Art of Accomplishment

The Opposite Of Trying

38 min read

Summary

Joe and Brett explore the concept of “the opposite of trying” — a state of allowing, receiving, and listening that stands in contrast to efforting and forcing. Joe demonstrates this through a simple exercise: try to pull your pinkies apart without actually doing it, then feel the opposite of that tension. The whole system relaxes into a state of flow.

They discuss how most people default to trying and doing when facing challenges, rarely considering that the solution might be in the undoing. Joe draws on the Taoist story of the butcher whose knife never needs sharpening because it finds the space between bone and meat, waiting patiently when it meets resistance. The core insight: “Letting go doesn’t happen by telling yourself to let go — it happens by clearly seeing the pain of holding on.”

The conversation explores how this principle applies across life domains: listening (how we receive shapes what others share), resilience (allowing creates antifragility, as in open-source systems and decentralized organizations), pleasure (trying to enjoy something kills the enjoyment), peace (you can’t force peace — it comes from dropping the internal war), authenticity (being yourself is a receiving, not a doing), and joy (joy won’t enter a house where her children — all emotions — aren’t welcome). The key distinction throughout: trying is not the same as doing. Action flows naturally from allowing, but efforting against experience creates suffering.

Key Concepts

Key Quotes

“Try to pull your pinkies apart — not pull them apart, try to pull them apart. Then feel the opposite of that. The whole system relaxes.”

“Letting go doesn’t happen by telling yourself to let go. It happens by clearly seeing the pain of holding on, and from here the mind lets go when it’s ready.”

“How do you drop a hot frying pan? You feel it. That’s all you have to do.”

“Joy is the matriarch of a family of emotions and she won’t come into a house where her children aren’t welcome.”

“You get a lot more done in the not doing than in the trying.”

“The more I move from my authenticity, that’s all I really want from others. The biggest joy I have in interacting with others is their authenticity.”

