Best Possible Outcome

One of the most helpful teachings in meditation practice for me was the lesson of “Letting Go.” Letting go of the need to control (thinking that of course, I knew what was best for a or any specific situation). Well, after a few thousand times of things not working out how I had planned and freaking out in the process, my meditation teacher introduced me to the work of Dr. Larry Dossey.

Larry was an MD for years when he suspected there was a correlation between prayer and positive outcomes with his patients. So, he quit his day job to study his suspicions in a laboratory. By measuring the growth of cells in petri dishes, growth of plants, and the outcome of patients in clinical studies, he found that there was a positive increase in the situations with the involvement of prayer. However, he found that the most significant growth and outcomes occurred when the participants prayed for “the best possible outcome,” vs. “a specific outcome that the participants wanted.”

So! The moral of the story is that there is no possible way for us to know what the best possible outcome is for ANY situation. When we can let go and have faith that God/the Universe might have a better way for things to turn out , we can learn to trust the process. Letting go gives our bodies and minds the chance to relinquish control…to learn to breathe deeply through the difficult times by trusting and praying for BEST Possible Outcome (BPO—as my friends now call it).

Attached is the meditation we did on helping us to learn to let go and use BPO!

This is an article about Dr. Dossey that helps to better understand his work.

Tonight we will continue practicing “letting go.” Look forward to seeing you!

Mahalo,

Carla