exactly as it is, exactly as it isn’t.” As in:“Power is the ability to be and let be.”
— ARISTOTLE
There is nothing you need to change.
There is nothing you need to fix.
There is nothing you need to figure out.
If you’re anything like the thousands of students who have stared blankly at me when I’ve said those words, you’re probably wondering how you’re supposed to evolve if I’m telling you that there’s nothing you need to fix. I mean, you’re here to transform, so why would I be saying that there’s nothing you need to change?
Here’s why: because there is a fundamental difference between changing form and total regeneration. We always want to fix something outside ourselves, rearrange the pieces, repair whatever we think is “wrong.” We can change jobs, relationships, cities, and circumstances. And yes, maybe for a while that gives us some relief. But no matter what we do, where we move, or who we’re in a relationship with, changing the form of something is temporary, and fix-its never work in the long term (as we already know). Unless we transform our way of being from the inside out, it all ends up being and feeling the same, because we’re still showing up with the same mind-set. As Albert Einstein said, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
When I was in my 20s, I went through a period where I was working around the clock and feeling pretty burned out. I was teaching 22 wall-to-wall, packed group classes a week in Los Angeles, plus dozens more private sessions. At one point, I went to Hawaii to rejuvenate. I traveled thousands of miles, arrived on my favorite island of Kauai, and went down to the beach. I sat there on the beautiful, white sand, taking it all in: the crystalline blue ocean and the perfume of the fragrant flowers all around me. Now, I thought, I’ll find some peace.
It was paradise … but there was only one problem. I was there. My surroundings had changed, but all the heaviness in my head, heart, and body had come right along with me. It was then that I realized the profundity of the Zen saying, “No matter where you go, there you are.” We’re always seeking something outside that will help reinspire us, but going to work on our circumstances is rarely the answer. The only shift that can awaken and renew us is the one that comes from the transformation of our inner substance.
If you took a banana and turned it into a mango, that wouldn’t be transformation—it would be a change of form. But if you took a banana and turned it into a banana that tasted like a mango, that would be transformation, because the new fruit would look the same but possess entirely new qualities. Transformation means housing a different quality and substance inside the same form.
When you undergo a transformation, the world is unchanged. Your environment, situation, and immediate circumstances are all the same. How you feel, see, listen, think, and act are what have been altered, and who you are and how you relate to the individuals and things in your life is what shifts. Imagine feeling completely renewed, without having to change a single thing about your physical reality. The beautiful thing here is that by transforming the way you relate to life, circumstances around you will ultimately shift as well.
The Myth of Solutions
You want to give up the idea that you can figure out how to solve any of the problems in your life, because I promise that you can’t. If you could figure everything out, you would have by now. As they say in 12-step programs, your very best, smartest thinking led you to where you are right now. Thinking your way out isn’t the answer.
Trying doesn’t work, either. We already know that there is no such thing as “try”; there is only “do.” Trying to lose 20 pounds doesn’t mean anything. It’s actually doing the work necessary to drop the weight that matters. So you can stop trying, too.
Oh, and while you’re at it, you can also stop “having faith.” That’s not what this conversation is about, because people turn that into expecting miracles and believing that magic will take over. You’ll probably be waiting for a long time, if not forever.
But this reality is far from hopeless. It’s actually good news when we finally understand that we don’t have to fight to overcome anything. We don’t have to fix our problems; that’s just more change. Rather, we want to re-create our perceptions of them. We don’t get “unstuck.” We come into our authenticity, and then the stuck energy melts away. Jesus, one of the greatest teachers who ever lived, said, “The truth shall set you free.” Notice that he didn’t say, “Face the truth, and then go fix it.”
From my own experience, what I can humbly add is that owning the truth reveals who you really are. You shift from within, and then, from real power, are able to let go of everything that isn’t you (the excess marble, if you will). Suddenly you’ll see previously obscured pathways that are now available to you.
This may sound like bad news to any of you type A personalities out there who want a clear-cut agenda, but there is no “how” when it comes to getting to your authenticity. Thinking, trying, or hoping your way into being real won’t work. As I’ve said, we don’t need to fix, figure out, or do anything. There is no thing to do. The truth is right here, fully available to us in every single present moment. All we need to do is open up to it, let it in, experience it, and let it be.