Transcript

hey everybody this is Joe Hudson and I wanted to talk today a little bit about how to approach self-awareness or self-development and there’s three things about the approach that are really important the first thing is that you treat it all with gratitude the second thing is that it’s really important that it’s experimentation and then the third thing that’s really important is that what we’re here doing isn’t about improving yourself it’s about discovering your authentic self so when you’re in the middle of learning something let’s say you’re playing tennis and you hit the ball when you’re playing tennis and then you miss and then you hit and then you miss and then you hit there’s this idea that if you beat yourself up every time you miss you’re going to somehow improve and that’s not how it works at all in self-development if you beat yourself up for not keeping to a practice or if you keep beat yourself up for not uh listening with an open heart one thing that’s happening is that you’re slowing down the progress because it’s really important that you titrate that you go pendulate back and forth to be able to learn something and so if every time you’re like in the natural learning process from understanding to not understanding to understanding to not understanding if you beat yourself up then you slow down that entire process instead of saying oh this is cool the second thing that’s really important is that at the moment that you realize that you’ve forgotten at the moment that you realize oh I haven’t been in the practice or I haven’t been listening with an open heart then you’re listening with an open heart again then you’re in the practice again and so when you beat yourself up you’re actually beating yourself up for being in the practice for the remembering and so the way that the nervous system works is oh I remembered you you fucked up and so you’re punishing the remembering so it’s so much better to say oh I’ve done it and I’m grateful and oh I just remembered and I’m grateful that I remembered also it’s just a fucking ton more fun to be in a place of gratitude than it is to be in a place of beating yourself up experimentation is critical so everybody’s brains are a little bit different everybody was raised differently and what that means is that even if let’s say that we know what all the steps are which nobody knows right all the steps for your particular development nobody knows what order those steps should be in and sometimes the order is more important than the steps and so no matter what looking for someone else to tell you your truth is never going to work as effectively is running experiments and finding out what your own truth is so a great example of this is let’s say uh you want to figure out how to enjoy your life more and somebody says it’s really important like I just did I just said oh hey enjoyment and gratitude is is far better great so you listen to that you hear it but instead of going oh that’s right and I’m going to be grateful fuck that run an experiment say oh I’m going to do gratitude practice 10 minutes a day for 2 weeks and see what the hell happens I’m going to be grateful every time I remember and see what the hell happens that’s a far better way to do it it than to just take my word for it one because you learn it a lot better if you actually are in an active relationship with it but two is well maybe gratitude doesn’t work for you right now yeah let’s find out or maybe there’s a way in which you can do gratitude that you’re going to discover in that experimentation that works better for you and so don’t take anybody’s word for it if you hear something that you think oh that resonates with me or that’s something that doesn’t resonate with me uh is it triggering me and I want to experiment with it then design find an experiment where you get to play with it for a while and find out what’s true for you so let’s say I went out into the world and I acted like some guy named like Tim Harris right and I’m like I’m out there walking and acting like Tim Harris and the people who like Tim Harris are going to be around me and the people who don’t like Tim Harris are going to be away from me and the people who reward Tim Harris are going to reward me and the people who punish Tim Harris are going to punish me and so I have a world that’s fit for Tim Harris I don’t have a world that’s fit for me Joe Hudson but if I’m authentic then I actually find people who like me and I have a world that’s set up for me if you improve yourself and you’re not yourself then certain things happen like you can never love yourself because you can’t love yourself if you’re not being yourself other people can’t love you because then they’re loving who you’re trying to be not actually who you are so you can’t actually feel the reward of living unless you’re living as you you can’t get the love you can’t enjoy yourself more importantly than that you create a life that actually suits you and so there’s this idea somewhere that there’s like one way to succeed there’s one way of being good but there’s a thousand different people completely different people that are successful in their own right so that’s the third reason that it’s really important to be authentic and to approach the whole thing as oh I’m discovering who I am I’m discovering how to be more me then I’m thinking about how to improve myself the reason that all this is important is you think about this like sports for a second there’s one kid who’s like learning to play volleyball and they are saying I can’t wait to learn volleyball I’m so excited for volleyball I love that practice I can’t wait to get out and give it my best shot and then you have another person another kid just as talented who’s saying to themselves oh God I got to do some volleyball today my mom made me do the volleyball right you’re it’s clear who’s going to be more effective so it’s the same thing with self-awareness or transformation as it is with you know volleyball how you Orient to it is going to make a huge difference and so if you think about it this way hey I can have a a transformational process where I’m grateful the whole time or I’m beating myself