Upgraded BOB
by Leslie Sann
The blessings already are and they keep coming. ~ John Morton
I’ve written about my friend BOB in previous newsletters but I had to report in, BOB has upshifted his game. He has changed from Benefit Of the Benefit to Benefit Of the Blessings. I love that BOB keeps growing and expanding. Just like you and I.
BOB was really liking giving the Benefit Of the Benefit. “Let’s say something happens I wasn’t expecting or wanting. It is human to get upset when something goes amiss when we were planning on smooth sailing. It’s a survival strategy to come present to what is and make a choice based on new circumstances. It IS an upset and appropriately so. We need to pay attention now in order to navigate the situation. The difficulty is with the mind. The mind loves to tell a story about everything. When things go awry it tends to judge, make wrong and complain rather that doing what it is very good at, observe, collect data and strategize.
Upset is just fine. Upset awakens us to move to a next step which is what we want, to move in the direction we’d prefer to go. The grumps don’t do it for us … the grumps keep us focused on what isn’t rather than call us present to what is.
This is where BOB comes in. We give the benefit of the benefit, meaning we assume nothing was done on purpose to hurt or harm us in any way. Stuff just happens. Life is like that. We extend the benefit of this assumption into our world and receive the benefit of this blessing upon ourselves in the form of calming the upset. Now we can access our inner resources to make choices and take action based on what is here, now.”
Then BOB wrote to me, well, he called me up to tell me he had learned an even more powerful tool that I am on fire to share with you. He said he learned he could actually transform himself into a blessing and extend it out into his world.
“Really,” I replied, “tell me more.”
Excited, BOB continued. He said, “You know when we were chatting last about how Life Happens sometimes other than we had expected and if you are human, well, the mind gets disturbed and triggers the grumps?”
“Yes,” I replied.
Bob continued, “We were exploring that the difficulty with the mind is that the mind loves to tell a story about everything. When things go awry it tends to judge, make wrong and complain rather than doing what it is very good at, observe, collect data and strategize.”
“Yes,” I said, “I remember.”
“I think you wrote an article about what I had discovered.”
Yes, I did. I love what BOB shared and I had to tell my readers how the grumps don’t do it for us … the grumps keep us focused on what isn’t rather than call us present to what is. I encouraged them to give a BOB, to choose to give the benefit of the benefit, meaning we assume nothing was done on purpose to hurt or harm us in any way. Stuff just happens. Life is like that. We extend the benefit of this assumption into our world and receive the benefit of this back in the form of calming the upset. Now we can access our inner resources to make choices and take action based on what is here, now.
“So what’s better than this?” I ask.
BOB excitedly replies, “Well, I have discovered from this place of calm I can access inner resources, the most powerful of which is the Loving. And I can now not only extend the benefit of my assumption that no harm was done, which is a great way to shift to peace and stay open, but I can also extend the blessing of Loving out into my world.”
At this point I was silent, taking in BOB’s amazingness. What a wise one … to choose to keep going into the Loving and becoming an even more powerful instrument of service into our world.
Way to go BOB … giving the BENEFIT OF THE BLESSING, the blessing of loving it all.
Blessings,
