The total and complete synchronicity of art imitating life or life imitating art during my writing of this piece is completely perfect. As I had this in draft with a view to publish it on the 23rd October I came down with one of the lovely viruses that has been doing the rounds, so I left it, surrendered to the fact that my original timing was not to be. When I picked it up again to complete it, I came down with tonsillitis……there was a message that life was giving me loud and clear; my habitual instinct would be to push against it and be a slave to the timescale that I had given myself…….however, in the spirit of walking my talk, I let it go, and here we are!
The timing of this piece just gets better and better and more and more relevant. The Super Full Moon coming into Taurus this evening – 14th November 2016 will be the largest one since January 1948 and one this size will not be seen until November 25th 2034 – it is kind of a big deal! What this full moon brings with it is an extraordinary ability to really let go and surrender what no longer serves us. A time to explore the ways we live, think, feel, act and react to our lives and really be able to let go. The moon’s energies being so concentrated will support us to release if we give our intention and attention clearly – where intention goes energy flows. I hope that you are able to use this time to harness your ability to get clear and focus on what you really want around you whilst being open and able to cleanse yourself of what weighs you down and keeps you separated from that which you strongly crave.
Surrender. Letting go, relinquishing control, releasing, trusting, allowing, stopping resistance, giving up, submitting, succumbing, acquiesce, deferring, relenting, yielding, renouncing, backing down…..
Surrender is word so loaded and in October 2016 (now clearly November 2016) I would wager most of us struggle with immensely. How does one surrender? How on earth does one learn to be able to let go and drift with the ebbs and flows of life when life these days is happening so hard and fast all around and to us; if we were to relinquish the pushing, controlling and doing surely we would miss out, get left behind, miss the boat? Not only that, if we were to surrender what would we be left do-ing with ourselves? Letting go and leaving things to chance is so lazy or irresponsible is it not? I mean surely we are shown, encouraged and schooled to be the master of our own destinies and captains of our fates, how on earth can it be that we even need to think or contemplate the need to just let go?
It can be a challenge to understand what, where, when and how we actually contribute to the outcomes that we can and cannot realistically achieve despite how much we effort to make things happen, the reality of where the line begins and ends may be complex to decipher. As masters of our own destiny, does this mean that we are to take complete control over every aspect and interaction in our lives? Are we to be responsible for everything from the to do list in our working day to the way our relationships progress, our recreational activities (and if we are blessed with children, those of our kids) along with how everything we say and do affects those around us and their behaviour? This surely is neither desirable nor possible, yet I have found myself falling fowl to this type of manic control anxiety, if I don’t do it, it won’t happen, life will fall apart all around me and everything will unravel (it makes me laugh to see it written out like that, but I straight up serious was labouring under this type of thinking to varying degrees). In my understanding of how powerful and important my thoughts were and have been in shaping my life experience I became a slave to the rhetoric that it was essential for me to ‘think’ my way through things. To hold strong my desired outcome and in doing so, I would start to experience the manifestation of said desires. Now of course this is and will be true with one VERY IMPORTANT caveat……just as visualisation, focus and effort are essential to keep one on track to achieving the things that one wants out of life there are and will be circumstances completely and utterly out of ones’ control; things that no matter how hard, long and consistently one holds the vision true and works toward it, will be totally unavoidable. What happens then when such circumstances occur? How was I to deal with these instances? Where was I supposed to then take my cue about how to apply my effort and my tools to support manifestation into reality? There it was – there lay the dichotomy – was there anything to be done? Was there any action, thought, responsibility or do-ing required?