up the whole time where I’m finding out what’s true for me and I am making it Mine by experimenting as compared to I’m just digesting what other people tell me is true if I’m having a transformation process where I’m learning to be myself and be fully authentic you’re going to have a far better chance of success but more importantly you’re just going to have a much better time in your transformational journey post anything down there that you have other questions about other content that you want to see from us and thanks so much for showing up to the art of accomplishment where we explore how deepening connection with ourselves and others leads to creating the life we want with enjoyment and ease I’m Brett Kistler and I’m here again with Joe Hudson hey Brett how’s it going it is going well so today we wanted to talk about the opposite of trying and this is this is a thing that I that I really love is one of the one of my favorite kind of most simple demonstrations that that you did when I first met you and um and it really just comes into it like any aspect of Our Lives to be able to find where where the trying is and what and what that feels like and what other options are available to this to us so I’m really excited to get into this one into more detail yeah the the for those of you who haven’t been through this with me somehow or another it always happens like in early interactions with me somebody somebody talks to me about trying so it’s a very simple thing you can do the exercise at home right now you just put your two hands together uh put them together like they are Palms in front of you like you have a prayer sign that’s happening and then what I ask people to do is I say try to pull your pinkies apart and what people do is they actually pull their pinkies apart and then I say no no no I didn’t say pull your pinkies apart I say try to pull your pinkies apart and then the person really puts a lot of effort into pulling the pinkies apart but doesn’t actually pull them apart so if you’re at home do that right now see what that’s like to really try to pull your pinkies apart but not do it and then without thinking for a moment without using your head at all take this feeling that you have and then feel the opposite of it yeah as I’m doing that right now I’m just noticing this separation between efforting and action yeah yeah there’s also like us for me the main purpose is when you feel that feeling of the opposite of trying the whole system relaxes and you could call it maybe allowing or receiving or listening there’s like a like you’re in a far more in a flow state but there’s this deep kind of uh allowing or receiving that happens and what’s interesting about almost everybody I work with especially when I first start working with them they’re constantly thinking that their Solutions are in trying or an effort what do I have to do is the question and oftentimes the answer is it’s actually the opposite of the doing it’s the undoing that’s important it’s the opposite of the trying it is the it is the allowing or the receiving that’s important and it’s one of those things that is this superpower when you get it and we almost never consider it as a society I notice we almost never consider it and as a society I notice that we uh Really Don’t Rock the full power of the opposite of trying and so that that’s what I was hoping we could talk about today yeah of course I I can’t let us get any farther without bringing Yoda into this do or do not there is no try right yes yeah I think I think I love that same I mean I remember that as a kid and how much it affected me and and there’s something yes there’s like this deep truth of of you’re either doing something you’re not doing you’re not trying which is a pointer also to the flow uh but the the thing about flow is that there is a deep receiving in it there’s like uh like if you’re in a flow state there’s no trying but there’s also like you’re listening it’s more like being a channel right the the experience is more of being a channel it’s more of um receiving and like maybe being a conduit and that’s and that’s the thing that isn’t in that quote which I think is an important thing because it allows you to get out of the Trine like a lot of the times like somebody is talking about how do I do that and I’ll say something like how do you drop a hot frying pan but it still makes no sense to them because it’s just like they’re so in that world of like oh how do I uh you know and and oftentimes like oh it’s just a receiver allowing that lets it happen yeah okay so so bringing this Beyond sort of the the workshop party trick that it is um like it’s initial it’s sort of the the initial iteration and where it just kind of feels good oh yeah great there’s I don’t have to try to pull my hands apart I can just pull them apart but what about you know solving my financial crisis or having my partner not abuse me or what other what other things that we’re working with in our lives that just don’t feel like not trying is going to resolve what makes this so fractally applicable and important in our lives yeah so it’s what’s interesting to me about it is that there there’s a time for trying and then there’s a time for receiving and the major issue is not that one is good or one is bad or one is the way and one is not the way the major issue is that most of the time we don’t see the option of uh of of not trying and so there’s a really cool Taoist story about this and the Taoist tradition in general has a tremendous amount about trying and not trying and what they call the way but I love this story so uh a um uh Prince comes into a butcher shop and he asks a butcher how often do you sharpen your knives and the butcher says I don’t I don’t sharpen my knives and the prince is like that’s ridiculous even the best butchers that work at the palace have to sharpen their knives you know once uh once a month and he says oh yeah no I don’t have to my my knife finds the space between the the bone and the meat and if there’s ever an issue if there’s ever a place where it doesn’t move through with ease I just sit there and wait and it eventually just comes undone and that’s this the