What? I Don't Have to Do Anything?

Something popped in me yesterday, in a way I hadn't experienced before. I was going to lunch with a colleague of mine. As we were walking and talking, we were joking around about various things. Now I have the tendency at times to be a real joker, and can really go over the edge if I want to. So we arrived at this lunch spot called Digby's on 51st street to grab our overly-priced but tasty burritos. I started to make joking comments all over the place and I was getting on a roll. But something didn't feel quite right. It felt like way too much. It felt way over the top of who I was in that moment.

And don't get me wrong, I love joking around. But in that particular moment, it didn't feel like the appropriate place to be in our conversation. I was really dominating the conversation and our walk together with my jokes. So as we were walking back to Rockefeller plaza, I really could feel that something wasn't aligned within me. I could feel an anxiousness pulling me into an automatic way of joking, building into this giddy, uncomfortable energy. But then I saw it. I saw my automatic behavior. So I immediately stopped the joking around in the next lull in our conversation. And then, BAM!, I popped into the moment and became fully present. Just by seeing non-judgmentally what was going on with me. My enjoyment of where I was suddenly expanded a hundred-fold. I could feel and sense everything around me so much more, taking in the entire atmosphere. It was a delight to walk with my colleague through the Chase bank, a shortcut we often take to get to and from lunch spots on 51st street. It suddenly became an enlightening experience as we walked through the outdoor promenade by all the circular benches of people, as they sat and ate their lunches. I have walked through this area hundreds of times before, but this time was different because I had shifted in my way of being. I was no longer engaged in automatic, approval seeking behavior just to get someone to like me.

So what I had experienced was this clear line between being and doing. And in this case it manifested in that I often feel I have to "do" something in order to be valuable company to others, instead just being there with them. As if I have to bring some sort of value, by being funny, smart, witty or effective in some way; otherwise, people won't like me. What I saw was that I've been missing the fact that people might like me just because of who I am being, without doing anything; just by standing there, listening and being attentive. Not by putting on some kind of show. Being in the Transformation community has really helped me to see this, because the folks there have learned to see people for who they are, not what they can do. They aren't ahead of themselves, running towards a future agenda they have, or milling back into the past reliving life already gone by. They are present, attentive, caring and bright-eyed. For most of my life, it wasn't even within my reality to just "be" without doing something to prove my worth. Even when people said they just liked me for no particular reason at all. I wouldn't allow myself to believe it to be true. I'd be like "why would they like me for no reason? I haven't done anything for them to like me." It always felt like a lie in some way. It's so refreshing to see this from a new place.

It makes me wonder when I decided to live my life out of that conversation. Maybe it was in high school. Maybe it was when I worked in the music industry. Maybe after living in New York City for a few years. Who knows? I could blame it on many things, and believe the story of "why", allowing it to have power over me and my life. So I won't do that. The simple seeing of my automatic joking behavior allowed me to choose in the moment of whether to continue the mechanics, or just be there where I was.

So here's to being here in this moment of now and living a transformational lifestyle.