The first time I picked up The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle was probably a decade ago. I had heard all the buzz about it and when I got into the book it didn’t click at all. I couldn’t even finish it. The book didn’t make sense to me. I wasn’t ready for it essentially.
Then something called me to pick it back up again maybe another five years later. This time it absolutely blew my mind.
How interesting is that? We think we are the same person, but we are changing rapidly and drastically when we are seeking growth, welcoming growth. And growth comes to us at the right time when it is right for us.
My experience with The Power of Now caused me to read another book by Eckhart Tolle called A New Earth – Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose.
This book isn’t designed to show you your purpose in life in any way of ‘doing’. Your purpose described in this book is one of ‘being’. The interesting thing is most of the time we miss this distinction because when we focus on what we need to do, want to do, should do, we miss the entire opportunity to BE. The opportunity to BE could be a chance to be still to witness life around us, life within us, or holding space for another person to BE in your presence without you attempting to steer the moment.
Lesson One:
I want you to imagine I have before me a flower. I want you to think for a minute if you have this, what we call “a flower”, and you handed it to a two-year-old, what would they be thinking?
I want you to think about how their brain would experience what we call and boil down to one short word – flower.
- They would be touching it.
- They would be feeling how the petals feel.
- They wouldn’t be experiencing the color they would be experiencing the size, the smell.
When you handed this flower to a toddler, it would be a complete experience for them. They would be having brain cells firing, making neuron pathways in their brain, trying to analyze what is before them, what is this thing and what does it feel like?
What does it look like? What does it smell like? What, how does it make me feel?
And then what do we do as adults and parents? We point to it and we say “Flower. Flower.” Contrast the immense majesty of what the toddler is experiencing with their senses and their brain and we slap a two syllable word across it. How can you possibly boil down the beauty and majesty of this incredible creation to one word? We call it flower and then that’s what we teach our kids. As you walk by these things, just call them flowers and it’s done.
And that is how our brains start to shut down and how we lose that feeling of wonder.
“When you are alert and contemplate a flower, a crystal or a bird, without naming it mentally, it becomes a window for you into the formless. There is an inner opening, however slight into the realm of spirit.”
As you go through your day today, what are you labeling? What are you taking that is a miraculous gift in the universe for us to experience and enjoy, and instead, you’re boiling it down to just one word. That’s a flower. That’s a rose. Tree. Sun. Grass. Dog. My street. My house.
What if we could get back to experiencing as a newness and a wonder of everything that surrounds us? This could be the flowers on your walk or the grasshoppers. What if we were slowing down and just experiencing the world the way that a toddler does? What if you start letting yourself take in all of those senses and letting yourself see the beauty and majesty that surrounds us?
Lesson Two:
“You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you and allowing that goodness to emerge.”
This is so important because so many of us are striving, striving, striving. We think we wake up and we think, okay, I need to do this much today. I need to do so many acts of kindness this week. Or I need to be nice to this person who’s nasty to me in the office, or I need to donate money here and make bake sale items for this group. We are striving our way, thinking that that goodness will come when we work at it.
Often all this trying to be something we feel we ‘should’ be results in fatigue, exhaustion and us looking for something to receive from our giving. When we give from a place of depletion that is when we look to have it acknowledged.
That is just missing the entire point. Being good shouldn’t be work. Being good is actually who you already are on the inside, so it’s unpeeling and unlayering all of that false mindset. Seeing through that voice that talks in your head all the time, that tells you that you’re not good and tells you that you’re not worthy. It’s getting back down to the original layer of the goodness of yourself and realizing you radiate goodness from your life force naturally. You were born good. You were born with pure love. When you can get in touch with that, being good to other people, being good as you go about in your day isn’t something you effort through. It isn’t something that you work on. It just comes naturally from being in connection with your true self.
Get in touch with the goodness that you truly are because you were sent here to share love and be loved and that should come naturally from within us. If we can peel back all those other layers and then there is no effort, there is no striving. It’s just natural, you can’t help but radiate goodness and love because that’s what you are. The only way I know to get in touch with the knowing of love as my true essence is to slow down, be still, and quit forcing actions coming from a state of doing.
I hope these two lessons inspired you to create an awareness in your day. If you pick up either of these books I would love to hear your thoughts about them.
In Love, Light and Faith,
Dawn
If you enjoyed these tips and know you could benefit from a better mindset in your life, let’s talk about how I can help. Click the below link to fill out an application for a free Discovery Call with me. At the bottom left of the form is a button to schedule a call on my calendar.
https://livetrainingnow.com/dawn-hafner/schedule-a-breakthrough-session/
Below is also the YouTube video on this topic from my Facebook Live.