Our words and the language we use can tell us a lot about ourselves, and, if we listen carefully to the words we use, we can learn from them.
I am a great fan of Eckhard Tolle, I love his work on living in the present moment. I read his books, watch him on YouTube, and if I’m going for a walk I’ll often listen to him on Spotify. Recently, I was on one of my said walk’s and was listening to Tolle. He talked about bringing oneself into, and accepting of, the present moment. Of not being attached to an outcome of which we cannot control. I noticed how he used the phrase “It is as it is” as a way of accepting the outcome, whatever it may be. We struggle so much and so often every day, trying to control outcomes in our life and all it does really is create stress, Disappointment and ultimately pain when those outcomes which we are attached to simply do not materialise.
Let me use a job interview as an example. You’ve worked hard on your CV and interview skills for weeks and you have managed to land an interview for that “dream job” that you’ve been chasing. You’ve done a great interview and are 100% sure you’ve got the job, and in fact you’ve imagined all the good things you are going to buy as a result of the increase in salary, the holidays you can take with the extra annual leave, you even imagine yourself cruising in your new company car. Then you get the dreaded phone call, “sorry, it was close, it was between you and another person, and the other person got the role”. You are devastated, so disappointed and upset, and possibly you might even feel depressed. All a result of attaching yourself to an outcome that was completely out of your control. You did the prep work, you polished your CV, your interview skills, and gave the best interview you could have given. What you could not do however was control the outcome, the result, the decision of the interview panel.
I believe that the degree to which we attach ourselves to outcomes is relative to the amount of pain we feel when the outcomes do not materialise. Telling ourselves “It is as it is”, is such a powerful way to remain present and accepting of whatever will be in any moment, regardless of the outcome.
Now, I am also a big fan of listening to our language or the words we use (more on this in future articles), and listening to these words from Tolle, I remembered having used these same words myself but in a completely different context. You see, before I decided to pivot my direction in life and train to be a life coach, I was in a continuous loop or cycle of unhappiness. I was unhappy in my job, unhappy in my social life, felt unfulfilled, without a sense of purpose and was coasting from one month to the next, I was stuck. Instead of taking action and doing something about my situation, I allowed myself to remain stuck by shrugging my shoulders and telling myself the message “Oh well, it is as it is”, I accepted the situation as if there was nothing to be done. When I think back now at how, just by saying these words to myself, it put me in a frame of accepting that there was nothing I could do to change my situation so what was the point, just accept it and stay within the same never-ending loop of unhappiness. Thankfully, I did take action and decided to make a change in my life and now I am writing my first blog post for my website!
So, here we have the same saying “It is as it is” being used to accept two very different points of time in our life. One allowing us to remain stuck in a loop, living from month to month and accepting a life of unhappiness. The other, allowing us to accept that we cannot control the future by being attached to its outcomes, and yet, we can simply and absolutely accept what happens in the moment.
…….IT IS AS IT IS! One saying, two meanings, which will you choose?
Be kind and gentle with yourself, there is only one of you, and you are amazing!
If anything above has resonated with you, please do connect with me on social media and feel free to share your thoughts, I would love to read them!
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