How NOT KNOWING is the KEY to unlock your HAPPY

Sutra 1.12: These mental modifications are restrained by practice & non-attachment

So often we talk about our problems, our struggles, and our points of pain BUT TODAY, I want to talk about SOLUTIONS….leave it to yoga to offer us the solutions to ALL of our problems with two simple strategies. Of course, they SOUND simple and standing ALONE they might even FEEL kinda, sorta, manageable, BUT when married, like all couples, they become beautifully complicated. Practice and Non-attachment are the two-pronged approach outlined in the yoga sutras and YES, of course, they would be so PERFECTLY PARADOXICAL. 

Paradoxical because PRACTICE implies a consistent amount of effort being put forth, on the daily, and NON-ATTACHMENT suggests that we should NOT expect ANY outcome from that consistent, daily, effort. That’s like asking me to eat a perfect diet and NOT expect my body to change? Or, like watering and conversing with my plants and NOT expecting them to grow!!! 

Is that even possible!? 

Here’s where I find it helpful to be super clear about my ULTIMATE GOAL as a human being. When I examine my specific goals, every single one of them involves the overarching idea of FREEDOM. I want to feel FREE, FREE to love and be loved, FREE of other peoples opinions and judgements, FREE to travel, FREE to share my gifts, FREE to speak my truth, and FREE to NOT be under the thumb of ANYONE else. This ULTIMATE GOAL requires I have “freedom FROM” so that I can have “freedom TO.” I want “freedom from” society’s agenda, so that I am “free to” live life in alignment with my heart. I want “freedom from” a fixed income, so that I can have the “freedom to” travel the world. 

So let us equate, “freedom FROM” with the PRACTICE, for it is ONLY with this persistent, determined effort that we are able to cultivate the strength, grit, and tenacity to break FREE of the chains that have been placed around our wrists and ankles by simply being a human. It is certainly NOT helpful to HATE OR JUDGE these chains, BUT to candidly acknowledge their existence and break FREE from them. They have been linked, bound, and locked unknowingly (for the most part anyway) by our families, our ancestors, our government, and our society. So with daily efforts at filing away these metal links we GIFT ourselves “freedom FROM.” This “freedom from” inherently creates space for the “freedom to,” the freedom to: change careers, get a divorce, move, travel, buy new furniture, the list is endless. 

However, this “freedom to” does not come without it’s OWN key to self-development, which is: NON-ATTACHMENT. Having the “freedom to,” requires us to LET GO of what we THINK freedom SHOULD look like. Because THAT VERY assumption WILL limit and stunt the infinite potential of freedom from blossoming. If we, with our daily efforts, build the strength to MOVE away from everything we know, BUT then believe  that California is the ONLY place to move, we miss the FREEDOM to discover and explore all that is Colorado, Arizona, Montana, and New Mexico!

Freedom lies in our ability to be with the UNKOWN, to NOT KNOW, to NOT THINK we KNOW,  and to NOT THINK we SHOULD KNOW. Freedom exists in our ability to be in AWE; to be in WONDER, to be EXCITED and CURIOUS about EVERYTHING!

We live within the prison of our own minds and the walls are constructed with our confined THINKING and our pre-programmed BELIEVING, when we break free from THINKING and BELIEVING we already KNOW, we slide right down a magical rainbow slide into the wide open potential of the UNKOWN….which is of course, the ONLY place rainbow slides exist!

So today I ask you to UNKNOW yourself and EVERYBODY else. Decide to “free yourself FROM” those clingy friends that aren’t actually friends…. ANXIETY and FEAR, so you can be “free to” invite AWE and WONDER as your new SOUL COMPANIONS on the rainbow slide of your life.

As always, THANK YOU for engaging with me and tuning into HOW you can begin to live your BEST LIFE. Start to acknowledge what you need to be “FREE OF” so that you can be “FREE TO” live the divine life that is waiting for you with open arms.

All my love and blessings,

Andrea Dawn