March 2015
Welcome --
"Things are not quite so simple
always as black
and white."
(Doris Lessing)
Recently, a client asked me:
"Are the simple action steps you're describing easy?"
Point taken.
We often mistake simple for easy, and
if something is simple, how can it be so difficult?
Let's go back to dictionary basics:
Simple -- not complicated. From Latin, simplus: onefold.
Easy -- requiring no great labor or effort. Old English/ Middle English: not difficult.
Simple is basic, uncluttered, clear.
Easy is facile, quick to enact, not taxing.
Yet, rarely is change easy or simple and there's the rub ( with thanks to Hamlet ).
Confusing simple with easy can pull us up short and stall us in our process. At times, we can almost feel betrayed -- "Hey, what's going on here? It can't be this difficult!"
A sense of defeat follows and then the drop into the loop of "What's the use?" "It's too much -- and not worth it." What started as a stall becomes a full stop.
Assuming that simple goes hand in hand with easy allows us to back off from
a challenge, wither, and stand down when things get textured. In short, it gives us an out for not doing our Practice(s).
Look at it this way -- if growth, healing, release, forgiveness and equanimity were so easy, we'd all be a lot happier, calmer and fulfilled in our lives, wouldn't we?
So when you're stalled in what's "supposed" to be a simple task:
Stop.
Breathe -- take several breaths
if needed.
Check in with your Bodymind.
Am I confusing simple with easy?
Am I giving myself an excuse to collapse?
Then -- remind Your Self:
simple ≠ easy.
True change rarely is, isn't it?
"There is no such thing as simple.
Simple is hard."
(Martin
Scorcese)
