Hello you.
In the book ‘Creative Visualisation’ by Shakti Gawain, Gawain states that there are three aspects of life; being, doing and having.
Being is simply the state of being alive and conscious. We are aware of our ‘being’ when we are in the moment, feeling complete and being at rest with our selves.
Doing is, well, doing! It is activity, movement, actions. Our behaviours.
Having is our relationship with the people and the world around us and that which we ‘have’ - relationships, environments, income, possessions.
These three elements co-exist. None is more important that the other, they just ARE.
Gawain argues that most people have a flow of thought and energy between the three that simply goes in the wrong direction.
And it is this backward flow that creates much of the struggle and pushing that we do.
We try to have things/ people/ situations so that we can do the things that we ant that we think will help us to be happy/ content.
But in fact, her opinion, and I have to agree, is that we first have to be who we really are, find contentment and peace there, in order to be able to do the things that will allow us to have what we want.
I just love the powerful simplicity of this. Be, do, have.
I think if we are honest with ourselves, we often start with the have in order to then know what to do so that we can be what we want (happy, successful etc). It’s how the world works - one of the questions we are asked as children is what job we want when we grow up - that’s a have. When we are grown up, people ask us ‘and what do you do?’ as in, what job do you have, what do you do? No one asks us ‘who are you?’, which is our being.
This is goal setting in its common form; What will get me what I want? (Goal) What do I do in order to get that? (action plan). The being bit only happens when you’ve pulled off the having. Goals are rarely ‘who do I want and how do I want to be?
What if the first and most important goal in life, was to figure out who we really are and want to be, to focus in on our being, rather than our doing and having?
What might be different, if we put our being first?
Have a great weekend,
With love,
Sarah x
PS have you seen this?
If you like reading books in the self development/ productivity/ creativity genre but find you quickly forget the learning, ideas and wisdom in them, I have something for you and I am SO into it! It starts on Monday 1 April.
The Selfish Book Club offers a slower, deeper dive into some amazing books.
Instead of rushing through a book in a month, having a quick discussion and moving on, I'll be taking you through the ideas and goodness of each book in a slower, deeper way via special resources that I am creating.
You'll be given workbooks and voice notes from me to use to explore the current chosen book fully and we can also discuss the ideas as a community in chat threads too. You can also just work through it on your own and treat it as a lovely personal exploration of the themes and a way of giving yourself some much needed reflection time.
The first book is as you can see Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert.
The club is part of my membership, which costs just £7 a month or £70 a year. If you are reading this via email, you are already a free member but if you upgrade to paid, (if you haven’t already), you’ll be in the club!
Many thanks. A helpful and concise explanation of this idea xx
Sounds like an amazing book! I’ll have to check it out.
I actually got a tattoo of an ivy branch around my wrist 20 years ago. A symbol of being coming before doing. It was then, when I worked as a pastor/minister, that I began to see the flow unravel from the center of being, instead of the other way around. It’s a powerful, grounding way to live.
Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts! 🌱