Letting Go/Surrender

What Do Tigger and Rabbit Have To Do With Addiction?

I’m Rabbit. Who Are You?

Are you a huge Winnie-the-Pooh fan? Maybe not now as an adult, but were you once as a child? It’s no secret, I still am! Yep, at 46, I still love me some Pooh-Bear.

I recall not so many years ago, sitting in business meetings, glancing around the conference table, and before too long, Tigger would show up, and Eeyore, and aye-yai-yai, Owl too. Tiggers would always catch my attention. How could they not, as they bounced in, usually declaring, “Wouldn’t it be great if….”  Tigger, with his ‘pie-in-the-sky, no-action-behind-his-words’ ideas. 

Tiggers are my least favorite Pooh character—it’s the  no-action behind some grand gesture that bothers me. Probably because being Rabbit (which I’m well aware is THE most annoying Pooh character), I would end up doing all of the actual work. But hey, Rabbits are well suited for work. We’re all about action, because we LOVE doing. When we’re doing, we can rant, direct, stomp around, then get burned on our yearly appraisal, and at some point, if we’re smart, we figure out how to be a little less Rabbit-like… at least on the outside.

Today, no longer in Corporate America, no longer receiving that annual appraisal, I’m free to rant, direct, and stomp all I want. But the joke’s on me, at least the old me. This is Life! And learning to be a little less Rabbit-like has served me well, Corporate America or not.

Change? For Others??

Hold up! Am I suggesting I alter myself for others? No, not for others. For me. In order to be my best me, and to love myself, I also quiet myself. Quiet myself so I can hear what?

My heartThe inside-voice who Knows.

I was reminded of this recently when I “accidentally” knocked down my childhood copy of Winnie The Pooh while dusting. The book landed gently before me, open to a page where Pooh, Piglet, and Rabbit were lost. Rabbit, the ever frantic, obsessive “DO-ER” (of which things must be done his way), kept steering the trio in circles in his moxie to problem-solve. Finally, quite disgusted, Rabbit departs.

Pooh tells Piglet, “Let’s go home.”  “But Pooh,” cries Piglet, “do you know the way?”  “No,” says Pooh.  “But there are 12 honey pots in my cupboard, and they’ve been calling me for hours. I couldn’t hear them properly before, because Rabbit would talk, but if nobody says anything…I shall know where they’re calling from.”

There are no accidents.

Reminders come in all shapes and sizes. Reminders such as a worn and weathered childhood book, which landed squarely in front of me, open to a page bearing a message—just for me. And maybe for you, too. Quiet your mind. Quiet your being. Listen. You aren’t lost. All you seek is inside you.  

The First Step To Letting Go

Why do I think so loudly that I cannot hear my heart? Why do I do so incessantly that I grow numb? And what is the perpetual hurry?—mostly a hurry to do more work. Even if you don’t live in Rabbit’s skin, you have hints of Rabbit, so you know what I mean.

In the previous two blog posts, it was not easy admitting my addiction to doing to you—how it has gotten the best of me in the past. It felt vulnerable and I didn’t like it. But I’m tired. And it was time. The first step to letting go is admitting, so I admitted. And you know what? The more I admitted, the more I let go. And continue to let go.

For the Rabbits and the doers and anyone who lives to problem-solve (ah, now I’m talking to you), see what message the following poem brings. As Mark Nepo explains in Seven Thousand Ways To Listen, what lies beneath the want to problem-solve is the need to being-solve.

“Coming Out”

While there is much to do
we are not here to do.

Under the want to problem-solve
is the need to being-solve.

Often, with full being
the problem goes away.

The seed being-solves its
darkness by blossoming.

The heart being-solves its loneliness
by loving whatever it meets.

The tea being-solves the water
by becoming tea.

~ Mark Nepo, Seven Thousand Ways To Listen