Be. Do. Have.
February 20th, 2019 by Morna
My first yoga studio, Follow Your Heart Yoga in Germantown, Md., had a decorative tile hanging by the door. It said, “Just Be!” I first saw it nearly 15 years ago, and it has stuck with me ever since. What does it mean to “just be?”
On one level it means to be present in the moment, without distraction, still. And, that is probably what we are supposed to consider when we see the tile and begin our practice in the studio.
But who is it that you want to be?
I don’t know if you are familiar with the Be-Do-Have principle.
I think I first heard of it years ago, probably on a Tony Robbins audio program. It got a lot of play with the movie The Secret, which came out in 2006, and with followers of the Law of Attraction principle.
Do. Have. Be.
Maybe you remember being asked as a child, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
I do. I wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to sew and be a dress designer.
Even though the question was asked as a “be,” you were being asked what do you want to do.
Doing is about, well, doing. And with that is achieving. Accomplishing. doing more. Continually being in motion.
Early on you learn that if you do whatever, you will have whatever, and then you will be whatever.
And the more that you do, the more you will have, and the more you will become.
That is Do. Have. Be.
And, over time you can get stuck in this loop of doing more because you want more. You want the fancy sewing machine. Then when you get it, you see your friends have the machine with even more bells and whistles and now you want it.
It may not be a sewing machine for you. It might be a new camera or even a new car.
And, so you have to do more to have more because it’s never enough.
(And face it, in this day of social media, it’s easy to want more.)
Start with Be
I think it really should be Be. Do Have. You first need to figure out what kind of person you want to be.
Being is how you create the life that you want.
When you live in alignment with the person you want to be, your life becomes magical. You will find it becomes one of ease.
A few years back in church I remember hearing the deacon ask, “Who Are You?” in her sermon. Most of us say, “I am a wife, a mom, a daughter, a sister, an aunt, an artist, a writer, a cook, etc.”
But who are you really, and, more importantly, who do you want to be? It can take some listening to figure it out.
Spend some time thinking about who you are and who you want to be.
For me, I want to be a person of integrity, filled with joy and gratitude. I want to be generous and open and spirited.
Since I know the person I want to be, it makes it easier for me to do things in accord with that.
How does this play out in your life?
Base your goals and actions on who you want to “be” and what a person of that “being” would do. One way to do this is to envision how you will feel when you reach the goals or complete the action.
Start to act from that place of “being.” Even if you aren’t there yet, “act as if.” A part of being is becoming and that’s what you are doing here. You are taking on that “feeling” state as a way of becoming.
Get support from others on your journey.
So, who do you want to be? You need to listen to your inner voice to find out. To do that you need to Just Be!
Here are two quotes on being that I like:
It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.
E.E. Cummings
I think of life itself now as a wonderful play that I’ve written for myself, and so my purpose is to have the utmost fun playing my part.
Shirley MacLaine
It’s your turn!
Who do you want to be?
Tags: Be.Do.Have, life