What You Embrace Dissolves
We have a slogan in the Baptiste program, which is, “Come into practice as you are, not as you think you should be.” People show up to my courses thinking that they should have been doing a lot more practice, be in better shape, have more experience with yoga or transformational work, or whatever. But the training wouldn’t have been any better or more powerful for them if they’d done all those things; it just would have been different.
As we talked about in “Practice #4: Give It Up to Get Empty,” the key is to work with what you have going on in your body, mind, and life right now. When we focus on what’s happening, and not what we think should be, we gain access to the power and possibility of the present moment.
We all face a paradox. In order to grow, we need to start from total acceptance of where we are and where we’re not, what we have and what’s missing—exactly as it is. Total acceptance doesn’t mean that we’d be okay with something if it were just a little more this or that, or after X or Y happens; it means that we take out the judgment that something is wrong or shouldn’t be and accept it exactly as it is, right here, right now, with no conditions.
If things are really bad or stuck or aren’t necessarily as we want them to be, then that last sentence can be pretty challenging to consider. I mean, why would anyone choose to be broke; alone; sick; out of shape; or anything else that feels depressing, frustrating, or painful? We’ll resist these things at all costs, because we’re afraid that if we don’t, we’ll get stuck with whatever is causing them. But the truth is that if you are not at peace with your current reality—exactly as it is and exactly as it isn’t—then that’s exactly when you will get stuck with it. As the famous line goes, “What you resist persists.” What you resist you empower. Resistance sucks energy and space, which creates contraction, so when you’re spending so much of your precious energy resisting, there is no flow, no life, and definitely no power in that realm.
Coming from let it be—as it is and as it is not immediately relieves that contraction, which allows for new insights, attractions, and actions to occur. With this approach, you’ve given up the resistance and made room for expansion and possibility (here’s that idea of creating space for grace again). Whole new worlds open up for you from “just be,” as you have the freedom to see the vast landscape from exactly where you’re standing.
To put it another way, a student of mine once made a funny but very astute analogy. She said, “You know, what this makes me think of is how I spend all this energy and money buying clothes that will fit me once I lose five pounds. So I have a closet full of nothing to wear. How ridiculous is it that I’m so resistant to being the size that I am that I’ll actually spend money on a wardrobe that I wished fit me instead of one that actually does? I mean, I could have so much more fun dressing the body I do have instead of the fantasy one that I think is better!”
We all do this in one way or another. We judge everything from our bodies to our income to our relationships, holding them up to some imaginary ideal that we think is “right,” thus making where we are “wrong.” The practice of letting it be is about stepping off the treadmill of trying to get somewhere other than where we are.
If what you resist persists, then learn to say yes! to every experience, as resisting nothing is the real secret to accessing ease and flow. We begin to dance with new energy in our lives when we remove the judgment that something is wrong here. Just drop that brick of judgment. The naked reality of what you’re dealing with will remain—your mother-in-law might still try to control you or you may still be without a job—but you have no judgment about it. It’s just what’s so. When you take out the thought that something is wrong with your current circumstances, no matter how difficult or painful, it allows you to relax. You can show up fully in your life without feeling as if you need to fix something in order to be at peace. You don’t need to be five pounds thinner, wealthier, or more together than you are right now. If you want those things, you can create them, but doing so out of freedom is different from reacting to and resisting what you don’t want.
Just to be clear: I’m not talking about settling, condoning, or putting up with anything. There is a huge difference between empowered acceptance and resignation. This isn’t about becoming a doormat. Resignation is basically a way of giving up and shutting down, and ultimately a path to powerlessness.
The practice of empowered acceptance leads to a lightness of being. The more you practice this tool, the more you wake up to the total absurdity of resisting life. You begin to access the humor in moments when you catch yourself making things ridiculously hard, needlessly serious, and overly significant. As you gain proficiency with the practice, you can laugh at yourself rather than launching into fault, blame, and shame. You get lighter and playful in the face of difficulty, and you have more fluidity to flow with the bumps on the road and keep your inner peace instead of going to pieces.
