The Power of Surrender & Letting Go

The Power of Surrender & Letting Go

As I wrote last week, there’s a post-it note on my desk with the quote,

“Everything I’ve ever let go of has clawmarks in it.” David Foster Wallace.

Letting go of anything means change. Change is constant and uncomfortable. Very few human beings are wired to thrive on the thrill of the unknown. Most of us believe forewarned is forearmed and that minimising change is the utopian dream. We crave stability, without realising that stasis is the first stage before death.

While I echo Wallace’s sentiment, I can’t support his implied proposition – that to fight and cling is somehow noble. But Wallace committed suicide in 2008, having lived much of his adult life with depression and under medication in order to be able to work. I think Wallace’s fight to hold on and to resist change ultimately contributed to the ongoing breakdown of his life. You see, what we invest our energy into grows.

Change that we resist is usually an external pressure or energy; something that comes upon us. When you resist external force with internal force, the energy evaporates in the combustion of that reaction, but the energy is also lost. No one party gains from the other.

Over time, a resistance or refusal to respond to change depletes your energy and resource.

I experienced this a number of times in my early working life. The loss of a project, the change in a plan, the loss of a job. I clung and fought but each battle became harder to fight and each victory less sweet, such was the price of the battle.

So now, instead of fighting to resist change – I’m learning to surrender to it.

It may feel uncomfortable because in the Western world, our idea of surrender is most often associated with loss. We only surrender when we are in a losing position. But in Sanskrit, the word ‘surrender’ is translated to ‘give yourself wholeheartedly to something, to embrace the flow of your life.’

This idea of surrender is about where you put your energy and what you resist instead of embracing, what you embrace instead of resisting. A negative attitude towards change is a toxic learning environment. Learning should always be a by-product of change. A negative attitude towards change alienates and disengages you from those who would help you navigate it.

Surrender is powerful because it reframes our thinking away from bad conflict habits.

Surrender is powerful because you cannot embrace again without first letting go.

Surrender is powerful because it truly is the path of least resistance. Resistance is the enemy of hope in the face of change. We get to keep our energy for other battles.

Surrender is powerful because it focuses us on the posture we taking in learning, the resilience required to live with inevitable disappointment and the power of humility.

It is in surrender that you are embracing humility. Knowing yourself truly; good, bad and ugly. Confronting the secret and alone parts of yourself that are still laced with fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of being unsuccessful, fear of being unloved, fear of being wrong.

When I was confronted with the biggest change I’ve known as an adult; I fought it with all my might. I rallied in every conversation, I maintained an excruciating level of intensity because losing this project was not an option for me. I fought myself, my mentors, I fought with my friends and then I lost it anyway. I entered the dark shadow cave; confronted with loss and with blame. I felt ashamed that I hadn’t held onto what I had clung so tightly too in the past. Letting go felt like failure, but later I realised not letting go fast enough meant I had no time or capacity to embrace the lessons right in front of me. Change came and continued out without me, because I wouldn’t allow myself to get on board the train.

No matter what kind of change you’re undergoing, major or minor – we yearn for peace. We find it in surrender. Surrender to knowing that while we may not see the end result of change; change is assured. Change in of itself is not scary. Change can open new doors of discovery. Change can also be very, very wrong. But like a tsunami wave, it will not be stopped once started. Accepting change is a doorway to peace. Surrendering to the flow of your life is peace entering in.

Surrendering to change pushes us into the unknown, which is where we must be if we are to learn something new and to learn something new, we must ask the right questions.

  • what will I learn
  • how can I learn best from this
  • how will I respond
  • how will I help others

Surrender is the art form of leaning in, a gateway to vulnerability. As the world responds to us, change is quickened. As change is quickened, we are more truly ourselves. The more change we embrace, the more we have the opportunity to embrace the lessons that come with it.

Great Expectations: The Second Half of the Game

Great Expectations: The Second Half of the Game

I think they should tell you, coming out of the womb, that nothing will turn out like you expect. To avoid expectations at all cost. Expectations are the most dangerous indulgence of the human existence. In every facet of our lives, expectations have the ability to cripple, blind and curtail us. Expectations box us in and limit our horizons. There is a difference between hopefulness and expectation. Expectation is mostly commonly associated with a specific outcome. We expect the way things will go or ought to go for us.

