Letting Go
Surrender
Being engaged while being detached
What does all of this mean? I have told myself a million times over that I need to let go. And all of the messages that I have been receiving recently are that of surrender and letting go. I have known for some time that I need to strike a balance between being engaged but not being attached to outcomes, people, ideas, concepts, etc. I meditate over and over on this concept, I use every type of therapy that you can imagine to assist me in this transition and transformation. But I still am pummeled at times with life events handing me one chaotic event after another thrusting me into a deep darkness that I am trying to climb out of to see a beacon of light and hope. After all of the work that I have done I still end up here. At the bottom. In the darkness. Confused and shaken to my core that I still, after all of this time and work, allow myself to free fall into a place of hopelessness and frustration.
There is healing here that needs to happen. Right? There is conscious thought involved in this deep darkness. I know what I am doing and allow myself to slip into this repeatedly. Over and over like a broken record and I can’t reach the needle to stop the incessant scratching and thrashing. The sound that a broken record makes is loud in my head. I want the scratching and thrashing to stop yet I allow it to continue. How do I reach the needle? Well, I get up, walk across the room, open the record player and physically grasp the needle and remove it from the record and place it back in its cradle.
For a moment, relief. And then that moment turns into two moments and they continue adding up until I realize that I have just stopped the scratching and thrashing. That the broken record is no longer playing that same old recording. The chaos has been replaced with silence. A pure and beautiful sound with the needle placed safely in its cradle. It would now take work to physically take that needle out of its cradle and place it back on the same record that I know is broken. And now I have the knowledge that if I do this that same result will occur.
So, I change the record. Right? Why try playing that same record hoping that a different result will occur. It won’t. I know this to be true.
When I look at this experience from this perspective it makes perfect sense to me. Therefore the work is in figuring out what the healing is that will stop me from physically trying to play this broken record again and again. Or is it? Is surrender letting go of the addiction to control of figuring everything out? Maybe the work is actually in not working at all. In having complete faith and surrendering myself to that which is greater; to that greater universal plan that has been laid out before me that I keep trying to strong arm and bully into what I feel like I am supposed to be doing or experiencing. Instead of treading water trying to stay alive in a vast ocean of physicality fighting for everything I’ve got, maybe I could just relax and float until I drift into the exact place that I am supposed to be.
Total surrender sounds like death in a lot of ways. The ceasing of everything so I no longer have to fight. Or is it? Maybe complete surrender is the only path to truly living. Letting go allows your body’s innate automatic systems to recalibrate and find balance. It allows those systems to function without the resistance of the stress and pain that assault our body’s.
Maybe surrender is not changing the record so you won’t play the same broken record again and again. Maybe surrender is coming to a place of so much internal peace and harmony that you can be in balance even when the broken record is scratching and thrashing. Is it possible to get to a place of so much balance that the sound of the broken record is simply a comforting drone in the background? Never completely going a way. A reminder of from whence you have come, and now that comforting drone represents transcendence. It is now simply there as a reminder of the old belief systems and patterns that helped shape who you are as a human on this physical plain, but are no longer necessary to assist in your survival.
There are several ways to achieve inner peace and balance in your life by surrendering. The most notable that I have found is living in the present. This is a very simple concept that we humans make incredibly complex. If you look at the concept for what it truly is it teaches us to not perseverate on the past and not worry about the future. To live in the present means to live moment to moment. It is a concept that has to be practiced. Which seems crazy! Simply put one foot in front of the other right now. If your mind starts to drift to worries of the future gently pull yourself back into the now. Right now I am writing this article. Do I have clients today and will I be paying bills, cleaning house, preparing for Christmas Dinner etc? Yes. Yet right now my focus in this few minutes is only focused on this post. There is peace in this. In a few moments I will get up and get ready for the day. While I am getting ready, that is all I am doing. I am not planning what work will look like next week, I’m not thinking about what I’m going to cook for dinner, I am getting ready for today. After I get ready I will prepare for my first client by doing grounding exercises, preparing the space etc. That is all I am doing at that time. When I am with each client I will be present and engaged for that client only.
Living in the now does not mean that you forget about all of your responsibilities and blow everything off for the sake of having inner peace. Quite the opposite actually. It means that you are present for each activity that you are doing at the moment. For example, you may be worried about finances. But, worrying about your finances for the next year will not make you more money or pay your bills. However, being present while looking for a side hustle, calling a creditor to make a payment plan, or looking at expenses to cut will help. Being present with each of these tasks one at a time is the important message. We humans fool ourselves into thinking that we can multitask. Guess what?!? It’s not physically possible to multitask. Instead what you are doing is thinking about multiple things really quickly, one right after the other and quite frankly not doing nearly as good of a job as you might think. It’s not serving anyone to be trying to do more than one thing at a time. Keep this in mind the next time you start to feel anxiety about something. Ask yourself if you are living in the present moment? And, I would bet you find that you aren’t. You can’t feel anxiety while truly living in the present.
So today, I encourage you to practice surrendering and letting go with me. Let’s be engaged in the moment and detach from what the outcome will be.
