There is a breed of people swimming in the ocean of life called the ‘Gotto fish,’ though it is best pronounced “Got to.”
There is always something for them to do; there is always somewhere they need to be.
“I’ve just ‘gotto’ do something for work” one would say before running off from his wife and children.
“I’ve just ‘gotto’ get this done around the house,” another would say before they might actually stop for long enough to deeply connect with others or themselves.
They can relax by switching off when they “Just gotto watch TV, just gotto catch up with a friend.” They can recharge when they “Just gotto grab a cup of coffee, just gotto grab a snack” and when they are really, really tired, they rely heavily on “Just gotto get this finished.”
They would say they move through life easily enough, but in reality there is little real ease in their movement. Each time their body comes to a rest, something kicks in that either requires a complete switch off or the next ‘gotto’ task to be completed.
The ‘gotto fish’ are driven by anxiety and nervous energy: a type of fuel that prizes movement over presence and switching off over connection. Even though they can get amazing amounts of work done, the reality is that living this way is draining.
Yet most are raised by other ‘gotto fish,’ so living in this way is so familiar and common that they never really see that anything is wrong.
For one ‘gotto fish’ life was becoming too hard to keep living in this way. He had become tired to a point where no amount of sweets, caffeine or alcohol could boost him for long enough. His health suffered, even though he had studied all manner of complementary and energetic therapies. His relationships suffered because there was no way of having a conversation that didn’t start from this point of anxiety.
He was committed to getting it right but couldn’t keep swimming through life this way. The hard part was finding another way to move through life, which was a quest he had been on for a number of years, but to little effect. On one level the ‘gotto fish’ became quite depressed.
“Surely there is another way to be?” he asked from a place deep within.
The interesting thing about life is that when you ask a question from this deeper place, life has a way of responding. Not everyone asks the question in this way and not everyone acts on the answers they get, but thankfully this ‘gotto’ fish was open when the answer came.
He came across the ‘Universal Fish,’ a wise fish who has swum the waters of life for many, many years. There was nothing the Universal Fish had not seen, done or tried, yet there was a twinkle in his eye and an ease to how he moved.
The Universal Fish suggested to him that his anxiety and drive to always be on the move was not where the issue started – that we only become anxious or use nervous energy as a form of fuel when we lack one thing… connection to ourselves.
The Universal Fish explained to him that connection was first and foremost an energetic connection. Anxiety in fact was simply our body’s way of letting us know that we are not connected. “It’s a bit like a car driving on the edge of the road – it will feel bumpy, because we are not meant to be driving there, but if you have never learnt to drive in the middle of the lane, it will feel normal,” the Universal Fish said one day.
The Universal Fish encouraged him to explore not only energetic connection but the different qualities of energy that we might connect to. “Anxiety comes from one form of energetic connection,” the Universal Fish offered.
The Universal Fish introduced him to the Gentle Breath MeditationTM, explaining that it was a way of establishing a connection not just to energy but to a deeper part of ourselves. It was a way to find a place within that was deeper than the anxiety and nervousness.
The ‘gotto’ fish didn’t instantly like this kind of meditation: he would wriggle, itch, twitch and move as he tried to practise the technique. Not only that, when he did become more still he would begin to feel things within that were both beautiful and unsettling.
Then over time, he began to feel gentleness and for the first time in a long time he felt connected to himself – his true self. He learnt that the issues he had been running from for much of his life were driving his anxiousness, and that understanding and working on this gave his body a feeling of more space. The ‘gotto’ fish got help and worked with people that swam through life with that same gentleness he was connecting to.
The Gentle Breath MeditationTM was not a way of escaping life but building enough honesty and room in his body for the gentleness to grow. Over time he found that his body was capable of swimming with enough gentleness that he began to move through the waters of life with stillness. He had a smile on his face, enjoying the feeling of moving in stillness.
Nowadays, the only thing he ‘gotto’ to do is stay connected to himself. He’s not mastered it yet, but when he stays connected to this, the rest of life takes care of itself and anxiousness is no longer what drives him.
By Joel Levin
Related Reading:
Beating Anxiety Gentle Breath Meditation®
What’s Happened to the Joy of Life?
Anxious Much?