We grow up surrounded by suggestion of what is normal, what is common, what is expected of us. We’re instructed in the principles of good behaviour and reprimanded based on how we meet others’ expectations of us. We create expectations of others.

Our greatest hurts will come from our unmet expectations; our relationships will break down when we cannot communicate, re-create or do away with our expectations of each other. Expectations become prescriptions.

Expectations prohibit creativity and innovation because they force us into pre-established paths and ways of doing things. Expectations push us towards norms which perpetuate cycles. And life goes on and on in this way.

Until something breaks. Until expectations fail to be met and you must hit the reset button.

I always thought I’d seen too many friends hit quarter and mid-life crises purely for the sake of some overwrought expectations; ideas about who and how they should be. So I made a plan; to not over-engineer my game plan. I simply thought ‘strategize for the half you’re in, see where you get to and then plan again.’

Can you see it there? Hidden in my plan to avoid creating expectations for myself, was an expectation. An expectation that there would be a second half for me. At some point, I’d find my half-time or a natural reset button.

I thought it would be family; in the traditional sense of a partner creating a natural segue into the second half. I have never been able to conceive of what my life might be with a partner. I am selfish but not selfish enough to assume that I could create a life or a dream big enough for two or two plus two – however many kids might come along. So I resisted making the mistake of trying to find someone who merely fit into the plan I had already made. I only ever planned a couple of years in advance, always thinking I would meet someone significant and we’d design the rest together.

I like the idea of co-creation; a mutually agreed collaboration of the future. A reset button for the second half of the game.

Now I’m at the halfway point – in time, at least. If I live as long again as what I’ve lived to date – that will be a long life. Perhaps too long. Not because I’m old, but really because I don’t want to live lonely too long. I have enough tolerance for platonic and familial love for another 20 years or so. Beyond that, I’m not convinced. So I face designing the second half now. Determining what strategies will reap the richest, deepest rewards and leave a legacy worth holding on to for someone, before I die.

The trouble with expectations is that they hide in plain sight until you trip on them. You can be doing just fine until you hit the one pothole you’ve missed every other time and you find yourself flying through the air, headfirst over your handlebars. You have to be grateful for it; each time you have to pick yourself up from one of those rough landings; it’s one more freedom to afford yourself. One more prescription you are no longer bound to. These prescriptions do not determine whether you were a failure or a success, as if those concepts have any bearing on what it means to be a human being. These prescriptions are social controls. Who cares if you never see the Eiffel Tower if you never really had any desire to go to France in the first place?

Freedom from prescription is essential. Examine every corner of your life for the hidden expectations (your own or others) that you are trying to meet. From how you raise your kids or manage your time or even what you share or do not share with the world.

girl in the gameAs I think about the next chapter of my life; I don’t want to spend a minute of my energy or spirit in meeting expectations or prescriptions. I don’t want to risk not living every minute of the second half. I’m in brand new territory, undreamed-of country. It’s a time for invention and creativity.  I want to live in such a way that I am fully alive and engaged with my greatest strengths. Devoting as much as I have into things that matter most for my legacy, not the legacy others would write or choose for me. I think as a woman, I’ve been even more susceptible to believing I have to take these expectations supposed on me by others and figure out how to make them work.

I don’t really care about money beyond what I need to live and spend time with those I love. I don’t want to spend a lifetime chasing a pay packet for something I don’t believe it; despite the expectations of what someone of my age and skill should earn. I want to continue to do all the things that take my fancy and come across my path. Naturally, I want the freedom to ask any question of spirituality, science or philosophy and mostly; I want permission to never be done – until my last breath. If I am incomplete til that moment, I will be delighted to know I left the world still learning.

What does the second half of the game look like? Less chasing the ball and much more running with it. If there is anything I’ve learned from the first half of the game; it’s that anything can happen. You’re just more prone to miss those opportunities if you’re still stuck on how you expected to turn out.

So what if your body isn’t how you thought it would be or your career isn’t what you planned. Who cares if you didn’t buy a house before property prices went up. A thousand tiny thoughts we have each day that push our lives into boxes we never intentionally set out to live in – that’s the claustrophic nature of expectations. Be free to not be Instagrammable or Pinterestable. Be free not to be Paleo or vegetarian. Be free to give things up or not – but do nothing because it’s expected of you unless you have set your own mind to it also. There are plenty of things in this category. Exercise for starters. Sex for seconds. Hospitality for thirds. Caring for your spirit and faith. Figure out to make these things a healthy part of your game plan.

