How to Let Go of the Need to Always Be Doing
There is no need to hold on to doing, or to non-doing. No need to be, or not be. No need to do anything, but also no need to not do it.
That might sound like a riddle, but it points at something very practical: the quiet, constant pressure most of us live under, and how to set it down.
The attachment to doing
There is an attachment to doing that almost everyone carries. It is cultural. It is a society thing, and in some way we are born into it, a kind of survival anxiety that sits underneath daily life, even though, in the end, death itself is fine.
That anxiety expresses itself as a need to do something, over and over. A need to be something. To prove ourselves, rather than to just be.
It is important to say what this does not mean. It does not mean you sit on a bench all day and do nothing. You can live a very active, engaged life with no attachment to doing or not doing. In fact, life often presents things that simply need doing, and we can be just as attached to resisting those as we can be to compulsively chasing them. The point is not the activity. It is the grip.
Attachment is what makes things heavy
What actually makes life feel heavy is not how much you do. It is the attachment. That mental sense of I need to do this, or I need to do that, or I shouldn't do this, or I shouldn't do that. That is the weight.
And to let go of that heaviness creates a marvelous kind of freedom. Not freedom from activity, but freedom within it.
How to let go: meet it
So how do we let go of the heaviness? Not by fighting it, but by meeting it. By meeting it full on and seeing it for what it is.
It is just tension. Tension in the system. And tension relaxes with attention.
When you bring attention to something, when you meet it with attention and compassion and let it simply be there while you stay fully present with it, it can release itself. Slowly, over time. Maybe in a minute, maybe in a year. But that is what happens in the presence of attention.
If you have never really done this, it is beautiful to start. Begin genuinely paying attention to what is happening, to what is happening in the body, to what is happening in the system. Your attention will, over time, free the tension of doing or non-doing.
It is a slow burn. And that is good, because every time you let go of a layer of tension, the nervous system also needs to recalibrate. The gradual pace is a feature, not a flaw. This is how mindfulness actually builds: not by force, but by attention.
Pay attention to life, not to thoughts about life
There is one important refinement here. When I say pay attention to your life, I do not mean in a mental way. We so often analyze life, narrating and conceptualizing what is happening right now. But that analysis is a kind of afterthought. It is a subtle separation from the direct experience of living.
So the biggest pointer I can give is this: do not separate yourself from life. Pay attention to life itself, rather than to your thoughts about it. Thoughts are also life, of course, they are not the enemy. You can pay attention to thoughts too. But a thought often wants to wrap you in a mental prison, to conceptualize experience and, in doing so, to flatten it.
If I say this is a tree, all the wonder is lost. But what is this, really? What is this experience, before the word? It is not the word tree at all. It is just a marvelous, endless, beautiful experience.
We restore the wonder by letting the labels go, or, when they arise, which is fine and useful for communication, by being with them without holding on, without attaching to them.
So pay attention to any tension that is here. You will notice it automatically beginning to let go.
I made a video on this. You can watch it here: https://youtu.be/YcbtNVECGfY
If something opens and you would like support, you can book a free call with me here: 👉🏻 https://calendly.com/keesblok/gratis-kennismaking