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
“The ‘gotto fish’ are driven by anxiety and nervous energy: a type of fuel that prizes movement over presence and switching off over connection. Even though they can get amazing amounts of work done, the reality is that living this way is draining.”
Surely what you have written here Joel is how most of us experience life which is why we rely on caffeine, sugars and carbohydrates to get us through the day. I was listening to a conversation the sales team where having while we were waiting for the meeting to start, they were admitting that they needed their Coffee in the morning to kick start the day until about lunch time and then they switch to Tea knowing that both are caffeinated drinks which stimulate their bodies and they know they cannot cope if they don’t have the caffeine even though it gives them headaches if they have too much. They know they are addicted to Caffeine but the effort of coming off Caffeine is too hard for them and not worth the effort. Which leads me to question why do we knowingly dull ourselves down when we could be so full of life and vitality?
I so love the way Joel writes and gets across a teaching in such an easy and fun way, ‘He came across the ‘Universal Fish,’ a wise fish who has swum the waters of life for many, many years. There was nothing the Universal Fish had not seen, done or tried, yet there was a twinkle in his eye and an ease to how he moved.’
Opens the flood-gates to our essences so we feel the innate nature of being connected takes away the trapping of having a gotta attitude and thus we evolve our way out of the depths of the ocean.
The Gentle Breath Meditation reconnects us to the stillness deep within, while the waves of motion swirl around outside of us.
“Nowadays, the only thing he ‘gotto’ to do is stay connected to himself.” Life becomes a model of simplicity when we make it about our connection to soul first and the energetic quality we bring to the world. Everything still gets done, but the priority is presence with ourselves and the love we are. Once we take care of ourselves in that way it’s easier to take care of everything in life. If we prioritise what’s outside of ourselves over ourselves it can be a very stressful, draining and anxious way to live.
Yes definitely a very exhausting and draining way of living, ‘The ‘gotto fish’ are driven by anxiety and nervous energy: a type of fuel that prizes movement over presence and switching off over connection. Even though they can get amazing amounts of work done, the reality is that living this way is draining.’ Could this be what is behind all the exhaustion in the world?
Melinda I’m just getting to feel just how much resistance we come up against when we take the steps to take care of ourselves first. I can feel the spirit arching up in the resistance which is huge. In the past I would have fought back now I know that is one of the tricks the spirit plays all day long getting the fightback. I have at last come to the understanding that the greatest gift I can give to myself is the gift of surrender. I’m still learning how to do this practically. However the surrender does lead to a settlement and the more I settle the more I want to settle and this has made huge changes in my life because I’m not in so much of a fight, we cannot fight our spirit that purposely keeps us engaged in the fight so that we do not under any circumstance reconnect back to the soul.
Can a Gotto Fish change? The answer is … yes they can 🙃 I once was a Gotto Fish. I got to do this, I got to do that etc etc, even at the time of being a Gotto Fish I knew that how I was living did not feel good. I am no longer a Gotto Fish but a Whats Next Fish 😂 the difference is I am living from my body more than from my head ❤️ Never about perfection but proves we can change our ways to ones that our more loving and supportive for both ourselves and others ✨
From Self-Fish to Soul-Fish! 🙂
Beautiful to hear that you have changed from a ‘gotto fish’, to a ‘what’s next fish’ and living from the connection with your body..
This is a huge problem
“Yet most are raised by other ‘gotto fish,’ so living in this way is so familiar and common that they never really see that anything is wrong.”
So much so that when someone suggests that there is another way to live in harmony with one’s own body and thereby with everyone else, the other ‘gotto fish’ become very unsettled because they have become so familiar with their life so anything that is considered out of the ordinary is a threat to their ‘gotto’ way of life and must be shouted down.
I love here Joel your description of anxiety as a message or a signal of disconnection rather than something to be feared or suppressed. It is actually a great messenger.
Connection to ourselves is paramount, ‘The Universal Fish suggested to him that his anxiety and drive to always be on the move was not where the issue started – that we only become anxious or use nervous energy as a form of fuel when we lack one thing… connection to ourselves.’
Connect to ourselves and life sorts itself out. A simplicity I am learning to embrace.