For me, the second half of the game is freedom. The freedom to know myself and not just the shallow self others have tried to make me. Freedom from all the definitions that have been put against my name. Freedom to be my True Self. It feels almost as if I’ve spent the first half of my life learning just enough to really get me started – but it’s already half-time. I’ve spent the last moments of the first half dismantling the playbook I thought I had to follow. The good news is, I think you get twice, if not three times as much out of the second half.

 

To The Woman Unfinished.

To The Woman Unfinished.

Dear Self.

It’s no wonder you’ve waited every year for birthday magic to appear. When the sky lights up the night before, fireworks soaring over the horizon, it’s no surprise your heart beats with expectation, you dare to hope for a little wonder in the morning.

Year after year, the clock ticks in its own strange rhythm. Perfectly on time, but imperfectly cadenced. A syncopation that never quite lands on the beat. You turn another page, another year older.

In November every year, you give thanks and then count down til Christmas and the New Year – always wondering, hoping, praying that this year will be better than the last. In the coming year, you might be more yourself, find the peace that eludes you, the love you long for.

As if life is a jigsaw puzzle you’re stuck on, that you cannot complete without the final pieces – you’re hoping each year to find the cornerstones that will help it all make sense. Every year around November, when the change and the countdown to another chance at your 12 months begins – you consider yourself once more.

Self, you are more of you than you were 12 months ago.

When this year broke into dawn, you were still thinking of yourself as Incomplete but now you know you’re just Unfinished. There is more to come. There are many more ‘and thens’ to follow and you are unafraid. No longer trapped in fear of ‘The End’, you know there will always be an ‘And Then’.

You are embracing and becoming your True Self – learning to speak what you want and believe out loud. You could probably do with a lesson or two in not letting all those desires and emotions walk across your face. They walk like a herd of elephants, unstoppable. But your heart on your sleeve has felt like finally being able to breathe instead of forcing a poker face when you want to cry.

You read an article on the train that said it showed greater strength of character to cry than it did to merely comply with misery and the words felt like rain on parched earth. For the first time you felt no shame at having a feeling. When every tear you’ve cried in every year past has felt like the mark of failure, this year’s tears have been the current pulling you towards hope.

Earlier, you felt adrift – cast off from shore by trusted confidantes. This year, you’ve known betrayal and abandonment that echoed the fear you knew as a child but you stand, stronger because you realise the power of knowing.

Woman, unfinished but not incomplete – in knowing what is true and what is not you are able to embrace yourself and unshackle yourself from the burdens that anchored you to shore in unsafe harbours.

Adrift on the ocean is only a place for fear if you do not trust the wind and the wave.
Breathe deep. Go to the top of your mountain and watch the sun and the sea. Breathe.
Go and bathe in the river, until you emerge baptised again in Self and Spirit. 

Be one with the land of your birth, the sea and the sky and you will learn you have nothing to fear from the wind or the wave.

This time last year, you counted some as friends that you no longer rely on. The unimaginable grief you have weathered with so few words. To imagine again what is lost to you, yet you carry on to smile for those who show no sign of understanding how they have wounded you. You have learned to not hold tightly by letting go.

You have learned again, the wonder and power of your own voice. That voice that never faltered in confidence when you were young. It only shook as you grew older and realised the great weight of air you had to project your own words through. You have learned that even when voiceless you found the courage to speak and therefore now, grown and strong – I’m begging you to just open your lips; the stamina and strength of your early defeat will carry you to triumph.

Not a triumph of acclaim, but a quiet inner conquering – to know that the False Self – so frail, insecure, afraid, stoic but also undone is now buried in the dust and dirt of the Valley. Only the True Self remains.

You learned there were some secrets for keeping and you buried them in a field; where only treasure-seekers will find them.

In the morning, remember that you are free from the shackles of pre-defined identity even though you remember the weight of the chains on your hands and feet.

You grieved your unborn children and your unknown lovers. Walked through failing at the tests you ought to have sailed past and continued walking. Head held high and making eye contact, stripping shame of its power in each step. You reconciled the more you grow in wisdom; the quicker you find your loneliness. But that is a comforting thought, because the truth you have always longed for is more evident now than ever. Your compass points true North.

