Nothing to do but to stay present

“Nothing to do but to stay present” – It occurred to me yesterday and I was honestly ashamed of myself for … I am not sure what, being so dense I guess. I walked my dog last night, it was dark and very, very cold, and there were Christmas decorations everywhere. I love winter nights, I love the freezing (relatively) air on my face, I love the amazing stillness and the quiet, empty space. Mind hibernates, there is only space for God. As I walked I thought about my husband and our relationship. I thought about the last few months of me being bothered, uncomfortable, annoyed. I thought about all the explanations I came up with, all of them involving “him” doing something “wrong”, and of all the attempts I made to stop “him” from doing all those “wrong” things. I know, I thought, I can see clearly what his problem is. How silly of him to not just do what I say, it would be only good for him. Well, he did listen to what I said, or at least listen enough to give me just what I asked for. A couple of months later I woke up and realized that our relationship is quickly dissolving, and it would be all because … I saw nothing clearly. My trauma came up, I identified with it, got merged with my mind quite firmly and started fixing and changing the world … in this case my husband. And so the world did change, but not how I wanted it to change, not how I expected it to change. When I walked last night thinking about all this I finally got hit by the thought – there was nothing to do. Just be present. Be present as who I am. Whatever trauma there was that caused me to feel uncomfortable, bothered, annoyed, would simply clear away if I remained present as who I am. Instead I dived right into it and begun to rearrange it and reconstruct it and move pieces from one end to another and call all this activity changing, fixing, transforming. There was nothing to do, there is nothing to do, ever. Just to stay present. Present inside of the situation, present with the situation, present as who I am, present as God. World changes now. Reality changes. This country certainly is changing. Another one of my friends got laid off on Christmas Eve, I just found out today, and wondered what I should do. I can’t be laid off since I am self employed, but I can loose clients, my services can no longer be needed, I can suffer in this situation just like anyone else. What should I do? Nothing, I thought today. There is nothing to do. Just stay present as who I am. Not my financial situation, not my profession, not my lifestyle, not my ideas of safety and not my ideas of what one should do with the life but me, I, God. I can be with the reality as it reorganizes, I can allow the trauma to clear out, I can hold space for the shift that is happening – or I can start fixing, rearranging, reconstructing, struggling. There is nothing safer in this universe than being oneself, being God.