story of of this Butcher and is this I think it’s I think it’s a chuangza story and and it’s and it’s it speaks to it so beautifully and and what and the the other way to say this in more practical terms is that is this quote uh Letting Go doesn’t happen by telling yourself to let go it happens by clearly seeing the pain of holding on and from here the Mind lets go when it’s ready and so there’s no doing in that and so particularly with psychological pain there is the it’s though the work is often in the letting go it’s not in the doing anything it’s not in the trying it’s not in the effort it’s in the receiving yeah sort of if you if you allow the pain of holding on then the natural your your body and your emotions your Soul’s natural responses to do something different drop it yeah yeah how do you how do you drop a hot frying pan you feel it that’s all you have to do is just feel it and you’re gonna let go right that’s the yeah and then of course there’s the there’s the fork in the electrical socket like there’s there’s other there’s other metaphorical examples where it would be better to drop it but you actually just hold on tighter because that’s what kind of response you have that so I feel like there’s I think it’d be valuable to point to some kind of wisdom in that like what is what is the benefit what what had us adapt in such a way that would have us hold on and grip and try right that’s exactly it so the way we hold on tighter is we say how do we do it how do we fix it what’s wrong with me how do I improve it what do I do it like there’s a lot of ego in that and there is a lot of doing in that and there’s not a lot of receiving or allowing in that and that is exactly the methodology in which which we use to hold on tighter and there are times when that makes a lot of sense if I’m on a life raft that’s what I’m gonna do you know it I if if I am in like there’s ways in which I would use my will both in business and and then uh and and relationships or are coaching with somebody where I would use my will for that exact purpose and I there’s no problem with that I think there’s a like I said a time and a place for that the question is you can’t really know what the the thing is that you can’t really know when the time of the place is unless you really understand the other tool unless you really understand what it is to receive to allow to let go to to listen hmm okay okay so so give me some some practical examples of this yeah so none of these are perfect but I want to be really specific in them like listening is a great example and how that can change your life by the way that you listen uh the resilience that comes from uh allowing the pleasure that comes from allowing peace authenticity Joy all of those things really don’t respond to trying very well at all I mean occasionally there’s certain ways in which it works but generally all of these things Prosper through the allowing process so just like giving giving you an example on listening so we do this exercise in in one of the courses where you have somebody uh talk to somebody and then they listen in one way they listen with like skepticism and then they listen in another way like that person is like the most wise person in the whole world and what people often notice in that exercise is different things are shared the way that we listen basically how well we receive how well we allow the other person to be allow will create different stories that we hear we’ll get different levels of honesty intimacy transparency our whole world will be different and by the way we listen however I very rarely ever see anybody say oh how am I going to listen in this next meeting they always think what am I going to say how am I going to present myself what does a slide deck going to look like they never say how am I going to listen though listening can have a much deeper effect than what you say in a meeting and so that’s a that’s a really great example of of how much power you have just in the receiving as compared to the doing and if you don’t believe it spend one day going around listening to everybody with skepticism and then take the next day and listen to everybody like they are you know the most wise Sage speaking to you and see see how your world changes in a day yeah I just had the mental image of like a child running up to to the front door to show mommy the mud pie they made and they’re covered in mud all this they’re all excited and also the mom is just standing there arms on her hips like yeah yeah just the the immediate deflation yeah yeah the quality the quality of the listener does directly back Channel and impact the way that we share and that’s a really interesting observation that yeah we we go into we go into a meeting preparing for what we can’t possibly prepare for which is how listening is the other person going to be right yeah exactly rather than how how are we going to listen and like what is the quality of our presence while we are sharing and and exchanging ideas yeah hmm okay so so that’s that’s for listening you you kind of went through a list there like listening resilience was the next one yeah resilience how does that work there yeah resilience is a really interesting one because it works like a little sideways there if you look at for example if you look at economies that are highly planned that don’t allow that don’t have allowing in them if they are fragile they they might grow for a while Etc but they they become fragile they become weak they whereas if you if you have a non-planned economy where people are following their inspiration you’re doing a lot of allowing and that allowing creates a lot of resilience decades and decades it’s not like 30 years of an economy it’s hundreds upon hundreds of years of an economy so that’s another example in business another example would be open source the resilience of an open source platform instead of a non-open source platform um the same thing with Uber like the the more they’re just like oh we’re allowing people to drive when they want to drive how they want to drive it becomes a far more resilient thing than a taxi service Which is far more controlled so allowing people inside