“What do I do?”

This is the thought we most often stumble over on the path to freedom. It’s an operation of the mind: we see something we want (money, a better relationship, a fulfilling career, etc.) and we automatically try to devise a way to get it.

The need to do things is such a built-in feature of the mind we often don’t notice it, making it our base for how we experience life. We were either good or bad depending on how many things we got done, and we assign feelings of guilt or pride to ourselves accordingly. The outcome of our lives is dependent on our actions, and we either did something wrong or right depending on how we feel in any particular moment.

It’s not that there isn’t truth in these ideas, but how we orient to them makes a difference. As is, the thought of needing to do something tends to create intense feelings of pressure, anxiety, or overwhelm and reduces our ability to actually take action.

This stems from a lack of understanding of the origin of the thought, “what do I do?” and it’s main agenda. When we let the need to do things direct us, we become victims of its web. When we recognize its nature clearly, it becomes our ally in releasing stress and enjoying life.

First and foremost, the urge to do something is a primal biological drive based in survival. Meaning, it’s orientation is not given to higher reasoning and it can easily get caught up in reactive energies of fight or flight.

As an example, if I tell you to raise $50,000 in two days, most likely two things will happen:

1) Your mind imagines how it might accomplish such a task (while believing more or less that it’s not possible)

2) Your breathing becomes restricted, and intense feelings of pressure and overwhelm build.

The more the thought that you have to raise a large amount of money in a short period of time becomes real, the more pressure is associated with it. Energy is drained, and the mind/body system begins to shut down.

Here’s what’s happening now and at any time we feel pressure around an activity: we are leaving the present moment.

When we let the directive to do something be in charge, we automatically jump out of the present into thought systems of strategy, and patterned emotional reactions about our perceived ability or inability to perform a task.

When we recognize the thought “what do I do?” for what it is – a reactive pattern based in survival – we are no longer its prisoner.

What if your first response to wanting something is not to try to imagine how to get it, but to focus on relaxing into the present moment and being aware of what’s here?

The nature of “want” is a big enough topic to warrant it’s own article (or the countless books written about it), but essentially it is always based at its core in a desire to be more fully present.

When we are present, we make connection with the parts of ourselves that the external things we want represent. Action then becomes an expression of the energy inside us that we desire only to experience more fully in our lives.

As a river rushes downhill, so does aligned action flow through us, releasing stuck energy and bringing us into greater levels of consciousness and ease.

It is free from pressure because it is in the momentum of flow, and there is no need to strategize or figure out how to accomplish something. It is expressing what is already there, so there is nothing to accomplish, only energy to be experienced.

The more actions we take in alignment with the present moment, the more energy we have and challenges like raising money become mobilizing rather than overwhelming.

I will be exploring this concept in greater detail in my class, “How to Flow Into Action” on October 22nd. We will get into the nitty-gritties around to-do lists along with the more esoteric nature of energy and how to cultivate it in your life. Click here for more details.

For now, notice when you start to feel pressure or like you should “do” something. Take it as a cue to feel into the present moment, and be patient. Right action reveals itself when we listen for it.