Unconditional Surrender
My goodness. Over the last few weeks I have gone through it. It was a rollercoaster of feeling inspired and loving everything about me and what I have to offer to disappointed that spiraled into depression. I knew it was temporary and to just let it be. I was doing a 10 day exercise where I needed to clear the conditioning of this inner victim archetype that was controlling how I view success and finances. Quickly I saw this same program running on everything in my life going all the way back to childhood. If I was conditioned to look for ways things will go wrong or never trust when things go well, how can I ever see the best path forward? How can I ever take that step?
Well, I’m not afraid to tell you it got REALLY dark in those journal entries. I was giving up on everything. I’m telling you this because I want to normalize those dark nights of the soul for you too. I know you have them. We all do. By day 3 I just kept writing, “I give up. I surrender. I have nothing else to explain or complain. I just surrender everything to the divine intelligence. None of this is my burden.” And well, that is exactly the shift and shedding that needed to happen. I started to feel better by the next day. I started to realize things about my inner world that were so toxic and attracting a reality in my outer world that I did not want.
Here is the thing I cling to when I get into these dark places and maybe it will help you too. Inspired by the saying, “the night is darkest just before the dawn,” I would also say that the night is trying to fight to keep you in the dark. The night knows you want to walk in the light, it knows you are about to discover how and it is doing everything it can to claw you back.
“No you can’t think that, it never works out that way.”
“You can’t be sure those people mean what they say. Don’t trust it.”
“Meh that’s not that great of an idea. It’s been done before.”
“You’re too late.” “You’re not smart enough for this.” “You have no experience.” “You can’t afford it.”
Just stay true to yourself. Stick to your path and purpose. Once you say no to that voice enough times and do it anyway, the sun rises and you’re walking in the light. I’ve proven this to myself a few times in just the last few weeks.
So what is this craziness? Is it supernatural? Is it heaven and hell? God and Satan? Angels and demons? Well, it’s actually quite neurological. When you do, think or expect something the same way, a neural pathway is formed in your brain to basically conditioning you to only look for evidence that supports what was learned. This could be from trauma, conditioning, or just repetition. It wants only what is familiar to this pathway. Anything outside of it sends you red flags: danger, not safe, unknown territory.
Once you’ve chosen your healthier pathway, keep at it. It takes some repetition to create an new neuropathway. And by the way, this neuroplasticity, as it’s called, is something that can occur form birth to death. There is no age limit. There is no such thing as, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” Actually you can. The brain is such an amazing thing, so use it!
What happened to me as a result? Many things. The biggest breakthrough was probably in terms of how I view my new career. These were some of the insights once I gained clarity:
I’m not doing poorly or growing too slow in my new career. I’m using the wrong measuring stick. The capitalist, patriarchal measuring stick looks at success as perfection, production, money, followers, audience, likes, comments, popularity, deadlines, and BLECHHHH deliverables.
The work I do seeks to heal and awaken people. This measuring stick looks for connection, meaningful experiences, insights, compassion, and growth.
I’m in a Holy Rest phase, a Sabbath era. I took many steps at the beginning of the year to manifest this new career and now I’m resting because I can. Because there is some inner work to do to carry out this purpose with authenticity. Because I needed to learn and grow more. I needed the time and space to do that.
I need to love myself for exactly who I am and the inherent gifts I have. By loving this, I can easily use them to help others. By loving this, I can be more authentically myself with pride.
By being authentic I attract the right people, the right opportunities, the right realities. When I tried to structure things the way I have seen others do it, it just didn’t resonate.
By creating this new neuropathway, I no longer felt urgency. When things pop up like, “only 2 people registered for this class,” I instead said, “no, I’m so glad 2 people registered for this class because it’s about connection and quality. I’m grateful and this is just the beginning.”
So that’s what’s going on right now. I have unconditionally surrendered to divine intelligence. In doing so, I saw a path forward and created a new neuropathway. I take the steps in front of me and I wait. I sit in meditation and I wait for clarity on what comes next. I do not interfere with the divine intelligence doing its work.