You chased hope, lost it and kept walking anyway. You have wandered down the dark alleys and enjoyed the danger there.

You are more remarkable than anyone knows – precisely because of how much you let them see, when there is still an ocean beneath the surface of the sea.

In the dark and the secret, you have let others rest in your comfort, you have laughed and let others feel powerful in your weakness. You have shared vulnerability – you are gloriously wretched and righteous in perfect paradox.

The fireworks are slowing down. The night is about to reach into tomorrow. Remarkable woman, you are not a year older tomorrow, you are a year closer.

A year closer to a good death, preceded by an above-average life. The sum of day; not the minutes or the billable hours but the vast expanse of your ideas; a word spoken here and there. A year closer to finished, whatever that looks like. Another year of self-discovery and generosity to come. You are not undone or incomplete: despite the creases, wrinkles and the age of you.

You are Unfinished because you know what you do not know. Some of us are Done and still Incomplete; they have ceased to grow but you know, that roots must push out until they find water. A woman must turn herself to the sun if she longs for the light. She must find water when thirsty. She must go to the mountain-top and bury what is finished in the dust of the valley.

Tomorrow, you will not wake in the arms of a lover or be wrapped in magic as the movies tell it. Bouquets of flowers will not appear but small and beautiful encounters will be treasured as they unfold. As any day begins unfinished, you will begin again. The magic will be in you, even if you are the only one who knows. You will wake baptised again.

Not another year older, but another year closer. To the woman unfinished, there is more to come.

 

 

I Am The Jealous Type.

I Am The Jealous Type.

I can hardly breathe when she’s in the room. I’m overwhelmed with a sense of envy and admiration for this woman.

She is intoxicating, infuriating, complex and yet astonishingly simple. A walking paradox. She is loved – loved so hard, and by so many. I’m envious of how I imagine she is loved.

Perhaps because I’m the only one who really knows her, where to trace lines of invisible ache, where to find hidden tattoos – I love her and loathe her. I’m compelled by her presence but it’s a bad romance – one I need to leave but can’t walk away from.

She is I, yet not I.

She is only the projection of the woman I’d like to be; the False Self magnified in perfection. She is just who I imagined I would become instead of who I am. When I see glimpses of her in others; I’m filled with love and contempt at once. She’s good, so good. She’s less selfish than I am, better and smarter than I am.

People invite her to dinner and are proud to have her in their company. They listen to the words that fall from her lips, longing for one of her smiles or her embrace. They find her wise and life-giving and the work of her hands bring richness and joy to their lives. She is content with herself, utterly at home in her skin and her own sense of self-assurance invites people into comfort with themselves.

I’m the jealous typeenvious of the woman I always wanted to be. Envious of the woman some people think I am. I’m envious because I know the truth. I’m jealous of her because when she is present I am all too aware of my own failings. I am not the best at what I do. I am not selfless in the way she is, I am not as innately good as she is, I am a shadow in comparison to her.

She is phenomenal. Most importantly, she has earned the goodwill of those whom I admire. I am average. I have not earned it. I know the truth of my failings. I know the difference between my aspirations and my reality.

My true self is not as I thought I was. I thought I was funnier, smarter, stronger, more desirable and ultimately – I thought I was better than I am.

The True Self.
It’s easy to change the projection of ourselves we share with the world. A change of hair colour or clothing style, even the application of a little lipstick here and there – it’s a little smoke and mirrors magic we use to sway opinion, to create a little power here and there.

But living well is only found in authenticity. We can only grow what’s true, what’s grafted to the vine – that which has true life. So despite our best intentions, you can’t ‘fake it til you make it’ when it comes to yourself. You can only embrace the truth and grow from there, no matter how uncomfortable or unpleasant or disappointing it may be.

It is not the end. I am not finished becoming. But my true self is not as I thought I was. I thought I was funnier, smarter, stronger, more desirable and ultimately – I thought I was better than I am. My starting point is not what I thought it was.

I live with jealousy and envy of the woman I thought I would become and wanted to be. In embracing my True Self, I have to let her go but I find she lives on in my imagination day after day. She follows me into conversations and meetings, on adventures and into real life.

