Brilliant Fish

If you are not absolutely clear that you are a genius, perhaps it is because you are trying to be something you're not.  

Sometimes it is obvious when you are trying to be someone else.  After eight years in graduate school I finally said to my ex-husband, "I cannot do this anymore.  I feel like I'm a square peg trying to fit into a round hole.  This isn't me. I have to stop doing this."  I walked away from an entire life.  And I never looked back.  Talk about obvious.

It's not always like that, though.  Sometimes, trying to be something you're not is more subtle.  Rather than being in a career that isn't a good fit,  an unhealthy relationship, or living in an uncomfortable climate, people obscure their genius with expectations:

• how your children should behave and feel to prove you are a good parent
• how quickly things need to come together to prove a new venture is worthwhile
• how friends, lovers and family should behave to show they love you
• what life should look like to indicate that life is working out. 

How did we get hoodwinked into valuing expectations?  If your lover regularly complains about you, you will likely get bored and leave the relationship.  Expectations are not required. You don't need to expect your lovers will celebrate you.  You simply show up in the present moment, honor your intuition and see that it is not workable to be in an intimate relationship with someone who is not a member of your pump-up-jam band.      

In fact, expectations high-jack people.  Thinking about how things should or should not go distracts you from the present moment where things are going how they are going, regardless of what you think.  Filtering the present moment through the lens of expectation creates a barrier between you and your internal guidance system.  Does this sound like freedom to you?


Nope, me neither.   

In satsang today:
I find that people have a certain idea
of how things should be
and then they try to squeeze life into that shape
and it's very painful.

Now, one who is free cannot do that. 
They cannot go into those shapes. 
They will refuse. 

And then people will say, 
"ah, but you're not even trying.  You must commit yourself." 

And you say, 
"No.  Why should I try to put myself into jail?"

Free is who we are.  Experiencing otherwise is an indication that we can let go of something.  Usually, expectations.  For me, that demystifies a quote from yesterday's post, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."  Lose your expectations that obscure the truth of who you are - a genius.  A genius like these people who are:

teaching humility

saving the oceans

preventing violence

Give yourself a moment to consider what it would be like to live  free of expectations.  What fears, insecurities, resentments, and stories would you lose?  You are free to lose them.  


Do you have a "yeah, but...."?
Who is the one that notices the 'yeah, but...'?  
Look.  
Be the awareness of the 'yeah, but...'  
Don't try to kick the 'yeah, but...' out.  
Just leave it alone and be who you are.  
Free.  Free from the pull of  'yeah, but...'