“Let It Be” in Action
Here’s an exercise you can do that produces powerful results. Think for a moment about a situation in your life that you’re not happy with or where the energy is stuck. It can be a relationship, a life circumstance, a health issue—whatever it is that’s presenting itself as a complaint in your life and that you wish could be different … especially if it’s something you’re absolutely sure that you can’t do much about. The more hopeless it seems, the more likely that it’s your golden opportunity!
Now, pick that situation. Fully embrace it, choose it, accept it, and be 100 percent for it exactly as it is and as it is not. Literally say out loud, “I embrace exactly as it is, exactly as it isn’t.” As in:
“I embrace my mother-in-law exactly as she is, exactly as she isn’t.”
“I embrace my son’s decision not to go to college exactly as it is, exactly as it isn’t.”
“I embrace my bankruptcy exactly as it is, exactly as it isn’t.”
“I embrace my relationship with my spouse exactly as it is, exactly as it isn’t.”
“I embrace my alcoholism exactly as it is, exactly as it isn’t.”
“I embrace my breakup exactly as it is, exactly as it isn’t.”
“I embrace my illness exactly as it is, exactly as it isn’t.”
Notice how right after you say it out loud the voice of doubt in your head says, “Yeah, right … sure … that was stupid,” and so on. As you’ve been practicing, let those thoughts be and release them.
When we did an exercise similar to this at a workshop in Toronto, a student named Paulina stood up and said that it was her laziness that was presenting the most problems for her. Then she added, “I’m not going to embrace my laziness—no way. I want to overcome it!”
I know we all want to overcome adversity. But remember, we don’t overcome anything. That’s a false sense of control. If Paulina could have worked through her laziness, she would have by now. When we let something be, we’re acknowledging it and stepping toward it as a conscious choice. Once we embrace it, we have the freedom to respond to it differently and take a new pathway if that’s what we then decide. What we fully choose and embrace we can fully release. There’s no power in resisting and being half in or half out. Just be 100 percent for it, as it is and as it isn’t without shame, judgment, or complaints, and see what dissolves or arises out of that.
Letting it be is a magic key. It’s the space of miracles. Imagine it as though the universe has been trying to get through to you, but because you’ve got a lot going on in your head and are all bound up with resistance, it’s getting a busy signal. But if you relax and let it all be, another line of communication will suddenly be available for you that will allow grace to get through. You don’t need to dominate and control things. As you embrace reactivity and resistance, you get to the fear underneath that’s driving it in the first place. And when you feel the fear and let that be, too, it dissolves. You just experience it right out of your body.
I have seen this exercise free hundreds of students from the constraints of resistance and resentment. There was Arnold, who chose a difficult situation that had been going on between him and his brother. He shared, “This ongoing conflict with my brother has been the single driving force of my life for the past two years. I’m completely consumed by it. And I see how my resisting the situation has been keeping the dynamic going with the same old anger, righteousness, and fear. So I’m going to embrace it exactly as it is and as it isn’t, because now I see that it’s also my choice whether to continue to fight or start relating to him in a new way. There’s definitely more freedom in that for me.”
Then there was Eve, whose three-year-old daughter had Down syndrome. She said, “I choose my daughter’s condition. It exists, it’s real, and wishing she was different only keeps me from really knowing and loving her.”
I also recall Steven, who chose his job situation. “I embrace my layoff,” he said. “Up until now, I’ve just been pissed off about being the victim of something that happened ‘to me.’ But this is my life—not my boss’s or my former company’s—and embracing, totally accepting, and choosing what happened and what didn’t happen makes it just another chapter of my life story. I am free to create where the story goes from here.”
And then there was Travis, who made his fellow workshop participants laugh when he stood up and said, “I choose that my life sucks. No, seriously, I totally embrace it. I get it, and I take full responsibility for it. I’m going to throw myself a ‘My life sucks’ party and get on with the business of choosing every single part of it that sucks, including my part in creating it! I’m betting that this Grace character Baron talks about will show up to the party and help me out a little in ways I wouldn’t expect.”
Take on the practice of completely relaxing with what is and letting it all be exactly as it is and as it isn’t. Can you give up trying to fix yourself, others, and your circumstances? Whatever you want to change, don’t change it. Just let it be. It will let you be. Doing that gives you the freedom to dance with it in a whole new way. Letting it be allows you to discover a new pathway that inspires the heart and is in alignment with what you really want most.
