"Everything supports you whether or not you even notice it."

Thought at 3 a.m.: 
Nothing Supports Me

Suddenly you wake up in the middle of the night, glance at the clock, and wish you were still asleep. A thought appears: "What's going to happen to me? It's a cold, uncaring universe. I don't know what to do." These thoughts were triggered by a mutual-fund commercial you saw last night, but you don't realize that. And the next ones come from a half-remembered motivational tape: "There are no guarantees in this world. Nothing's going to happen for you unless you make it happen." This thought provides a little boost, followed by a major deflation as you remember that self-reliance hasn't worked all that well for you. "I need so much. I have so few resources to get it. My survival skills aren't great, and basically I'm faking it. I'm helpless and alone. " The next thought brings some hope: "If I could just get more love from my family and friends, if just one person really adored me, if my boss really believed in me, then I wouldn't be so anxious, and I could count on being supported."

The thought "Nothing supports me without my efforts" is just one of the unquestioned and often unnoticed beliefs that set in motion the search for love and approval. Let's pause for a moment and explore the opposite.

Daylight Reality Check:
Everything Supports Me

Do you know what supports your existence right now?

Just to scratch the surface of this, suppose you've eaten your breakfast, sat down in your favorite chair, and picked up this book. Your neck and shoulders support your head. The bones and muscles of your chest support your breathing. Your chair supports your body. The floor supports your chair. The earth supports the building you live in. Various stars and planets hold the earth in its orbit. Outside your window a man walks down the street with his dog. Can you be sure that he isn't playing a part in your support? He may work every day in a cubicle, filing papers for the power company that makes your lights come on.

Among the people you see on the street, and the countless hands and eyes working behind the scenes, can you be sure that there is anyone who isn't supporting your existence? The same question applies to the generations of ancestors who preceded you and to the various plants and animals that had something to do with your breakfast. How many unlikely coincidences allow you to be here!

To explore this for a while, look around and see if there is anything you can say for sure doesn't play some role in supporting you. Now look again at the 3 a.m. thought "Nothing supports me without my efforts." In this moment wouldn't it be more true to say, "Everything supports me without my efforts"? The proof is that here you are, sitting in your chair, doing nothing, being fully supported.

Everything supports you whether or not you even notice it, whether or not you think about it or understand it, whether you love it or hate it, whether you're happy or sad, asleep or awake, motivated or unmotivated. It just supports you without asking for anything in return.

Right now, sitting in your chair, as you breathe, notice that you're not doing the breathing, you're being breathed. You don't even have to be aware of it, you don't even have to remember to breathe, because that is supported too. Complicated and intricate as your requirements for existence might be, they are all being met. At this moment there's nothing you need, nothing you need to do. Notice how it feels to take in that thought.

Now think of something you don't have. I'm sure you can think of something.

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