I'm sitting on a couch doing nothing.

My brain offers me a thought - I should do something useful, I am wasting my time.

I keep sitting and doing nothing. A moment later another thought - OK, time to clean, there's always something to clean. Another moment, another thought - let's have a snack!... I can write an article about me sitting on a couch doing nothing!.... The dog needs brushing!.... I really should send a message to my friend Liz, I haven't heard from her for ages..... I want to read this book on my desk....

And so it goes on and on. There's myriad things to do.

So, why am I sitting there and not doing anything?

I am doing an Experiment.

Last year I had an interesting idea. What would happen if I didn't do anything at all that was prescribed by the society? Nothing that I should do and only the things that I want to do.

I talk and think about conditioning a lot and I work on de-conditioning myself and help my clients to do the same. The idea behind it that the life is a super happy and fulfilling place when I reach such a state of independence. Right? (OK, to be honest, the process of figuring it all out is already quite happy and fulfilling place for me, I feel like I've been made to do this).

The goal for the Experiment is to learn to live the life I want to live instead of the life that I was programmed to live or the one I should live.
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Well, the Experiment didn't go as planned. It rarely does. It turns out there are a lot of nuances.

First of all, some of the things that I am conditioned to do are actually helpful and useful. Like washing my hands before I eat, brushing my teeth, making my bed in the morning, saying please and thank you and many more. Sometimes I don't want to do them, but they are helpful.

Secondly, not all the things that I want to do in a moment are actually all that helpful and useful for my wellbeing and building a life that I want to live. For example, scrolling IG is fun, and it's an easy pleasure, but it really isn't that great for me, my brain, my life mission and it has an ability to swallow a whole bunch of time.

Another example would be that I want to learn five languages, but the truth is that I don't have the amount of time at the moment that is required to learn five languages. So, I need to to prioritize here. Learning to say no to things that I actually want to do is another important piece of the puzzle because living the life I want requires dedication and focus.

Third, there's a certain feeling in the body that I wanted to explore. An urge of creativity and an artificially implanted urgefrom the outside world feels different in the body. One is joyful excitement and another is obligation and negative stress inducing. That is something important to pay attention to. For example, sitting on a couch doing nothing is not really encouraged, it is not productive right? But cleaning the toilet, doing laundry or going to a job is usually praised. But why? Which one will get me closer to the life that I want to live? Not that there's anything wrong with cleaning toilets, I like them clean and I do it, but really, why is it so bad to sit on the couch and try to figure things out???

Fourth, there are things that are helpful to do, even though sometimes I don't want to do, but choose to do. Sometimes I don't want to take my dog out at 6am but I choose to do so because I know what will happen if I don't. And I am rarely (read never) really excited to do my daily 108 bows, I pause for a few moments with the beads in my hands to kind of remind myself why I chose to do them, but it is something that helps to train my brain and therefore useful and helpful (if you are curious about 108 bows, I wrote about it here).

Fifth, perhaps most important one, is that there is a quiet pull from your destiny. Martha Beck talks about it a lot, she calls it your Essential Self. I came here, to Earth on a mission, my soul had a mission when it decided to reincarnate into this life, and to me, it is the most important call. Of course, conditioning is loud and hearing the call is virtually impossible if you are not paying attention. So, my Experiment is to actually pay attention and learn to hear precisely that - the call of my Essential Self. Actually, it relates to the third point. I think the creative urge is the same thing as a call from my Essential Self.

Sixth, there are things that I want to do, but I am scared to do them. The fear feels real, but I know enough to understand that it is also artificially created fear, conditioning from the past. That's a project on itself. It's funny how sometime things that I want to do but scared to do show up as something I don't want to do. Fear is a trickster.

And there's one more thing. Let's say you heard your Soul's call, you started taking action. At first, it is exciting, and you ride that wave. But fall and failure is guaranteed on the way. It's just part of the journey. So we have to gather some stubbornness, perseverance, trust in the process and even defiance just to keep going, to keep making those aligned choices.

What does it all mean in practical terms for me? Well, as a coach my path is to help people suffer less and to enjoy life more while contributing to building a better world. And while I no longer believe in the "happily ever after", I do believe that the New Earth is absolutely possible, should we choose to create it. It's not that we won't have disagreements, we will. We will just be more mature and accepting of other people's perspectives and learn be more skilled at conflict resolution. I absolutely believe that we can heal as a collective enough to stop choosing to kill each other. I think that it's absolutely possible to live a creative, joyful, fulfilling lives for all of us because I believe we were created to do just that.

But in practical sense, I keep walking my path to more happiness and invite people to come with me. I continue sitting on my couch learning to discern moment by moment what next action to take, aligned action. I am getting better at tolerating the discomfort of saying no to people and things. I am getting more patient with myself. I am getting better at being kind to myself when I fail and more resilient to the bumps on the road.

And why am I sharing all this? Because I want to!

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