One of my favorite books is, Working on Yourself Doesn't Work by Ariel and Shya Kane.  They have three principles to transform the way you relate to yourself.  This month, in my Facebook Group, Adventures with Amina, I decide we are just going to "drop" a current problem for a month.  No more thinking, over-thinking, analyzing, discussing, or figuring it out.  For one month, we are putting the problem on snooze.  If Facebook can let us put a person on snooze for a month, then putting a problem on snooze for a month seems like an even better idea.  

In my life, I have found that when I intensely try to solve a problem, I not only do not solve it, but end up creating about 20 more problems with it, and leave myself feeling like a total failure.  During The Joy Challenge in April, we put a goal on the back burner for 30 days while we focus on doing one thing each day that brings us joy.  This month, I am trying that with something I feel like I have to figure out - put it on the back burner and instead of focusing on joy (though, I highly recommend that) focus on being here now, not in my brain processing and over processing.  This can be referred to be as being present, being at peace, and even being in joy.

In the book, they talk about their three principles to instantaneous transformation:

 - Anything you resist, persists - yup, the more I think about how to do something, the more problems, issues, and ick I come up against

 - No two things can occupy the same space at the same time - all the time I am thinking and searching for a solution, I am missing the present moment and the millions of opportunities that are presenting themselves for a miracle outcome
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 - Anything you allow to be exactly as it is will complete itself and disappear - I think of this as a tantrum, if you just let the tantrum run its steam, it will eventually stop and move on.  I remember one day wanting to cry and not doing it, because I was afraid if I started I would never stop... I cried for about 8 minutes and then was over it and felt much better.  This fear, that we will be stuck here in this place forever.

I like to practice this from time to time, and when I do, I call it floating.  I associate floating with not doing a darned thing.  You just lay there (for me, soaking up the warm sun) and relaxing.  I think relaxing is a major spiritual principle that does not get enough time and glory.  So much good comes from doing nothing.  So much good comes from letting go and dealing with it another day.  When I was a kid, I loved a series of books called Sweet Pickles.  One of the books in the series was Goof of Goose.  Goose, the main character's house was in disarray, and if anyone said anything to him about picking up or cleaning up, he would say, "not today, I can't today, maybe tomorrow".  The book ends with it being the next day (aka tomorrow) and something happens and Goose realize he needs to relax more, and he then starts the day with "not today, I can't today, maybe tomorrow".  It is hilarious and perfect.  So, during this month of July, my attitude whenever a pesky thought comes up is to say, "Not today, I can't today... I am relaxing, maybe next month".

I know from my practice with Surrender, Miracles and Law of Attraction, that the quicker I let go, the quicker things get resolved for my higher good easily and effortlessly.  Solutions that I could not have dreamed up come flying in... letting go, surrendering, relaxing, is a practice that invites in miraculous outcomes.  This month, I invite you to join me in letting go and floating.  Let the Universe, who loves you and is wanting to bring out your highest good, or God, who deeply cares for you and wants your highest good, to find the solutions, while you jump on your big float, grab a glass of lemonade and float into relaxation!  If we need to, we can still pick it up tomorrow (or in our case... next month)! 

May you easily find the solutions you are seeking.  May the things that seem too hard and too difficult, transform before your eyes to some of your most beautiful life experiences.  May you experience the transformative power of relaxing and handing over your biggest dilemmas to the One that Knows All.  May you spend this day, and every day, at peace in your soul - physically, mentally and spiritually.  And, so it is and so it shall be.

I had an experience a few weeks ago where I jumped into someone else's nightmare.  When you think of describing nightmares, or even dreams, how would you describe them?
 - They make no sense
 - Things that are normally one way are different - like your living room coach is in someone else's dining room
 - you wake up with the feelings of it, but none of it really makes much sense, you are left to interpret it
- Parts of it, remain a mystery to you - you can't remember the whole thing, where it started or how it ended or parts in the middle.

Studying A Course in Miracles describes this life as a dream (or a nightmare) but not real, as do many spiritual traditions.  Each of us are living our own little melodrama full of high notes and low notes; some moments a dream and some a nightmare.  And, each of us, in our own way is desperately trying to either wake up, or check out so completely that we cannot remember the dreams or the nightmares.  But, now imagine, if you were to jump into someone else's nightmare.  The one where their couch was in someone else they knew's dining room.  It would be even more confusing.  At least in our own nightmares, we can make some sense of what is happening around us, but all bets are off when we are in someone else's.  And, yet, each day, sometimes many times a day, this is what we go.  This is what I did, majorly, the other week.

I started looking at how someone was behaving and started to try to make sense of it, as it related to me.  This one sentence really sums up the definition of insanity, yet, how often do we catch ourselves doing this?  When someone is acting strangely, it a) rarely has anything to do with you (see my blog post on the 90/10 rule) and b) will make no sense because chances are they are in their own nightmare; one that they can barely interpret and now I have jumped in and tried to understand how this reflects on me!  The insanity of it all!  Sometimes, people's behaviors really seem targeted to us, as it did in this case.  In this case, I was actually told what I was or was not doing.  It seemed totally personal.  But that is where being solidly grounded comes in.  In that moment, I was far from grounded, so I believed every word of it.  I did not internally check it out, or maybe I did, and found it all to be super valid.  And, thus, jumped even deeper into the nightmare.  I forgot that what other's perceive is at best, helpful feedback, at best.  Sometimes, someone's perception of you can tell you where you have a blind spot, and this experience did shed light on a blind spot.  But the rest of it is each of us trying to make sense of ourselves in an ever complicated model where none of us are grounded in the truth of Who We Really Are - a divine, wholly perfect, wholly cared for, creation of the Infinity and the Eternal.  When we are grounded in that knowing, someone can come right up to us and say anything, and sometimes, we don't even notice!  Someone else has to point it out to us that someone was rude or unkind, we are too busy being us and living in our True Self.

Next time you find yourself in a conversation that leaves you feeling unhinged, ask yourself, "did I just jump into someone else's nightmare?"  Most of us have had the experience of off loading on someone else only to realize that something else was eating at us and we re-directed the energy (and "feedback") onto someone else... I know I have done this too many times to count.  And, while it is not my ideal, nor pretty, it is never intentionally unkind.  It is one person, drowning in her own nightmare, and reaching out to grab onto something solid, and accidently, pulling them in.  The truth is, the only solid thing we can grab onto is our own Inner Knowing of the True Self - the one peacefully sleeping, the one having the nightmare, not the one in the nightmare.  And, just like waking from a nightmare, once we turn on the lights, and wake up from the nightmare, we can see the insanity of it.  But, while we are in it, it feels very real.

The kindest thing you can do for someone who is in their nightmare, is to kindly and lovingly exit stage left.  There is no need to do anything.  But to get this point, we have to first identify that the other person is having a nightmare and living it out.  To do this, we check in, "Is this about me?"  And, almost always you will see quickly, it is not about you.  Then, "Is this person having a moment of insanity (the kind we all have all the time)?".  Often times, if we can slow down enough to ask the first question, we will see that they are. And the final question, "What is the most loving thing I can do in this moment?".  In most cases it is to let the person be and still hold your love and high regard for the person, without taking this moment into consideration - after all, it is not real, they were just having a nightmare.  And, we were aware enough (this time) to not jump into it.