Don’t Change Anything
Barbara Haynes
BK335
$4.95
Don’t Change Anything
Instant (PDF) download $(4.95)
About the Book
Five reflections on presence, willingness, and being here while your life is happening.
Sometimes a question leads somewhere you weren’t expecting.
These five reflections began with ordinary moments of practice and gradually revealed a thread running through them.
What does it mean to be present for our lives as they are happening?
What happens when we stop trying to improve the moment, escape it, hold onto it, or turn it into something else?
Don’t Change Anything follows that inquiry through joy, self-observation, attention, resistance, and willingness. It asks whether we can simply be here for the life that is already happening.
No system. No conclusion. No spiritual money-back guarantee.
Just five reflections and an invitation to experiment.
For your reading pleasure, we have included Chapter 2 from the book "Don’t Change Anything"
Before You Answer (Chapter 2)
Before You Answer
Every so often we discover we’ve been doing something for a very long time.
We’ve stayed in a career.
A relationship.
A town.
A community.
A daily habit.
One day we pause and wonder,
How did I get here?
Closely followed by another question.
Why am I still here?
Time passes without asking our permission. Life carries us forward one ordinary day at a time until, often unexpectedly, we find ourselves asking those questions.
For several months I found myself quietly carrying those questions.
At first, I answered with the obvious things. I care about the people. I value the work I’m doing. I have responsibilities.
There are friendships that have grown over many years.
All of those answers were true.
Yet none of them seemed to satisfy me.
The question stayed with me.
Then one quiet thought drifted in.
You have to know yourself before you can answer honestly.
It stopped me. And revealed another question.
How can I honestly answer “Why am I here?” if I don’t know who is answering?
We often answer from habit.
From the person we hope we are.
From the person we think others expect us to be.
Sometimes we even answer from the person we used to be.
It takes time to discover that these are not always the same person.
When we’re young, we answer from hope, fear, ambition, loneliness, or the picture we’ve created of ourselves. Years later, after success and failure, joy and disappointment, we may discover that the one answering the question has quietly changed.
The question hasn’t changed.
We have.
Perhaps that’s why certain questions remain alive throughout our lives. They invite us to notice who we have become.
A marriage may ask the question.
A friendship.
A career.
A creative pursuit.
A promise you once made to yourself.
Why am I still here?
If your first response is, “Because I’ve always been here,” it may be worth waiting a little longer.
Sometimes the most honest answer doesn’t arrive immediately.
It appears after the explanations have become quiet.
Every so often, life asks us the same question again.
The answer may be different this time.
The question doesn’t change.
We do.
Before answering, pause for a moment.
Ask yourself one quieter question.
Who, at this moment, is answering?