Explore: When Being and Doing Are in Sync

Last month after I wrote about being bored, I switched things up by adding a reading ritual to my morning wake-up routine. As I’m still quite sleepy but when I am able to focus my eyes and my mind well enough that the squiggles on a page form actual words, I read a dated reflection from poet and spiritual teacher Mark Nepo’s The Book of Awakening. In the October 10 entry, Nepo writes that “if enlightenment stems from a clarity of being, then talent is no more than a clarity of doing, an embodied moment where spirit and hand are one.” While this idea struck a chord for me, I propose that “a clarity of doing” is more accurately described as joy than talent. Nepo goes on to write that “happiness can simply be described as the satisfaction we feel when we are in ultimate accord, however briefly, in being and doing.” 

Can you think of times when what you’re doing syncs with your being? What doings bring on the feeling of happiness Nepo describes? When your doing and being are in sync, what does it feel like in your body? In your mind? In your heart?

When what I’m doing matches the way I believe was wired to be, I feel . . . True. Grounded. Sure. Authentic. Alive. Whole. I wonder: How can I keep myself open to more experiences when my my being and doing are in sync?