That’s when I realise – She is the shadow and I am the True Self. I breathe, she does not. She is static – only ever in two dimensions because she is not true, therefore she cannot grow. She is not real nor authentic. I am the living one. I turn my envy to anticipation of who this True Self, average woman will become. I have not imagined her yet and therefore I desire to meet her.

The Hopeful Audacity Of It.

The Hopeful Audacity Of It.

On the corner of my street there’s a street lamp shining bright on the intersection of suburban roads. There’s barely a car parked in sight; from the end of my driveway I can count just three. But there under the spotlight, is the corner dairy (a 7-Eleven of sorts), the bus stop and an Indian take-out store. In which the lights are blazing and the door wide open despite being 12 degrees celcius.  ‘Well, they’re optimistic,’ I think to myself, my inner monologue dripping with cyncism.

It’s 9.00pm on a Tuesday night and I’m crawling inside to finish a fraction of what needed to get done today and the remnants of a to-do list going back to Friday 2 weeks ago. I’m feeling deflated and empty; I have been for days actually. Everything feels like a fight in which I keep getting ‘No’ for an answer and while I’m not losing – not yet defeated, I’m desperate for a ‘Yes’. For a win, for a step closer to the dream.

I’m close to throwing a tantrum in the face of the Universe. A grown-up one, with big words and everything.

I go out to dinner, to movies, for a wine or three, parties for kids and friends come for dinner and all of it’s good for a moment, until I’m back left with myself. I’d just like a ceasefire in the warzone I’m in, a truce where the Red Cross comes storming in to  simply bandage the wounds and nurse me along a little. I’m so hungry for kindness and connection I’m almost like a child who wants to be indulged simply – because I do. I’m close to throwing a tantrum in the face of the Universe. A grown-up one, with big words and everything.

Not for anything trivial like love or biology or even the politics of sexuality and refugees, although I can make a pretty good case there. No, bigger things – like ‘why is meaning so hard to grasp and so much of life filled with meaninglessness’ and ‘why do we live with a sense of displacement and crave belonging’?

I’m almost convinced I could make a winning case to demand answers but the biggest battle I’m fighting is Me. Fighting to let go, to hold on, to give love and stay soft-hearted when I’d rather put up defensive offense. Battling to submit to other people’s methods, to collaborate when I love independence, fighting not to let go of my love of excellence and fighting the urge to say many times over, I call ‘bullshit’.

(I’m sorely tempted to call bullshit on inspirational social media posts, on mindfulness and yoga mantras, especially on religious politics and the politics of religion. I want to remind everyone that you’re just an entertainer on Facebook for an audience you determine and that the strong, independent woman is as much of a Unicorn as winning can be without someone having to lose.)

The biggest battle I’m fighting is Me. To find peace in the midst of ambition, a little give in a world of take.

Most of this could be solved by hibernating for a weekend or three, resting in good company that doesn’t mind taking care of me a little. Strong, capable, independent as I am – I need a little reminder of what it’s like to play. To laugh. To feel good. To feel alive. A gentle reminder that work isn’t everything, even when it seems like it’s the only thing. I probably just need some good sex in good company, with a laugh or two.

And all this probably has nothing to do with the Indian take-out store on the corner.

Except the flashing neon ‘OPEN’ sign now flashes in the front window and sometime in the last week they’ve added twinkling fairy lights. Where the door used to remain closed it’s open to the street and there’s even a sign on the curb of the road. There’s a bus that stops across the road once every 80mins or so, and a tinny house on the opposite corner which is probably mutually beneficial. I’m not sure who they’re hoping will turn up. I’ve lived here five years looking at that same corner, same tinny house, same Indian store and all of sudden they’ve opened the door. The hopeful audacity of it. Open doors, defying belief and daring the neighbourhood to place an order. That if you try, they will come. If you stay open and welcoming, people will turn around and look after you. If you fight just a little more, ‘No’ might turn to ‘Yes’.

It’s easy to turn my cynicism audacious, to make the bullshit calls loud and clear. To turn up the volume on everything but hope. It’s harder to choose a hopeful audacity. A plucky bleeding courage that keeps on playing anyway. A hopeful audacity that compells me to put on my unicorn panties and rise again tomorrow. To keep on battling for a yes.