Inspiration Archives: Ariel and Shya Kane

Your responses to our first feature of Ariel and Shya were so powerful that we just had to interview them and go deeper. Be sure to check out this great interview!

Working on Yourself Doesn't Work - Being Here Does.

The moment we stopped working on ourselves to get "better", our lives instantaneously transformed. This has profoundly impacted everything. What we have learned is not to take ourselves so seriously and to not work so hard to get somewhere.

We have been raised in a forward-thinking culture where we have learned that something in the future will produce the sense of well-being or "OKness" that we all strive to achieve.

It is this very striving, we've discovered, that produces dissatisfaction. The constant need to achieve what we think is better than what we have in the current moment stresses our being in an endless cycle of pain.

We have been taught that certain goals once achieved will produce happiness and satisfaction. This is not true. Happiness is not circumstantially determined and well-being is not a function of the circumstances of your life, either.

All happiness and satisfaction happens when you are being in the current moment of your life. This moment of now is all there is. Something in the future will not get here until it does, and when it does, it will occur in a moment of now.

The Moment is Perfect.

Life shows up exactly as it does in each moment. It rarely, if ever, shows up to meet our preferences. So if meeting your preferences determines your well-being, then chances are you will never feel well in yourself, even if you meet your goals.

Anything that you disagree with is what you are stuck with. Anything that you allow to be the way it is allows you the freedom to be yourself. This moment is perfect exactly as it is and in fact cannot be different than it is/was.

Being a "Yes" to Life.

Another possibility might be to actually choose to have what you have in your life in the current moment. In other words, be a "Yes" to how your life is showing up as opposed to resisting or wishing it was different - complaining to yourself that life is not fair.

Part of our cultural training is striving to achieve something "better", while just allowing your life to be as it is is regarded as lazy. This training says the "right" way to be is to set goals for yourself based on cultural mores and beliefs and then achieve those goals. And most of the planet has adhered to this paradigm.

But it is not the paradigm for well-being and satisfaction. Being kind to yourself is.

Please don't get us wrong. We are not advocating complacency or "settling" in your life. What we are talking about is this moment and Being Here for it, where you are experiencing your life directly rather than thinking about how to live your life "right". This moment is the springboard into your greatness, creativity, well-being, self-expression, and ability to relate and relate well.