We are not meant to ‘go it alone’. Getting help and saying yes to the support that is on offer is what we are to master. Resisting any support means that it suits to keep the momentums of anxiousness or any other emotion running within the body.
Coming to understand that “dis-connection equals anxiety” has made so much sense of the big part of my life where I lived in anxiousness and continuous exhaustion. This understanding has certainly shown me so clearly that I was actually living totally dis-connected from me, from my body. No wonder I was so exhausted as it’s very hard work to live in a body you have no connection to.
It is so timely returning to this wonderful blog today as I have fallen into my “got to” ways of old in the last couple of weeks. I am actually shocked at the reminder of how draining living like this is, and that this is how I lived for many, many years; in a continual state of exhaustion. But I have brought a very special ‘got to’ back into my life in the last few days, and that is the Gentle Breath Meditation, a beautifully simple meditation which offers me the space to reconnect to me, and when I do there is definitely no room left for all the other ‘go tos’ to wriggle their destructive ways back into my life.
The Gentle Breath Meditation is an amazing tool to help us reconnect with ourselves, ‘The Universal Fish introduced him to the Gentle Breath MeditationTM, explaining that it was a way of establishing a connection not just to energy but to a deeper part of ourselves.’
We could say Ingrid that our “go to” ways of getting by in life are an addiction so that if we do not clear from our bodies why we need the addiction in the first place we will keep going back to it. By picking apart our addictions we can actually cease the anxiety and nervous energy we put ourselves into.
Meeting the ‘Universal Fish’ opened the door for me to meet myself and I have been amazed at who I have found.
Yep the Universal Fish totally rock ✨💫
What to do and who am I, when I have no “gotto” to go to. To honesty reflect on this, leads me to see how easily I can get caught up in the “gotto” way of life. Which is great, as this lead me to go deeper within to feel my own connection to self and then begin again in a gentler new way of being.
Mary I agree with you that we can so easily get caught up in the ” gotto” way of life. When I get that itchy or unsettled feeling then I know I have to stop and feel what’s really going on in my body, where is that unsettlement coming from? I feel I’m fighting my own surrender to go deeper in my connection to myself as the question pops into my head what will happen if I really let go? I know there is a part of me that fights the surrender and is always looking to live in the unsettlement of the “gotto’ way of life.
Yes, the “gotto” way of life is like the itch that can’t be scratched. I like what you have shared here Mary by linking unsettlement to the doing, it brings it to a deeper understanding of what’s behind the incessant doing and a way to feel what it may in part be signaling.
Awesome blog. I actually remember the moment I cried in despair that there had to be more to life than this and yes, the universe does listen. It took two years from that point but things started to slot into place and I found Universal Medicine. During that whole time, I had no doubt that I was waiting for something or someone and that I would meet someone who would change my life forever.
I remember coming to a point of despair because I had searched through spirituality, religion, the New Age, and various other things for the truth, I knew something was missing, there had to be more to life, but after many years searching I had not found it. Realising this I actually called out from a place deep within me for the truth and after that I came to Universal Medicine and reconnected to my Soul. And, how beautiful the truth is and my life now.
From childhood like you Melinda I knew something was missing, that there had to be more to life than just existing. It wasn’t until I was 50 years old that I met Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine that I found the answers to life. We are brought up to seek outside of ourselves for answers in Religion, spiritual new age, Education, counselling etc., when actually everything that we have ever needed is within us quietly waiting to be given an opportunity to communicate the truth of who we really are. There is such an abiding love to be reconnected with that at first it may feel that it cannot be so easy and be true but if we just trust and allow, the Kingdom of God is revealed in all it’s glory and then we have at last returned.
That’s interesting because when we don’t go into that frantic energy we can feel that Christmas time around December can be very connecting time of the year and has a feeling of stillness we can connect to.
I love feeling and living in stillness, ‘Over time he found that his body was capable of swimming with enough gentleness that he began to move through the waters of life with stillness. He had a smile on his face, enjoying the feeling of moving in stillness.’
‘.. we only become anxious or use nervous energy as a form of fuel when we lack one thing… connection to ourselves.’ This is brilliant, I will share this with someone I know who feels anxious when he is at school. It also, makes sense for me when I go into nervous energy to get things done.
