Today we ask that you look at the pattern of “tensing up,” or cultivating states of physical tension, in order to motivate yourself to “get things done.”
Most human are conditioned to believe that they can only take action from a place of physical tension.
They believe that action is motivated by yelling, complaining, attacking, and generally beating yourself or other people up. Only when you are sufficiently tense and anxious will you be motivated to do something — especially something “unpleasant,” like a “chore,” or “losing weight.”
People speak of “whipping themselves into shape.” Often there is a link between the image of a “whip,” and the motivation toward action.
This, really, is completely insane. It is also horribly counterproductive.
Acting from a place of tension can, at best, only produce short-term results.
That is why people who lose weight on aggressive “starvation diets” usually wind up gaining it back.
Any time you bring the “whip” into the picture, you are actually creating a huge amount of subconscious resistance to the very thing you want to do.
That is because true creative energy comes from a place of love, and joy. The “whip” is poisonous to creativity.
Imagine growing a plant from a seedling. You put it in a pot in the sunshine.
But then, you are frustrated with its growth rate. So you start screaming at it. You tell it what a stupid, worthless plant it is. You call it lazy.
If you actually did this to a plant, in real life, you would certainly stunt its growth, and very likely kill it. You might as well pour a bucket of salt on it. It would have the same effect.
That is what you do to your own creative energy every time you attack yourself for not doing enough, or failing to live up to expectations. You are creating an environment that is hostile to growth and creativity.
The only thing that proliferates in a habitually tense, anxious human being is disease — both mental, and physical.
If you want to create anything new — even if it is just a clean desk — you must lay down the whip, and act from a space of joy and playfulness.
If you have a cluttered workspace, and you “whip yourself” to clean it — in no time at all, you will have a cluttered workspace again. The pattern will only be reinforced.
Many of you believe that your lives would fall to pieces if you did not attack yourself all day long.
It is not true. You would only become healthier, saner, and more productive. You would be a better lover, partner, friend, worker, or parent. You might even expand and grow beyond your wildest dreams — and it wouldn’t even feel like “hard work.”
It is okay if you do not believe this. You’re allowed to keep whipping yourself. You will do that, until one day you do not.
wordfromthewell 