Meditation: Chopra, Creating Abundance: Abundance and the Law of Least Effort Length: 15 minutes Where: Home Office/Guest Room, Los Angeles How It Felt: Semi-focused
Day 11 Centering Thought: “I expect and accept abundance to flow easily to me.”
Last night, right before I sat down to excitedly write this blog (great meditation! I played with letting thoughts go by like clouds in the sky….), I noticed a pool of water on my kitchen floor. Thinking I spilled something while doing dishes, I wiped it up and got a snack.
When I came back into the kitchen, there was an even bigger pool of water. Confused, I started inspecting the dishwasher, thinking it must have been leaking, but it didn’t really make sense with the location of the little puddle. I cleaned it up again, making a note to watch the dishwasher from the beginning of the cycle next time.
That’s when I noticed the drip!
It has been raining like crazy in LA, and apparently the roof above had its fill- literally. A little crack appeared next to our light fixture and water was making its way in!
In two and a half years of living here nothing like this has ever happened. Luckily- well, a LOT of lucky things actually. Lucky I was here to catch it. Lucky it wasn’t over a rug or furniture. Lucky it wasn’t too much. Lucky the ceiling didn’t collapse in or anything. Lucky it happened on a weekday when I could easily reach our management company the next morning.
Very lucky it’s the condo association’s responsibility to pay for, not ours. (Although as the president of our HOA Board I’m not thrilled anytime something comes out of the budget. Still, better from the HOA reserves than our personal accounts, obviously!)
Let me tell you something about Los Angeles- it is not built for rain. The buildings, the streets, our hair- just none of it. We love rain in theory… just not always in practice.
So, I had an unexpected adventure, which I’m happy to say is being repaired as I type. However, I completely forgot what I wanted to write about in all the excitement!
(Also- did I “secret” this?? I’ve been saying “when it rains, it pours” a lot lately…. hmmmm…..)
(I’m… mostly… joking…..)
Still, it all comes full circle. Yesterday’s lesson was on the Law of Least Effort. I absolutely love this concept, which tells us, essentially, that there is no extra credit waiting for us at the end of life for all our “struggle.” At least that’s my big takeaway. We want to believe that to earn what we want, things have to be really hard, and we have to suffer for it or we don’t deserve it. We look at people who sort of float easily through life and we hate to think they are onto something. We want our effort to matter most.
That isn’t the way of the universe or nature, however. When we are in our flow and on our true frequency, success and abundance come as easily as floating down a river on a gentle but persistent current. It does require some mindfulness of course, and some work on ourselves. It doesn’t come for free. But you know the feeling! When you are just in it and ideas are flowing, people are showing up for you, you’re in a good mood, experiencing all kinds of luck. We’ve all felt it.
In the session Deepak explains that the first step to putting this law into effect for ourselves is acceptance. We can’t try to step into a flow of “least effort” by fighting everything around us. We must accept people and circumstances as they are, right now, in this moment. Step out of the struggle.
I was thinking about this when the roof started leaking. I panicked a bit at first, just a little afraid the roof might collapse, and I called my husband (at 3am his time!) waking him with an anxious, “Um, help! Something weird is happening!” After he reassured me it didn’t seem like something that would kill me in the middle of the night, I felt a lot better. I started considering what I just learned, and simply accepted the situation as it was. I even mentally listed all the things about it I could be grateful for, including having a home to live in that can even be damaged in the first place.
The next two steps of the process are accepting responsibility for my situation and letting go of blame, followed by the release of a need to be defensive. Just let things be what they are, accept what can’t be changed, relinquish the need to find someone to blame, and observe.
Ok. That’s powerful stuff. I mean, it’s one thing to write it out. I’m sure we are all like, “Yeah, of course, those all seem like healthy things to do.” But actually implementing them? Who among us doesn’t get defensive when we feel guilty, or look for someone to blame the minute something goes wrong? That’s human nature, unfortunately, especially because we ALL have trauma from whatever source and we all want to be loved, accepted, and thought of as good people.
These are big lessons. I’m just started to bite off a bit at a time and really chew on each piece. I don’t want to be a person who makes life harder than it needs to be, for myself or anyone around me. I would like to tap into the peace that I’m certain comes from putting The Law of Least Effort into effect. It all circles back around to equanimity, right? My new favorite word!
Maybe, from now on, I can view everything that is challenging in my life as a little check-in point. How am I reacting? Do I feel the need to assign blame? Why? Am I feeling defensive? Am I making this bigger than it needs to be? If so, why do I feel I need to do that? Is there a need that isn’t being met that I could tackle in a healthier way?
Man….that’s a lot of effort to put into living with the least effort… but I think it’s worth trying!
Goal: let the storms pass without minding if I get a little wet.
My Year of Meditation 