Surrender and Falling Away....

For some, the beginning of the year is filled with celebration, champagne, resolutions, and hopes for the new year ahead. But for me, this year was something altogether different. 

I couldn't put my finger on it at first. I was preparing for a trip I was really excited about, I seemingly had so many things to look forward to, was coming off of being with family for the holidays, and yet I couldn't seem to pull myself out of the fog of sadness that I was feeling. 

I kept trying to pull myself up by the bootstraps, longing to feel differently. I wanted to feel inspired, joyful, full of celebration; and yet... I didn't. 

I made the comment to my daughter that I felt like I was in a place of deep grief. However, it didn't make sense to me. I hadn't lost anyone close to me recently. Yet, when I made that statement, it felt true, honest, exactly what needed to be said, and most importantly, what needed to be felt. 

When I began to explore, I learned that grief doesn't always make sense. It's not linear. It's not always about losing a person in the physical sense. Sometimes it's not about a person at all. It has its own timing. And, it often comes when you least expect it. Grief can be about so many things, and sometimes the grief we feel isn't even ours (but that's for another post.) 

My particular grief was a culmination of the letting go of many things - expectations, outgrown ideas, and old beliefs that had been rooted since childhood. The things I was letting go of were things I knew I needed to relinquish. So why the sadness? 

My answer came in a podcast I was listening to where one of my favorite coaches (Rebecca Campbell) said, "When we surrender to what is falling away, we create space for what is new and what is wanting to rise.” And there it was... the elevator to those boot straps I talked about earlier. It came in the words - 

SURRENDER TO WHAT IS FALLING AWAY. 

Whoa! That sentence landed hard. 

I knew I had mentally chosen to let go of things, but I hadn’t truly surrendered to letting them fall away. Some of the ideas and expectations I was choosing to eliminate were things that had been with me for decades! Who would I be without them? 

As humans, we don't like loss... at ALL. This sometimes leads us to try to hang on to what no longer serves us even when we know what is best for us is to allow what is falling away to simply go. We hold on to unhealthy relationships, jobs that are out of alignment, grievances and resentments... we tell ourselves that maybe things could be different if we just keep hanging on! And yet deep down, we know this isn’t true. 

I know letting go can feel terrifying, like a free fall. And yet, in hanging on, we create an immense amount of suffering for ourselves. Letting go doesn't come without feelings. Sometimes, like in my case, it can be in the form of grief. 

By all means, please feel your feelings - they won't kill you and they are vital! Feel them until they are done being felt. 

And then - don’t allow your fear of change to keep you stuck in suffering. Because when we grip the things that are meant to leave, we are bound to have scars. 

So, what if we simply allowed what is falling away, to fall away? What if instead of longing, fighting and suffering, we simply trusted that this thing that is falling away - is doing so FOR us, not TO us. 

And what if we knew that in order to have something new, something better, something more fulfilling - we had to create space for what is wanting to rise?

Surrendering to the falling away has allowed a new clarity and a new beginning of sorts for me. The struggle has diminished. The grief has lifted. It has allowed me to see the things that needed to fall away with a new perspective. Because I no longer have a grip on them, I can actually appreciate them and what they taught me, rather than what I thought I needed or longed for them to be. I see them for the truth of what they are.

And, I’ve never felt more at peace!