is because it means our bodies can relax and breathe gently once again.
I love that; might be done list, instantly it feels the time pressure is off and we can get the things we need to get done in a flow instead of a drive.
“Thank you Serge Benhayon for inspiring me to find and walk this way back to my stillness again.” Serge is leaving such an incredible legacy of work, much of which is being successfully lived in the Universal Medicine student body, by myself included. It’s challenging to appreciate in full all that Serge has offered humanity solely because of the breadth and depth of his work, but wow, we have been given so much.
True Michael, ‘Feeling no need or pressure – at least most of the time – is such a blessing.’ I am becoming aware how the factor ‘time’ in my life can be such a huge pressure like someone with a whip is ready to hit me in order to get me going and I know I am the only one who can make the choice to live the simplicity of what lives in me.
I love what you share here Michael ‘‘to do lists’ into ‘might be done’ lists’, this certainly takes the drive out of trying to achieve an impossible list, that disconnects me from my body and makes me feel anxious.
Gorgeous piece of writing Michael. Our head tells us there is much to do. And there is. But if it comes from our head instead from our body it just doesn’t work. We override the body that perhaps wants to relax, rest or do quite something else. The body can and will tell us what to do, and once we are deeper in the body, we are fiery, light and doing things for humanity, lots of things won’t be any effort.
Changing your ‘to do lists’ into ‘might be done’ lists is such a simple yet fundamental change of approach which I can feel being quite transformational.
I love the simplicity with which you describe how you have managed to let go of the pressures of what you have to do and instead to re-connect to your inner-knowing and can feel through your expression the heartfelt truth of this for you. Very inspiring, thank you for sharing.
It’s so much more satisfying finishing the day knowing and feeling the completion of having honoured your inner knowings of what is needed to be done rather than complete if the day with a finished check list of things you had to do.
Simply because you will feel left, alone and empty with the last one and filled, together and full in the first one.
What we wake up to, is our choice… every day.
We try coming up with a plan, but there is a Plan far greater than that that governs and holds everything within in perfect harmony.
I love moments like these Michael – moments that are more consistent in my daily rhythm in life.So much simpler and harmonious than striving and hardened drive for perfection, that is to be caught up in the biggest lie and pathway to exhaustion and always needing to better oneself and life.
“Sitting with myself in the glorious stillness of this morning, looking forward to the day, knowing that all will be cared for and all that I have to do is be me to the best of my ability… no perfection needed”.
A powerful and inspiring blog Michael – what a profound healing to let go of the pressure of all the ‘to do’ lists and re-connect back to oneself and remember how to simply ‘Be’ in harmony and truth.
“This has been one of the most profound changes in my life. I have developed so much more trust in and love for myself by realising that in fact I already know all that I need to know and that it is about just letting this knowing come out again”.
Stillness allows us to feel space and the grandness of who we are – it is crazy that we fight this very natural way of being.
But understandable that when we fight our stillness, problems exist.
I love feeling stillness, we have so much to thank Serge Benhayon for, ‘Thank you Serge Benhayon for inspiring me to find and walk this way back to my stillness again.’
The tick box mentality of our to do lists can indeed keep us in the drive of doing and this will always be at the expense of the quality of what we do.
Our quality is always so important.