March 2008 ~ Easy Does It

For my "jottings" inspiration this year, I am drawing from a book called "Worldwords," which is a collection of words from around the world… one word for each day of the year… with an explanation of the word and a brief interpretation of its meaning. I will share the word from each month, along with some thoughts from the book and some of my own. The word for March is:

mollo mollo (MOH–lo MOH-lo) French
Easy does it; carefully, sweetly.

Have you every tried so hard to do something right that you ended up with a mess?! Trying to do everything right comes naturally to those of us who grew up hearing the old adage, “Anything worth doing is worth doing well (or right)!” Is this not true? Of course, it is true, but when “doing it well” becomes an obsession, it crosses the line between striving for excellence and being a perfectionist.

One of the primary dis-eases in our culture is something called STRESS! Stress, according to the dictionary, is “a physical, chemical, or emotional factor that causes bodily or mental tension and may be a factor in disease causation.” Ask yourself this question: what are my feelings when I am stressed? I find that stress tends to wear other names, such as inadequacy, anger, worry, uncertainty, and anxiety. Stress, simply put, is fear in the face of what life is presenting to us at this moment. And, often, that fear is based in a lack of confidence that we can do it right!

Here are a few lines from the book “Worldwords” ~

“Like a doctor shouting at his patient 'Just Relax!' we can wreak havoc by struggling too hard to get something right. In delicate situations the energy flows best when allowed to expand rather than constrict, and we embrace the task rather than attempt to control it.”

Embracing the task, whatever it is, includes being willing to let it unfold in its own way, without trying to control what that way must be, what the outcome must look like. This “mollo mollo” frame of mind allows us to take each step that is revealed to us, without being stressed about the steps that we cannot yet see.

Many 12 Step Recovery programs work with the ideas of “one day at a time” and “easy does it.” These are valuable affirmations for those of us who are recovering perfectionists. In addition, we may wish to softly say “mollo mollo” as we move through our day, especially when we start feeling stressed… “mollo mollo”… easy does it… all is well.

jbm