Bringing back connection to ourselves, connection to our body is essential in life, ‘Anxiety in fact was simply our body’s way of letting us know that we are not connected.’
The fuel we use has to come from the connection to ourselves otherwise we are played with and life gets us with ‘ I got to do whatever there is to start or finish, or something in between. Being in stillness is the only way to feel the space and live accordingly.
What I’m finding so interesting is that when I get caught in that mode of thinking that I have so much to do, and delay doing it, that when I eventually get around to doing whatever it is because I have limited time to do it, it gets done amazingly quickly. So just getting on with things and doing them, rather than wasting time thinking about how much I have to do makes so much sense.
True Sandra, all that thinking is very time consuming and brings us nothing except getting anxious (and tired) and when we do do what needs to be done it is always less hard than we thought it would be.
Sandra it’s really interesting that these last few weeks somehow life has got super busy, so then I get up earlier so that I can do all the things that need to be done with so much more space, so there is no need to go into the I have just ‘Gotto’ do anything. Getting up early is the antidote.
I really didn’t realise how much anxiety, tension and nervous energy I was living with until I had a session with a Universal Medicine practitioner and got to feel the difference between the intensity of the anxiety and stillness. It was such an amazing experience, I will never forget it.
To return to being content with one’s own breath like a baby is most beautiful to feel, and to live in that way serves us all unimaginably.
The impact of how we are with our breath is truly underestimated by everyone including the healthcare nowadays.
This is so true ‘The interesting thing about life is that when you ask a question from this deeper place, life has a way of responding’ … we just need to ask … from within. A great reminder.
It is gorgeous to feel when stillness is present in the body over anxiousness. I know both quite well and am lessening my ‘gotto fish’ mentality to feel more stillness in my life.
And the great thing is Sarah, when you are in connection to stillness you will naturally inspire others who are in the anxious energy to align to stillness. This is pretty powerful considering how much we affect each other on an energetic level.
Beautiful reminder when you stay connected to your self, everything else gets taken care off.
Life is more simple when we are connected to ourselves, ‘Nowadays, the only thing he ‘gotto’ to do is stay connected to himself. He’s not mastered it yet, but when he stays connected to this, the rest of life takes care of itself and anxiousness is no longer what drives him.’ A beautiful sharing.
Imagine everyone would before they went into anxiousness stop and connect with their body. What if that would be taught in school?! An epidemic disease could be stopped through teaching that simple and easy fact.
Absolutely right, you simply have to ask from deep within and the answers are given. No search for the outside will ever equal the immediacy of one’s own truth that communicates to you, the moment you stop and trust it.
“Anxiety in fact was simply our body’s way of letting us know that we are not connected.” It’s so important when we begin to realise that everything our body communicates has a purpose.
I can be such a “Gotto” fish, the thrill from ticking things off my to do list, getting things done and the adrenaline rush of completing things in a short burst of time is quite something. But I often question myself and think, so what if i’ve done this quickly if it is not done of quality? I may as well have not done it because we don’t change the world by getting things done, we change the world by getting things done in quality.
Should be more like “I’ve just ‘gotto’ eat this food or move this particular way” so as to not have to feel and be my natural delicate self?!
“We only become anxious or use nervous energy as a form of fuel when we lack one thing… connection to ourselves” – this is a brilliant way to put it, and makes so much sense of why we keep going and think we have to do even more to counter this anxiety – that itself is the fuel that drives us, and unless we come to a stop and change the fuel, it keeps going.
Endlessly chasing our tails we stay blind to the fact that we are chasing our tails and do not evolve from being a ‘Gotto’ fish. One moment of openness and honesty can re-awaken our awareness and then we start to have some real choices.
I used to be the Queen of to do lists to keep me busy in my day in order not to feel the underlying tension what I really needed to be ‘doing’ – I would make a list and start with the lowest priority ones as I knew that then I would have to get everything done on the list as the priority ones could not be left out at all. As a result I went to bed having accomplished everything on the list but done with a frantic energy that led me to feeling falling asleep completely exhausted. These days I still have much to do in a day and though of course I can still be pulled into the same of frantic way of doing things, I am learning fast to pace myself and to do it in a way that is far more supportive and less in a drive of the body.
