Let It Be Easy

Integrity is very important to me.  Maybe it is the most important thing to me.  Integrity is not simple honesty, which is also important, but it is much bigger than that.

For me, integrity is knowing my soul's intentions when I came into the world and then living those intentions. I know the spiritual growth lessons that I came into the world to learn.  I know at least several gifts and talents that I have been given to develop and use. I also have a sense of the service that I am here to do, although I confess that isn't nearly as clear as I thought it was 20 years ago. When my life is aligned with those things, I am in integrity.  When I am not, the weight of the disconnect weighs on me.

I try. I really try to live in integrity, but I know that I fall short. Sometimes I fall woefully short.

What I notice is that the more I am out of alignment in one area, the more I become out of integrity in other places.  Returning to my regular job has been struggle for me.  I know I am being of service, but the work I am doing is pulling me down.  I feel stressed.  I know I am not working anywhere close to my capability, and I do fear that I am losing my edge to do my higher skill work. Then, I am irritable with myself and with others. Even though I am being of service, I really feel out of integrity.

Even though I've just been back for three weeks of work, I feel a heaviness descend on me when I am getting ready for work, and as I approach my office building I feel more and more darkness pulling me down.  The work is really dark.  Some days I want to come home and take a shower just to wash it off of me. While I was also sick last week, which complicated the issue, I was short with two people who have been nothing but nice to me.  That really felt out of integrity.

I do feel that learning to do my work in the world and to financially support myself is one of my life lessons.  Yet increasingly I think that it must be easier. I now think that a life lesson for me must be to let it be easy.  I have one of those Staples "easy buttons" from the 90s on my desk.  When I allow myself to let something be easy, I enjoy hitting it and hearing the message, "That was easy!" I admit I don't hear it often enough, mostly because I "effort" too much--try to make things happen, when they obviously don't want to happen. The drive to support myself overwhelms and forces me to push more and harder.

Since I began writing about intention 20 years ago, I have really felt like it was my responsibility to role model integrity.  Sometimes the standards to which I hold myself are insufferable.  I am exhausted.  I really need it to be easy.

Based on my numerologic spiritual lesson for 2016, my work is to learn balance and to take care of myself first: put the oxygen mask on me before trying to save others.  Twice this week I'd had to make decisions to not do something I thought I "should" do.  In each case, as soon as the deed was done, I felt more relaxed, lighter, brighter.  In the one case when that occurred at work, I received compliments all day about how great I looked...and it wasn't even a good hair day.  I am sure those observations were a reflection of the stress being drained from my face.

All of these things are what a colleague of mine describes as "good data."  Who says that "data" should be quantifiable?  Why can relaxed muscles and lack of stress in my smile be valid data as well?  So I take a deep breath, really consciously enjoy the relaxed shoulders and jaw, and embrace the challenge of letting it be easy.