I Choose to live in Easy World

I read a book by Julia Rogers Hamrick called Choosing Easy World: A guide to opting out of struggle and strife and living in the amazing realm where everything is easy. 

Wait a minute…we can just opt out of struggle and strife? There’s an amazing realm where everything is easy?

In a sort of epiphany, the author heard the phrase “I choose to live in Easy World where everything is easy” That’s the easy world invocation. Say it and you’re there.

For the most part. There are a few other things you can do to firmly place yourself in Easy World:

• Breathe…take a deep breathe and let Easy World run through your body
• Relax…consciously let go of mental stress
• Allow…let go and stop trying to make things happen. Allow them to happen, instead. This requires some degree of faith that they will happen, or at least an attitude of experimentation where you’re okay if they don’t.
• Enjoy…being in a state of enjoyment is key to staying in Easy World and not getting booted out and straight into Difficult World

(In case it’s not obvious, there are only two worlds here: Easy and Difficult. If you’re not in one, you’re in the other).

Difficult World doesn’t necessarily mean things are going wrong, it just means you’re not in that place of flow where everything clicks. Like when you’re wearing your own underwear. Difficult World is where writers block and frustration and not wanting to get out of bed live. Where important things require hard work and from where someone once said “no pain, no gain”.

If stepping into Easy World is so incredibly easy, why aren’t we all full-time residents? What usually gets us evicted is what she calls the Law of Easy World: worry, struggle, and strife in any form are strictly prohibited.

What?!? We can’t worry at all? But we’re so good at it. And it comes so naturally, so automatically.

Yeah, that’s the hard part. When worry comes—as it will—we can work through it. Acknowledge it and choose to release it so it’s around for a minute or two instead of a month or two. If you’re anything like me, you’ve spent so much time in Difficult World that another minute or two isn’t anything you can’t handle.

My experience is that saying “I choose to live in Easy World where everything is easy” feels good. It feels like release and a shift, at least in that moment. The Easy World invocation is an affirmation that reminds you that things don’t have to be as difficult as they feel in that moment. It reminded me that what I really needed was a shift in perception and that a shift in circumstances would follow from there.

I chose Easy World when I was uncomfortably standing in a swarm up bugs over Labor Day weekend up north. The bugs seemed to clear, or I just stopped noticing them as much—same thing. And I used it this morning when I was tearing my purse apart trying to find my flash drive. And then I found it in a pocket I forgot existed.

But mostly it just feels good to say. I used to remind myself to “let go of the oars” when I sensed I was making things harder than they needed to be. This works the same.

So here’s my bottom line take. (But I encourage you to try spending more time in Easy World and see what it does for you):  I totally believe that things are supposed to be easy. And I believe that we can choose to live in Easy World whenever we want. And that when we do, life flows better and results feel effortless. The trick to staying in Easy World as much as possible is allowing, enjoying and Taming your Thoughts so that worry doesn’t boot you out so often.

–And a shout out to my awesome client who recommended this book to me!

Related posts:

Do what you want, when you want to

Peeling back the layers

A coaching session about fear