As I was walking out the door this morning, my sweetheart asked if I had received my 2012 registration sticker from the DMV. When I told him I hadn’t, despite having paid my fees over a month ago, he handed me the payment receipt that I had left on the table near our front door. I was heading to a coffee shop to do some writing, but as I got into my car, I thought I’d check to see where the closest DMV was (it’s not a place I frequent!) and what time they open. It turned out the office was just a block and a half off my route to the place where I was planning to spend my morning, so I headed straight there. They opened 15 minutes after I arrived, and when the friendliest DMV worker I could possibly imagine was helping me, she said, you picked the perfect day to come in. She went on to explain that the DMV requires that people wait for 30 days after  paying their fees before coming in to request duplicate stickers and registration cards. Today happened to be the 30th day after I paid online for my renewal.

Some people shrug off things like this. I pay close attention to them. I like to notice when life seems to flow and pay attention to when it feels like I’m swimming against the current rather than with it. It’s a relatively new stance for me. As as child, I learned to push through whatever obstacles happened to be on the path of what I wanted to accomplish.  As I’ve experienced more of life, though, I’ve realized that for me, the choice to fight and power through things has taken a toll. I have seen the toll in my body and in my spirit.

What I have noticed is this: When I push through things I brace myself. I contract and tighten and cause stress in my body and wind up hurting myself. Every time I force myself to do something that I don’t want to do or that I have some internal conflict around doing, I wind up feeling drained. I need more sleep. I need more time alone. I am less patient with the people I love and also with myself.

If I have a choice, why would I choose all of that?

Why would I do that to myself?

I don’t believe that pushing through things is the only way to accomplish and achieve. It’s certainly one way, but it doesn’t have to be my way, or yours.

• What if work doesn’t have to be hard?
• What if it isn’t tough to have an amazing relationship?
• What if you don’t have to grin and bear it anywhere in your life?
• What if your family won’t fall apart and the sky won’t fall if you relax and enjoy yourself and your life?

Please don’t misconstrue me, I definitely see the value of perseverance and commitment. And I still do plenty of things that stretch me, that are at the edge of my comfort zone. I just choose to do them differently. I mind my inner world as I do them. I do them in a way that is kind to me. I let go of any story that gets in the way of treating myself with kindness.

I ask myself if there is another, even better way to accomplish what I am trying to do. Or I remind myself to take a breath and relax. Sometimes I turn my attention to the reasons that I want to do whatever it is, and the excitement that arises within me is enough to move whatever was blocking me internally. Other times I find I need to just trust — that there is another door (or even a window) that opened when the door I am focused on closed.

Most of the time, all I need to do is loosen my grip on my ideas about the way things should be and stop long enough to let the stillness create some spaciousness within me. From that place of spaciousness, it’s easy for me to see that what seemed like an unscalable mountain was merely a boulder in the middle of the road that I could easy navigate around.

As I do any or even all of these things, I pay attention to what is available, to what feels easy and right, to what I am excited about, to the things that are just flowing without much effort on my part. And I turn up the dial on those things. I allow myself to feel gratitude and appreciation for them. And I open myself to flowing with the things that are already flowing rather than fighting against the things that aren’t. For me, it all boils down to a simple equation:

Flowing With > Fighting Against

• What are you fighting against that you would be better off releasing?
• Where are you creating stress or suffering for yourself?
• What can you do to be even more kind and loving toward yourself?

However you treat yourself is how you will invariable treat the people closest to you. If for some reason you are in a place where you are so caught in beating yourself up that you don’t believe you deserve love and kindness, can’t you at least see that the people you care about the most do?