of a company um is it very much creates that resiliency internally that same resiliency is created by allowing the emotional experiences that we have by not managing and constricting on those they help us get through transformation much quicker they help us heal much quicker they allow us to make decisions much quicker as we’ve talked about in other podcasts so it’s that allowing that creates resiliency in us in our companies and and yeah and you can see companies that are more decentralized oftentimes um are more in general are more resilient and also win competitively not in all cases but in many yeah yeah and I can also see that helping with pivots you know responding to to Market changes and then internally responding to changes in our own in our own selves our own capacities our own environment allowing us to update our identity with who we are now rather than a lag lagged behind idea of who we’ve been and then insisting on maintaining that yeah if you really want to geek out on it there’s a book called Reinventing organizations that really is talking about a structure of company that allows for a a lot of allowing a lot of listening and it really you know has a very particular way in which it moves in the world so if you really want to geek out on as far as like company culture that’s another way to check into it yeah how about pleasure so pleasure that one’s like the easiest one to explain it’s like so you know men and women obviously are different but if you if you just take it sexually there’s definitely a group of people that if they really try to have an orgasm they can’t that re orgasm is something that the more you try the further it goes away even for those people who um who are who can have an orgasm through trying that the orgasm is usually tight and shortened instead of where what people would say call Valley orgasms or something like that where it can be very long extended pleasurable experiences through the not active trying but the other way to just instead if you don’t if you want to take it out of sex for a second just like try to find pleasure without allowing you know what I mean like that try to enjoy the sunset yeah try to enjoy a breath try to enjoy and so the way I Define pleasure here is the best way I’ve heard to Define pleasure is um observing the movement of your Sensations in your body or the movement of energy in your body that’s that’s what pleasure is it is a listening to the sensations of your body and if you’re trying to get there it’s it just doesn’t work whereas if you’re allowing the pleasure of a breath in that can be an incredible experience and if you’re trying to have pleasure in your breath in it’s a lot less pleasurable so and we have this um exercise that you know we’ve done a master class where um it’s like how do you enjoy and and people find out that enjoyment is the undoing it’s not the doing of things like pleasure is and so that’s that’s like that’s such an easy one because everybody can viscerally feel that you know yeah yeah and I’m thinking about you know a deep tissue massage or body work as well and one thing that you had mentioned there is it’s allowing the sensations in our body that statement has no valence it’s not allowing the positive Sensations in the body right and enduring the negative ones or ignoring the negative ones or suppressing or having there be negative ones in the first place it’s just allowing the sensation in your body which is yeah bringing that back into a massage it’s bringing aware it’s being aware of the movement of Sensations in your body specifically the awareness is important feeling the movement of it is important as well just for pleasure it doesn’t have anything to do with the allowing part but it’s those words are are precise on that one yeah yeah yeah well allowing sort of the thing that happens when you’re in the opposite of trying yeah exactly yeah yeah okay what about in a more psychological or spiritual level like peace pleasure this was sort of in the body what about just our general orientation towards towards the world and towards reality yeah I mean the best way I’ve ever heard anybody talk about pieces um in a war with yourself you always lose and so it’s really about dropping the war and and that’s an undoing it’s not a doing and and trying to force yourself to do something doesn’t create peace trying to force yourself to eat the right foods and exercise in the right way and meditate the right amount none of that brings you peace and and people know that because they’ve been doing it for decades looking for peace and it doesn’t come peace actually comes from the allowing from the receiving of it and so you know and what I notice is that some people try to get to peace in the opposite way by avoiding um conflict but but avoiding conflict just creates a war inside yourself and so so that doesn’t work either it is an allowing it’s not an avoidance and so that’s like any moment that you’ve had in peace it’s been received it hasn’t been something that you have that you have forced yourself into or tried to get into yeah so double clicking on that statement about if you avoid the conflict to keep the peace you are creating conflict in yourself so example here being if if there’s something going on with your partner and there’s a need that’s not being met and rather than letting that conflict arise like rather than allowing rather than letting it be there and be like hey there’s there’s a need that I have that’s not being met and just letting that enter the space between you correct then the conflict between your need and not having it met exists entirely within you not entirely because it leaks out in all kinds of different ways yeah yeah but like those are all then you know like Downstream effects of the war that’s inside yourself so rather than having it be in yourself you can just allow that there is conflict and if you’re if you are with it in the way that you just described about being with pleasure being with the noticing the movement of energy in your body noticing the movement of energy or emotion in a relationship noticing the flow of power or disempowerment or uh needs and wants in a team yes then