Try vs Do
Jun 23, 2020
A few months ago I experienced my first 'nothingness' in a meditation and it felt amazing, yet since then I've found myself trying to recreate the moment and failing, until last Thursday. I've been practising meditation now for years and this 'nothingness' is what the teachers and text books will tell you is the thing to aspire to with meditation, but for now, just focusing on your breath is enough to start with.
And so I've found myself for years trying to find nothingness and thinking I was there with it, until I realised I wasn't. The first time I found this complete silence and stillness I felt elated, and it's taken several months to get back to it. And on Thursday night when it happened again, I realised that the difference was that I totally let go. I stopped trying, and in stopping the trying, it happened again.
That same evening as my partner and I lay in bed I asked him what time he would be home the following day, he leaves at 4am so we don't see each other in the mornings, and he said he would try and be back by 3pm. The word 'try' made me realise that he would be later back. When he says he'll be back at a certain time, he is. When he says he try, he's always late.
And it got me thinking about when we try and when we do.
In trying to find the nothingness of my meditation, I hadn't been able to make it happen. And I considered other areas of life when I've said I'll try to do something and have failed to make it happen.
If I try to make it to a friends, I rarely do. If I try to find time to call my parents, I rarely do. If I try to lose weight, or get fitter, or get to bed early, or try to get to sleep things rarely happen.
Yet, when I commit, when I make things happen, or when I say I'll do something I do. Try seems to be my get out of jail free card and trying doesn't feel the same as actually doing. When we are doing our best we achieve, even if not at the level we thought we would. Trying to eat healthily is not the same as eating healthily. Trying to write is not the same as writing. Trying to run is not the same as running.
On a coaching call this morning with a client, the client mentioned trying something. We had a discussion about what 'trying' meant and discovered, as I had myself, that trying always left a lot of room for manoeuvre and things very rarely got done when she said she would try to do things.
How often do you let try get in the way of do?
If you committed instead of saying you'll try what difference would that make for you?
Kelly
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