Q: Hello, John. First of all, thank you very much for coming to Munich. I love to see you again. You helped me already in the past meeting and my heart is more softened and open. I wanted to ask how to deal with the stress that I’ve built up, because I started in September to work four days. Before, I worked three days. My daughter has to get used to it. She was telling me – she’s two-and-a-half years old – that Mommy mustn’t go away. That makes me feel terrible because I felt that I was neglecting her. I know that I wasn’t, but in that pattern I shut my heart and my throat was closing and I was coughing because at that moment I couldn’t deal with it. Now, how to not feel so insecure – it’s not a good word – but to open up and not to feel guilty.

John: Move the stress two ways: recognize the things that you can do and that you can change, and put your heart into the doing of that and into the changing of that. Stress moves when you’re doing what you can and your heart is in it. Stress also moves in a different way when you recognize what you’re not able to do, what you’re not able to change. With your heart resting in that, with your whole heart accepting those things that you perceive that you’re not able to do, those things that are outside of your control, those things that you cannot change, put your heart into what you’re able to change and let your heart rest concerning those things that you’re not able to change. Know the difference between the two and like them both.

Q: That’s why with you yesterday and this morning, because I softened-up and I put the love in the feeling that I was closing-up my heart, that it just opened. The converse happened.

John: Happily hold on to those things that you’re able to change and happily let go of those things that you’re not able to change. Happily always have both. Letting go of those things that you’re not able to change takes you deeper, within. Happily changing those things that you can change has you engaging further, without. In this way you’ll be happily moving outwards and happily moving inwards. You’ll be loving the balance of the two, and your daughter will see this in you and she’ll be happy, also, with the same. Enjoy sharing with her and showing her how you live, within, by those two things. That will give her something cheerful that she can do in her own difficulties and also give her something to rest in, in not needing to do where she’s not able to do in her difficulties. You’ll be sharing with her how to hold on to what is changeable and, as much, how to let go of those things within and without that are not changeable.

In this way you’ll be viewing all of your difficulties differently. The stress in your life will ease. The stress that still remains is there as a wholesome encouragement to continue in these two things. Everything becomes manageable. When that begins to work for you in your self you’ll be encouraged by the truth of it, by the truth of what you’re realizing and how it works. You’ll begin to realize that the same truth works on deeper levels within. Seeing how it works on the surface in your life concerning stress and the difficulties in your life, you’ll be able to apply the same in some of the things that you know more deeply within but you don’t know how to do. You’ll begin to differentiate within something that you don’t know how to do, within: the subtleties that are all a part of that.

As you begin to identify the subtleties in one difficulty within, you’ll realize you’re actually able to do something with them. You’re able, in a very subtle way, to change something in your own awareness. You’re able to change something in how your heart is, and you’ll be realizing some other subtleties, where you really don’t know how to do something with them, that you’re not able to do something and, in that, you’ll be letting go of needing to change or do something. You’ll be finding your way in your life, a way that works. And you’ll be finding a way within concerning subtleties of awareness, subtleties of heart, and subtleties of being. You’ll be finding your way, within and without. All of this you can enjoy giving to your daughter.

Q: If I understand it right – I want to change and to learn very much – I cannot change everything, and then I should happily leave it at that moment and not get stressed or full of emotion that I can’t change that at that moment. Sometimes I get to strive. I desperately want it to change and it’s not the time. That will only increase the stress.

John: Yes.

Q: In Amsterdam we talked about the heart with real listening. What’s the best way, if you left this listening with your heart, to return to softening?

John: You’re always listening but you’re not always listening to what’s worthy. You’re not always listening to the right thing. The easiest voice to listen to, within, is the loudest one. The more difficult voice to listen to, when you’re under pressure, is the quietest one. When you’re under pressure you’ll want to be listening to the loudest voice; it’s most like what the pressure is.

For you to be listening to the quietest voice within in the midst of pressure requires you to be different than what the pressure is like. When you’re listening to the quietest voice within while you’re under pressure, you are actually changing, within, to be just like that quietest voice within. Listening to the quietest voice within has you being the same as that quietest voice within. The pressure doesn’t do the same thing to you, then, any more.

For you to be really listening within, you won’t be listening to the louder voices. While there are all of the louder voices, you’ll be giving your attention to the quieter voices within. You’ll be giving your heart over to the quietest voice while the loudest voice is moving for your attention. The louder voice within will be more of an emotional voice, an emotionally demanding voice: a voice full of will. The quieter voice within will be much more of a tender voice, the kind of voice within of delicate feeling that touches your heart. Really listening within means that you’re opening your heart in the midst of pressure to the tenderness within, to the delicacies that you’re knowing in your heart that offer very little in the situation, but touch you the most.

As you begin to realize what it is like to be with some of these delicacies in your heart, right away share it with your daughter. As she sees what you’re loving of these delicacies within, she will also love and she will see that she also has these delicacies in her own heart, even when she’s experiencing pressure. She’ll see that there is something she can do, within, that has to do with beingness even if the doing is a gentled listening. She’ll be excited to hear more about what you’re finding within, the delicacies of heart that you’re finding, within. Your relationship with her will begin to develop concerning these delicacies within: your relationship with them and her relationship with them. This will be giving the two of you a deeply touching, quieting relationship.

Q: Should I just do it, or talk about it, too?

John: Talk about it. Do it and talk about it. She will come to love those talks. She’ll start to ask you to tell her again. She’ll be liking it because she’ll be seeing in you and realizing in her self that there isn’t just life outside – life without – with all of its difficulties. There is also life within, and that it is the way of the delicate life within that she can live her life, without. She’ll find that exciting. It’s do-able. It works. She’ll be able to manage her stress because there’s something lovely within that she’s able to do.