then you don’t need to be in a war with yourself and there may be conflict there may be disagreements there may be no maybe there will be yeah that’s right without without that tension life doesn’t exist you know we sit in nature and we can feel the peace of nature and there is tension in every cell around us every animal every tree around us tension is what creates life and so there will be pieces and created through lack of tension it’s created through the allowing of it yeah the Buddhists have a saying around this too which is like um that life is painful you can’t avoid that right I’m paraphrasing but life is painful you can’t avoid that but you don’t have to suffer and that’s the it’s pointing to the same thing yeah yeah so now that you bring nature into this I’m imagining like uh a tree Sprout growing through the crack in the concrete and I don’t imagine there being any trying occurring there right it’s just happening that’s right yeah that that’s the thing is people think that trying happens like is required for evolution but the the truth is that Evolution happens whether we’re trying or not growth movement happens when they’re trying to not and oftentimes happens quicker just like it does in a child there’s a lot of not effort in a child and a lot of growth yeah so then what’s the relation between trying and tension if tension exists in all of evolution and all of life what is the difference that between that natural tension and the trying that we’re talking about here that we humans and maybe some other complex nervous systems have has evolved as a strategy yeah so again I’m not trying to say that trying is bad in some complete sense like there’s trying is appropriate at some some moment so so I just to make sure that it doesn’t become a binary situation but in general the Trine that is ineffective that happens is usually happens because we are trying to get out of an experience right so the trying is is is not hugging the cactus it’s trying to get away from the cactus right it is the avoidance of it that it typically creates the Trine who are trying to get towards something or away from something rather than allowing it and that that’s that’s when the trying becomes counterproductive if we’re embracing the intensity if we’re if we are loving and and allowing for the intensity trying may arise but it’s not in a way that creates suffering it’s not through like the you know the it’s it’s not through the craving or the aversion is the way that the Buddhists would say it right not not that wanting is a bad or anything like that it’s just that our suffering comes from from that experience yeah I’m just picturing having hugged the cactus and having a bunch of cactus needles in me and not trying to get them out and you know if you’ve ever had like a tiny little cactus needle stuck in your skin and it breaks off and like you know the tra whatever it’s called to go in there with tweezers and very carefully try to get the thing out could be considered trying you could also do it without with or without tension or with or without like suffering yes and so it sounds it sounds to me that what you’re describing as trying here often involves that there’s there’s resistance to the experience that makes it trying that’s right that’s right yeah it’s a great way to say it got it yeah okay so there were a couple other examples that you had mentioned yeah I think there’s I think there was two more uh yeah authenticity was one okay yeah and joy yeah I think Joy was the other yeah yeah so what I mean by authenticity here is not just saying the first thing that comes to your mind I think a lot of folks think that that’s what authenticity is about um but that can be conditioning that can be trauma that can be a lot of responses that aren’t particularly authentic so when I think about authenticity it means that I’m not avoiding being myself and I’m not defending being myself if I’m avoiding being myself then I’m clearly not okay with myself and that’s not authentic and if I’m defending myself I have to agree that there’s something wrong with me and so and so I don’t mean defending isn’t protecting sometimes obviously you need to protect yourself I mean that feeling of defensiveness that wall up that that non-hop and open-heartedness and so to me that it like the only way to be authentic is to allow yourself is is to listen to yourself to to receive who you are and let that Express it’s again like being a channel it’s not it’s not a it’s not a doing like I had to really try hard to be authentic is like it it just rattles the brain when you think about it that way so it is a very much a receiving or a listening yeah the trying comes in the defense and the avoidance yeah yeah and I’m also imagining that now as it as it becomes a strategy and it gets into our like from our body up into our heads then there becomes a lot of trying it’s like if I’m operating from a core belief that I can’t be seen as wrong or bad and it would be bad for me to be seen that way then I need to figure out how to defend myself and manage other people’s story and all the all the other all the other Downstream effects of that yeah and attracting other people’s opinions and needs rather than my own feelings and then all that this connection occurs Downstream yeah that’s right our our our main reason for not being authentic is because we want a certain reaction from other folks which means we are not allowing them to be themselves either and and my noticing is that the the more I move from my authenticity that’s all I really want from others I don’t want them to agree with me I don’t want them to tell me how great I am I don’t want them to give me attention the biggest Joy I have in interacting with others is their authenticity and being authentic together that’s what actually feels deeply intimate beautiful well how about how about Joy then Joy I’ve said this a lot in before and which is the the joy is the matriarch of a family of emotions and she won’t come into a house where her children aren’t welcome where children aren’t listened to where her children aren’t allowed where her children aren’t received you know it’s the it’s the same idea it’s