- Silvia Johnson
A friend of mine and I were chatting about getting married. Having been through my own nuptial planning not long ago, I was greatly aware of the pressure brides feel to manage a lot of moving parts, and the opinions of family and friends. In addition to planning a wedding, she had a lot of other big life changes that she was dealing with as well. As many folks across the country, she was faced with being out of a job. To add to the pressure, she and her fiance made the decision to move in together to save costs. Well, this relieved one kind of stress, but it added a new one, the fact that she hadn’t lived with anybody for years.
As we talked about all the life changes she was facing, and she also mentioned that there were so many things that were setting her off and this was frustrating her even more. Hearing the tension in her voice, I said to her – “Jane, you are not yourself right now. Give yourself a break. With the amount of change in your life, you are going to be acting in ways that are not ‘normal’ for you. When anyone is placed in a position of high change and high stress, we all act a little abnormal.” As if a light bulb had gone off, she said, in a much lighter tone – “You are right! I have been under a lot of change and stress, and that must be why things I thought I had taken care of are creeping back in.” She was so relieved to realize that the game had changed temporarily, and that meant new rules to maintain a certain amount of stability within herself and her relationship.
The thing to note here is that it is not just the number of changes/pressures you are dealing with, it can be the intensity that may set you off into a pattern of behavior that is not your “standard”. If you ever find yourself acting out in ways you thought you had resolved with a relationship or in ways that are unusual to you, spend some time assessing your life and where your energy is going. Decide, based on that, what “rules” may need to change for you, including things you may need to “let go of” permanently or temporarily. Also, make a list of those stand-bys that give you energy and make sure you are giving yourself an added dose to help you move forward in a productive way. In no time things will evolve and stabilize, helping you move forward in even better and more fulfilling ways!!
- Anna Corbett
As I look over my own life, and the lives of family, friends, and clients, I find that when in a space of clinging to what we believe to be what we want, what we think we need, or how we believe others should be, we often stop the energy of possibility. When how we believe life should be is so tightly defined that we don’t allow room for the creativity of other possibilities to unfold, we can actually sabotage our own process.
I think often of the concept of transformation and what that means for us living in this century, with all of the possibilities that we have before us.
I am reminded of the Butterfly and what it took for it to move through its own transformation. As a caterpillar, the being was simply crawling along in life, not sure of what direction it was taking. Then one day, instinctually it clung to a twig and began to form a cocoon around itself. Did it have any idea why it was doing so? I think not, yet it was doing what it was called to do, to enter into the cocoon and allow the transformation to take place.
In order for the caterpillar to transform into a beautiful butterfly, as it was wrapped in the cocoon, it first had to let go of the twig. The caterpillar had to trust and fall into the cocoon. Had it continued to cling to the twig, perhaps frightened of letting go, it could never experience the totality of metamorphosis. It never would have transformed into a being that could not only have the freedom to fly, but to bring such delight and beauty to others.
We know that for life to be lived in the fullest manner possible, it is important to have vision, to be clear about what it is that we want. Sometimes though, the clinging to what we think life should be actually takes on a destructive pattern. This pattern keeps us from living the freedom and beauty that we were called to live.
I know in my own life there has been a recent chapter when I clung so tightly to what I believed should be happening that I did indeed impede my own transformation. My energy was stuck. There was no flow to my life or my relationships, and I just could not figure out why things weren’t working the way I thought they should.
I was certain that if I just affirmed and visioned with feeling enough, that my husband would be cured of cancer, that my closest friend would get sober, that our house would sell, and on and on, all would be right. It was only when I came to a place of letting go of the exactness of how life should look, that just like the butterfly, I was in a space to experience what I never could have dreamed possible.
When I let go, I experienced a profound knowingness that: I would hear my calling, I would flow into my life work, what I did have control over was how I ‘showed up’, not the journeys or life lessons of others. When I allowed myself to fall into this cocoon of knowingness, the metamorphosis began. During the time of stuckness I found the following to be almost a mantra and great comfort:
LET GO AND LET GOD
AS CHILDREN BRING THEIR BROKEN DREAMS,
WITH TEARS FOR US TO MEND,
SO I BROUGHT MY BROKEN DREAMS TO GOD,
BECAUSE GOD WAS MY FRIEND.
BUT THEN INSTEAD OF LEAVING GOD
IN PEACE TO WORK ALONE,
I HUNG AROUND AND TRIED TO HELP,
WITH WAYS THAT WERE MY OWN.
AT LAST I SNATCHED THEM BACK AND CRIED,
“HOW COULD YOU BE SO SLOW?!”
“MY CHILD,” GOD SAID,
“WHAT COULD I DO? YOU NEVER DID
‘LET GO’?”
How often we think that we have let go, only to snatch it back. The gift is in truly placing it gently in the hands of God and then walking away, trusting in the goodness of the Universe and the possibility of true transformation.
May I show up each day in a space of awe, wonder, beauty, delight and pure gratitude!