That constant drive to be busy and keep doing things is a sure fire way to distract oneself from how one is feeling, what one is feeling and what is truly being communicated by the body. It is not to say one should sit around and not move all the time, but that when we move in a quality that is not rushed and busy then we can do things in a manner and with a quality that allows us to be open and tuned into what is needed by our own body as well as by our surrounds.
“It’s a bit like a car driving on the edge of the road – it will feel bumpy, because we are not meant to be driving there, but if you have never learnt to drive in the middle of the lane, it will feel normal,” Great example of how so much has become our normal when in fact it is a way of life that is in dis-ease, struggle, complication… that actually does not need to be there at all when we live in a different way.
Love the example too. We seem to be living in a society where living on the edge has become normal and accepted. We just don’t seem to know better. If just one car drives on the middle of the road, it gives a reflection to all with ‘there is another way, e.g. the middle way’. Just like I was inspired by a consistent ‘middle roaddriver’, I realize I can be that example for others by being connected to my body consistently – without perfection.
‘Nowadays, the only thing he ‘gotto’ to do is stay connected to himself. He’s not mastered it yet, but when he stays connected to this, the rest of life takes care of itself and anxiousness is no longer what drives him.’ Love this Joel .. and so true. When we don’t have that connection ,something else move in, and that is dis-connection = anxiety.
Reading the blogs and all the many comments it is very clear we do know that there is a disconnection and a true connection to our bodies = soul. In the disconnection we are in the anxiousness and nervous energy and there is usually a feeling of being out of control. In the connection to our bodies = soul there is a settlement that our bodies fall into and the deeper we go into our soul the deeper the stillness we experience. Then there is no struggle.
One of the things that exposes the ‘Gotto fish’ in me is being sick. I can handle not doing anything (or as much) for a day then I expect myself to magically get better, so I can get on with things again. Yet when I stop I get to feel so much more, and I know this isn’t the way to live. Focussing on doing means I am actually living less than my potential as I am not bringing a quality of inner stillness to everything I do.
Fiona L such a beautiful comment, ‘Focussing on doing means I am actually living less than my potential as I am not bringing a quality of inner stillness to everything I do.’ In our trickery of not wanting to fulfil our potential, is to deny the stillness that we naturally are. We live in the ‘doing’ of life as the raciness of constantly ‘doing’ is the complete opposite to stillness, stillness bring us back to our connection with the multidimensionality of our soul.
This has reminded us all that deep down within we actually do know what it is that we are looking for and that we do know that there is something innate within us that needs to be connected to and expressed out in all relationships and in every scenario.
We know as we are from that Universal Source, we feel the Universal Pulse.
We put so much pressure on ourselves with “got to…” or have to or must do. Its like we have an expectation of ourselves to do all and be all to everyone. It’s not always an easy one to get out from. When we come back to feeling how we are in all that we do, we start to feel that the way we ‘got to’ do things is simply exhausting and that we can actually move through life doing all that we do, without that occurring at all. But this comes down to the how we are in this.
And it’s worth mentioning that the Universal fish can move fast and he can work enormously hard and do everything he’s Got-to do, but understands it’s the quality he does it in rather than the task itself.
Yes the only thing worth to ‘gotto’ do is to stay connected.
Yes – the thing we most often overlook is actually one of the most important things in life.
Ha Ha love it – yes, jstewart51, you are spot on – now I just need to keep remembering this and not putting that last on my to do list!
There are so many levels of anxiety and to go through the process of admitting and feeling it is running is step one, then realising that this is not a way you want to live your life you get to a point where you go, ‘ok lets commit to me’. I haven’t looked back and this relationship has deepened and deepened. The more I do the less anxiety and I am recently coming to a point where most of the time it is not there. How freeing is that!
I hadn’t thought of anxiety as being induced by a lack of connection with ourselves – a symptom of disconnection rather than the thing that needs fixing and addressing. The gentle breath meditation – simply focusing on one’s breath in and out- is a tool that really supports the building of a deeper connection with the body.
I sure can relate to the movements of the gotto fish and how we can push our bodies to keep going because that is the world we live in and the reflection we get each day. But as is said here – if we are open to another way then we are able to see it is possible to move differently and to have more balance in how we are.