Written by: Abdul R. Bader, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
This is my first article in Brainz magazine and I thought for some time about what I want to share with the readers of this magazine.
What will be the most helpful and transformative to you the reader?
This question actually led to many ideas and revelations and, in a sense, it brought me to the heart of what I think transformed my life and hopefully will transform yours.
At the heart of what I want to share with you in this article and in a series of follow up articles is the idea of Effortless living and doing.
Now, before you misunderstand my point, let me define the word effortless the way I see it. Effortless to me is the absence of anxiety, busyness, stress, and urgency. It is not the absence of doing and getting things done, but the idea of how to DO without much “effort”. How to live in harmony with life and enjoy creating your own version of success.
This article will be the first of a collection, briefly and concisely explaining what I will call for now “The Effortless Approach”.
Effortless Living
How do we live fully and play full out without much effort? To get to this goal, we must first understand the default. What is the default of human functioning?
How does the human mind work? In a simple way, not a complicated one.
What I have come to see and understand today as a principle about the human experience, not as a cool idea but as an actual principle is how people think. People are aware. People are alive.
First: People Think
That is the first principle and easiest to witness. At a fundamental level, humans function through thought. In other words, thinking is not a cool feature we have. Instead, it creates the experience in the first place. Think about it. What would happen if that voice in your head was taken away? How will you get to experience life?
Now, what does that also say at a principle level? It says that we are the ones who bring meaning to life, not the other way around. Eliminate the human factor, and life is just life. Life does not question or think about what it means to itself.
Now bring people into the picture, and you get all sorts of meanings, right ones, and wrong ones.
Let us push it even further. This means that if life feels hard, stressful and complicated, then it must be the human, through thought, who creates that experience.
I’m not saying that people do this on purpose! That is why we are talking at the principle/foundational level. This is how it works and if you misunderstand the system, you will end up believing that life is inherently hard.
So understanding that life is not inherently hard or stressful is the first step toward effortless living.
Living in fluidity just like water fits any container you put in, is at the heart and centre of effortless living.
Second: People Are Aware
Not only do we think, but we are also aware of it happening. We seem to be a container for thought. It appears in our heads and we witness it and experience it.
Awareness seems to have infinite levels. Like a bubble that expands and contracts. When expanded, we are aware of the bigger picture of life. We see what is actually going on. We think beyond ourselves and we are very understanding.
When the bubble contracts, we have very limited sight. We also take things personally all the time. And what happens when we take things personally all the time? The experience comes with a lot of effort.
We start thinking that the world is against us and that things happen to us, not for us. We tend to see the difficulty in any given situation, as well as the possible but not the only negative outcome of that situation.
To live in an expanded awareness is to recognize the bigger picture of life which, therefore, allows us to live in harmony and understanding with life.
Harmony and understanding are effortless.
Impersonal is effortless. Personal is full of effort.
Third: People Are Alive
Well this is an obvious one, isn't it?
But what does that really mean, we are alive?
It simply means that whatever it is, that energy that runs life and this entire universe is also running through us.
I used to think that being alive is like starting a gas generator, starting it once and it runs on the gas until it dies.
However, I now see the true principle of aliveness which is that life is continuously running through us until we die. Death is the absence of that aliveness in this body.
Now so what?
Well, I do not know about you but life seems very intelligent to me! This whole world seems to work in a magnificent and beautiful way.
And you tell me that this intelligence is running through me? EXACTLY!
What are the features of this intelligence in humans? What does it look like? Perhaps I will talk in more detail in a future article but what you need to know for now is that this intelligence brings with it a self-correcting mechanism that heals the broken and prevents disaster.
Our cuts heal without our interference. Broken bones heal when they are put close together in a certain way.
That same mechanism is available for the human psyche. Intuition, feelings, unexplained knowing, and much more.
What happens when we get in the way of such natural built-in properties? We fight against the system. We make it harder.
What also happens when we get out of the system’s way? Things become effortless because they never required our effort in the first place.
Putting it all together.
In order to achieve the proposed goal at the beginning of this article, understanding how we truly function seems like a great start. Our thinking creates our experience and reality. The deeper we understand this truth the simpler living and doing can become.
We are aware and we experience different levels of awareness which continuously change how we view life. Understanding this truth means the more aware we are, the bigger our picture of reality becomes and, therefore, effortless living can be achieved.
Lastly, just like how modern devices are connected to the internet which allows for software updates to take place, we are also connected to greater intelligence. This intelligence brings ideas and levels of knowledge beyond our intellectual knowledge.
I know there is a lot to take in here, but read this as an exploration that you are willing to discover for yourself. Do not worry about proving me right or wrong. Instead, focus on the beautiful possibility that my words carry.
Now go and explore. See what you can see for yourself first.
Enjoy living,
Abdul
Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info!
Abdul R. Bader, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Abdul Bader is a business and life coach with two decades of experience as a professional athlete. After his career ended in 2014, Abdul went on to start a business that achieved great success and is still up and running for 7 years now. He always brought positive change to the people around him and his team before ever deciding to be a coach, therefore, the transition into coaching was natural. Today, his clients and the people he worked with include executives, founders, and athletes. His work focuses on creating an effortless performance in life and work.