that deep welcoming of our emotional experience is what allows for Joy Joy isn’t like you can see it you you see it all the time with like especially in the 20s where you’re just like I’m just gonna smile because that’ll make me happy it’s like Joy doesn’t come through Force Joy doesn’t come through effort Joey doesn’t come because I’m going to be positive all the time I’m not going to have any bad emotions like those people I’ve worked with plenty of them when they hit 40 they’re like my whole life is miserable and all I’ve done is be positive Joy comes because we allow all the emotional experiences to be and then and then they clear out they move and then when that when that dock is empty Joy Moves In Joy comes it’s the one that likes to settle in place I have all the other ones want to move like that the undercurrent of our emotional experience is joy and unless something’s wrong and then that can move through yeah this has been a really big one for me even even lately as as I’ve been starting another company and there’s slide decks and there’s presentations and there’s conversations with people and we’re continuing to do the podcast and preparing for that and I’ve I’ve been noticing like over the past couple weeks that there have been times where my my joy has been like decreased because I’m like I’m doing things that I normally would be enjoying but I’m like just not really there and it’s because some part of me is like often the trying of well this has to get done this way that has to get done that way there’s a bunch of moving pieces and then it gets off a little bit I’m like I’m juggling so much and yeah just just noticing that it’s like if I if I notice the absence of Joy then that’s a place where I can look where am I trying right now where am I where am I in resistance and not just allowing what what’s happening and when when that moves then it’s like oh great this this thing doesn’t need to be perfect it’s just needs to be like an authentic expression of what I’m doing right now in the you know the time that’s available and yeah like it’s an iteration and we get to come back to all those principles of you know being in connection and being an iteration and being yeah one of one of my principles from from the recent decisions course that I came out with was I’m already free and so that’s another way just I I notice when I feel like I’m not free because I’m dependent upon how some situation goes I get to just remember that and then the trying releases and then the joy can come back yeah and so the interesting thing that you’re saying here that I think is really important because some I remember the first time I heard some idea like this and I was like wait but you know I gotta try some things like I gotta I gotta like get gas in the car I gotta like if I’m gonna make my business work I have to and and so it’s really important to when when we say trying we don’t mean doing right and that’s back to the Yoda thing so I think if anybody’s lost there that’s a really important thing and I and I also really dig what you’re saying about freedom I’m already free it it it it’s like there’s something that happens in the receiving which is like the recognition that and there’s a really cool little point that you’re you’re you’re making right here which is that our record our capacity to recognize to have the epiphany happens far more in the receptive place than it does in the trying place there’s like this there’s and so when you say I’m already free there’s like the recognition allows for this movement to happen that it whereas if your principal was um I can be free it doesn’t do the same thing yeah because I can’t be free if I try hard enough it becomes what it what it would be right exactly yeah instead of I am it’s like yeah it’s a great principle that’s cool take that yeah so that that’s that’s the joy part yeah again another another way that I’m thinking of like kind of intellectually slicing up this this trying concept is that when I notice I’m trying it’s generally that there’s actually something I’m not wanting to feel it might be helplessness and if I’m not feeling that helplessness I’m not if I’m not feeling that fear then I go into like focus and not necessarily a productive Focus but sort of like a blinders Focus uh sort of like a fear uh fight flight kind of state and when I’m in that state I’m I have less capacity to be authentic less of capacity for Joy less capacity for peace and I find myself in the struggle with reality in the fight yeah it also just takes a ton of energy it just takes it like you and I have seen this with people who have gone through some of the courses and they have like this moment of oh I can allow my emotional experiences and then they have so much energy they even have a hard time sleeping for a couple of days where they’re just like yeah you know and so that’s a huge like once you experience that once you experience like oh me managing and trying and controlling all this stuff requires a lot of energy that could be going towards getting a lot done and and what I’ve noticed is that like nowadays like one of the things that as people work with me they’re like wow you’re you do so much stuff and and you get so much done it happens quickly and it’s you know some people complain about not being able to keep up and and it’s not that I’m moving quickly in my experience it’s just that I’m not wasting my effort on trying or managing my experience or trying to make it different or resisting the experience what what I think is what I think it’s hard for people to grok until they fully feel it is that you get a lot more done in the not doing than in the trying awesome thank you Joe yeah enjoyed this thanks for being with me again Brett awesome thank you everybody for listening and if you know somebody who might appreciate what you’ve heard today please pass this along and share what resonated for you we love your feedback so hit us with comments or questions through our website Circle Community or tweet us at Art of a comp you can reach out join our newsletter or check out our courses at Art of accomplishment.com thank you

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