When I first started out having my own businesses I was excited by the prospect of creating something completely from the ideas in my head and the focused time, energy and attention that I could put on it to making them reality. As someone who is quite headstrong and at times stubborn (this is constantly verified by my massive little angles J) I was fortified with the resolve that if it was to be, it was up to me. This type of self-belief is of course essential in order to make any type of achievement in life, and it becomes more so when you have to be entirely self-directed. Having the positive can do attitude was fantastic, it made it possible for me to strive toward a vision, put in the graft and be creative with the way I dealt with challenges. If I had faltered in my conviction, I may not have been able to sustain the momentum to keep things growing and moving. When challenges came up, I rose to them as best as I could with the steadfast belief in my ability to be able to overcome and deal with them. This continued, I ploughed on, through and forward over terrain that was at times quite treacherous, I just kept moving. It became more and more difficult to maintain momentum because the landscape become vaster as things grew and developed; the effort required was more momentous, but still I kept going as though my efforts alone would overcome whatever came up. Until one day, I was stopped in my tracks, a series of personal events that completely altered my ability to be all and do all; I was totally blindsided and found myself in a total state of shock, panic and worry. Of course, my natural and only response at the time was to continue to effort through, I could sleep when I was dead, all I had to do was keep going, find a way around the challenges to move through. Looking back now, I can see what a mad response this was to my situation, I can see my need to keep moving at all costs and to control the situation and circumstances that I was faced with was what kept my married to the belief that it was all my responsibility and my drive that was making my world function. I was so much consumed with being in my head and my thinking that I was not able to see and feel my world around me; being disembodied this way detached me so much from experiencing and feeling my life as opposed to thinking it. I would try and relax and take time out but it was almost impossible to stop my mind from whirring at break neck speed and the idea of really letting go, if only to take time out for an hour or so scared the bejesus out of me – what if it all fell apart?
So it went, through different businesses and work situations, I had to do it all, and if I dared to let go all kinds of hell would break loose. My fears were based firmly in future events, the traits and characteristic of anxiety. Yet keeping going somehow was designed to allay these fears until the anxiety expressed itself in the form of panic attacks. My body was telling me that my mind was so full up of forceful, pressured stress thoughts that I would not and could not cope. I remember clearly having a panic attack at work one day during a meeting, but just carrying on saying, oh I’m just having a panic attack, give me a minute between laboured, snatched fearful breaths, like this was normal because I knew what it was all I had to do was keep on going. I believe these attacks spurred me on further if anything not to slow down, but to just keep going. On it went, through various changes in business, my yoga practice seemed to reduce the severity and incidence of them but not take them and the underlying anxiety away. It was my meeting with the breath that brought about the cataclysmic change.
One of the most important aspects of the Transformational Breath® technique is surrendering and letting go of the exhale. Most forms of breathwork require a longer and controlled release of the exhale, but with TB it is all about surrender. This for me was an exquisite task, control central who had always dealt with adversity by throwing more everything at it was now required to head on GIVE IT UP, LET IT GO, SURRENDER!!!!! OMG!!!! I had to try hard to think about it, I had to try hard to do it, I had to try to not try, because trying and doing were all I knew how to do. The thing is that just won’t work, trying not to try is far to trying! Too much trying results in more of the same, so how on earth was I to surrender???? I didn’t think about it, I let it go, I focused on relaxation, I focused on breathing I did so many things to be that release, to be that acquiescence to be that surrender. With sustained practice and working through the layers of stuff that I had accumulated over so many years the letting go started to show, the release started to flow, the surrender started to grow, I was moving toward the idea that although I have great power and influence in the way I live my life and the choices that I exercise it is super important that I made the distinction between knowing what I wanted and working towards it and accepting that that does require me to control and cajole every aspect of my life in order for my goals to be attained. I learned to be more connected to and within my body to allow the guidance and innate wisdom of my organism to show me the way and to alert me to signals I many have missed. The point is in the paradox, if we can’t and don’t let go, and embrace the point of be-ing as opposed to do-ing then there is not much living happening. The amount of energy, effort, time, stress and force it takes to be constantly directing and making life happen, makes it really a challenge to enjoy or actually truly participate in your life. The ability to be desirous yet also let go of how, why or even if your desire comes about it is where life actually begins. The fun in life in my experience comes from enjoying the journey however ragged or unexpected it turns out to be and lately that is more and more punctuated by allowing and being open to what shows up - I’ve had some beautifully unexpected surprises that way. Being able to let go and be open has also supported some magical changes, growth and development that I would never have been able to conceive with my limited ego driven mind......there is something in this surrender lark!