Discover the wisdom of one of the most iconic spiritual leaders of the twentieth century.
Once upon a time, a person was sick, and that person was me.
I didn’t feel fulfilled in my work, it generated a lot of stress, and I ended up with an irritable colon.
I didn’t feel loved; all the partners I knew, I used them, or they used me, but that was not love. And it stressed me out to end up alone, which gave me a lot of anxiety.
In my house, there was a psychological abuser who got on my nerves.
I lent a lot of money to some relatives, and as they had difficulties paying me back, I became cruel with them.
All that had me with diarrhea, malaise, insomnia, anxiety, and depression.
I was a wreck, and I blamed my circumstances until one fine day, listening to Alan Watts, it all stood alone in my mind, and I knew exactly what I had to do.
The phrase that changed everything
“What can you do when there is nothing to do? Observe. And everything happens by itself: you breathe, the wind blows, the trees shake, your blood circulates, and your nerves tingle. Everything happens by itself. “ — Alan Watts
That sentence gave me a Eureka moment, and I had this epiphany: “give in, and things will eventually fall into place.”
And it did.
- I let go of the anger and stopped chasing my relatives, and in time, they paid me back in spades for the money I lent them.
- I stopped trying to put up with the abuser, called the police, and he never lived in my house again.
- I deleted my Tinder profile and stopped looking for a partner; I realized that the only thing I could do was to involve someone else in my unhappiness and make them responsible for my smiles. And I started to fall in love with myself.
- I quit my job before publishing my first book. It was the craziest thing I ever did in my life. And against all odds, years later, I’m still making a living from what I write.
And best of all: I no longer have diarrhea, insomnia, and constant discomfort, and I rarely get anxiety.
I am not rich. I don’t need it. What I needed was health. And thank God I understood that in time.
The importance of letting go.
Letting go of what hurts us is much more important than we think.
Some time ago, I saw an interview with a well-known doctor who said that many of the illnesses that modern human beings suffer from are mainly triggered by stress.
When you live under stress, you live in a state of struggle in which your body is constantly prepared to defend itself against imminent dangers. That makes you live with your body flooded with cortisol and decompensates you completely.
And from this, the doctor said, come many heart attacks, poor diet, anxiety, and strokes. — All kinds of things can happen when you spend your life stressed.
That’s why it’s essential to realize that, as Watts says, most things happen by themselves, and they also take care of themselves.
The two ways of doing things
Does this mean I must stop striving to finish things and get through it all? No.
It means that there are two ways to get things done.
- Get stressed, get bitter, get too emotionally involved, get too attached to an outcome, and worry.
- Take neither victory nor failure too personally. Seek harmony in everything you do. Don’t get attached to results. Do what needs to be done, and don’t get involved until it hurts.
From personal experience, the second path is the one I chose, thanks to Watts’ phrase, and it changed my life completely. So I call it the middle way.
Tips to stop stressing out and follow the middle road
- Vaccinate yourself against chaos: instead of waiting for an enormous tragedy to hit your life and leave you in a depression. Face small doses of disorder in a controlled environment that will prepare you against big disasters. For example, have difficult conversations to avoid significant conflicts with people who abuse your trust.
- Use your health as a shield: instead of feeling guilty about saying no to an activity or person that you know robs you of peace. Think that you don’t say NO to something or someone because you are a terrible friend but because what you are asked to do can lower your defenses due to stress. Just as we don’t eat certain things so that we don’t get high blood sugar or cholesterol, we should say NO more often so that we don’t release cortisol.
- Focus on the process, not the goal: Life is like a cruise ship. Imagine that the cruise of your life leaves from Valencia to Turkey, and you like the destination but not the itinerary. What are you doing in that case? Change your destination, obviously, to change your itinerary, where you will spend most of your time. Well, in life, it is the same, choose a goal that makes you go through all those places you want to go on your way, and so you will detach yourself from the result and enjoy the trip.
Takeaway
Most things happen by themselves, as Watts says.
The earth turns by itself.
Food arrives at the supermarket without you planting, packing, and transporting it 🙂
And misfortunes come by themselves in time.
So the smartest thing you can do is NOT TO LIVE BITTER AND STRESSED.
And I don’t say it for good or because it’s fashionable to be positive, I say it for your health because, without health, you have nothing.
Don’t forget that.
A virtual hug
AG
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