As someone who has been an enlightenment junkie since the age of 16 (I’m 63 now, so that’s a lot of years), I feel I can speak with some authority on what psychological or spiritual techniques have a great deal of value. On what really helps. When you look through the abundance of therapy, self-help and coaching books out there, you see a lot of claims like, “I have found the way…” or “How to solve all of your problems…” (if you just do it my way, of course, and buy my book or class). It’s dizzying and anxiety producing. Should I do this, or should I do that? Oh no—maybe I am doing the wrong thing! What if I am making a mistake or missing out? Anxiety, anxiety, anxiety.
Well, after all my years of “searching,” here is the bottom line: When you feel connected to The Source, everything feels OK. You can be cutting carrots, and everything feels OK. On the other hand, it doesn’t matter what you are doing when you do not feel connected to the source—you can be on a yacht on the Mediterranean—nothing is going to feel OK.
So how do you connect to that experience? Well, everyone has their own way. For some it’s nature, for others it’s meditation…or prayer, or music, or exercise or gardening.
One of the coolest things about Innate Health (you know, apart from that it really works) is that you do not have to do anything. It is just an understanding. You understand that you are a manifestation of the Creator—that is your natural state. You do not have to do anything to attain it; it is a gift from the Creator.
Have you ever been frantically looking for your glasses, and then realize that they were right on top of your head? Or that your keys have been in your pocket the whole time? Oh, what a relief! It is kind of like that. It doesn’t matter what you have done or not done. The relief is in the understanding.
This space within goes so much deeper than the circumstances of your life. Only your anxious thinking keeps you from experiencing this on a moment-to-moment basis. We all know that fearful, worrying, anxious thinking robs us of any sense of well-being. That kind of thinking is a stress machine. And you know what? It never solves any problems or offers any solutions. If it did, maybe there would be some value to it. But as a chronic worrier, I can tell you that the things I obsessively worried about never happened. Some things that I did not worry about did happen, but never what I was spending my time stressing over. For a while, my solution was to worry about everything—hoping that would prevent anything bad from happening. You can imagine how well that worked. I am sure that guy who died when a crane fell on him in NYC wasn’t worrying about it. He was probably just worried about catching his train.
The amazing thing is that when you can see that you are generating the worry (not the circumstances), you are free to stop You do not have to do anything to stop—you just have to realize that you are doing it. As soon as you do that, most of the anxiety just falls away, and you fall back into that natural space of being in the flow—the place of pure potential. Your worrying is not coming from the outside. You are doing it to yourself. The circumstances are the circumstances; the worrying is internally generated. When you see that you are doing it to yourself, you can just step back or put it down. Sometimes I think of it as a dog chewing on a bone. You know how they can chew on it ferociously—but there is nothing on it. Sometimes when it feels like I am chewing on my upset thoughts like that dog with a bone, I remember this and say to myself, “Oh. I don’t have to think that. I am thinking that, but I do not have to.” It is so incredibly freeing. All that “stuff” just falls away; or at the very least, really slows down.
Here’s a perfect example. It used to be that when I couldn’t sleep I would be filled with anxiety about not getting enough sleep and not being able to function the next day. Of course, that just made it worse. You know the drill. Now when I can’t sleep, I just get out of bed and do some work or watch TV or whatever. I do not keep chewing on the bone. Same circumstances—different experience.
So now you do not have to buy any more of those self-help books. You can spend that money on whatever you want…you can even send a check straight to me (just kidding). But more importantly, you can start to feel OK in your life—right now.
By Jewel Safren, LCSW
Jewel Safren MSW, LSW, LCSW has over 35 years of experience in counseling, lifecoaching and public-speaking coaching. She has worked with people all over the US and in Europe, and runs popular personal growth workshops, webinars and classes. She is recommended by Rabbi Dr. Akiva Tatz; Rabbi Jonathan Rietti, B.Ed, M.Sci.; Rabbi Paysach J. Krohn and Rabbi Mordechai Becher. She lives in West Orange, NJ, with her hubby and two kids, and has two married kids and two grandsons living in California. You can contact Jewel at 862-438-5807 or [email protected].
