"You surrender to a lot of things which are not worthy of you"... what are those things?
To other people's expectations of you? To the 'shoulding' in your mind? To your own abusive self talk? To the need to fit in and be liked? To chasing and efforting and doing? "I wish you would surrender to your radiance... your integrity... your beautiful human grace." Can we surrender to our own highest selves? Can we trust that we are magnificent? Can we create magic by surrendering to the bottomless well of it available in our own hearts? Can we stop spending so much energy fighting our very own nature? (Quotation by Yogi Bhajan)
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Today's obsession into total surrender came from an unexpected place... ROCK BALANCING.
It somehow soothes my soul and challenges my mind. When asked HOW he creates these stunning sculptures (that I secretly want to push just because....) the artist, Michael Grab writes... "Balance requires a minimum of THREE contact points. Luckily, every rock is covered in a variety of tiny to large indentations that can act as a NATURAL TRIPOD for the rock to stand upright, or in most orientations you can think of with other rocks. By paying close attention to the vibrations of the rocks, you will start to feel even the smallest “clicks” as the notches of the rocks are moving over one another. In the finest “point-balances”, these clicks can be felt on a scale smaller than millimeters, and in rare cases can even go undetected, in which case intuition and experience become quite useful. Some point-balances will give the illusion of weightlessness as the rocks look to be barely touching. But if you look very close, you may be able to see the tiny notches in which the rocks rest." This meditative practice is such a beautiful example of listening so carefully that you're able to do what appears to be impossible... you're able to defy gravity itself. See more here http://www.gravityglue.com Sometimes it's so humbling to sit in amazement of what I do each day. I had a client tell me the other day "thanks for changing my life" and I paused because I don't think I did that at all.
"I don’t think I change anybody’s life. I think sometimes people decide to change their own life, and if I can be present for that, that’s a nice thing to do." - Seth Godin It's not false humility. All I do is tell the truth of what I see and ask the questions that are begging to be asked. The client does the changing and the absorbing and the shifting. That soft opening to who they are and allowing it to shine through - that's totally them. Which is why as a coach I often have a hard time expressing what I do... I get thoughts of 'this is too easy' or 'I'm so good at this' or 'look at the impact I made today'. But that's all ego. Because what happens in session is a meeting of souls. We talk about business but truly, it's never really about that. I give permission for people to be THEM. Unabashedly, Truly, Lovingly, Trustingly Them. It's not so hard when I open up the softness of who I am and speak the truth the Universe has been asked to deliver. And as I write this I can feel the ego coming in... asking that I don't publish this, that it's too braggy, that it's too fluffy, that it's too big or too predictable, that it's too woo woo, that people won't understand or they'll judge it from wherever they are. But let me be clear - PERMISSION TO BE YOU IS INVALUABLE. Worlds open up when you open up to the possibility that nothing is wrong with you, you have nothing to fix, nothing to get over or around. You already are exactly who you need to be and have exactly the tools to be that inside of you, secret trails of greatness written all over your history... My job is to simply help you turn you attention to that. It's in YOU, not me. Can you trust yourself enough to step back into you? I read this this morning and it made me cry:
"...in a coaching world. So many people rushing to throw all these “important” pieces of advice at you. Everyone's telling you what you should be doing... yet no one's showing you HOW. But no worries Stacy, rescue’s coming." It made my heart break just a little. And it made me remember just how much more work I have to do in the world to counter this message... I remembered that I need to keep talking about trusting our own voices, hearts, intuition... I need to keep opening my own heart to give permission for others to do the same. That's where our greatest 'rescue' team come from. There's not an expert on this planet - not me, not the coach who claims that they make millions and so can you by following their 6 step proven system, not the person who has written books about it, not our families or friends or trusted loved ones. YOU are your only rescue team. You are the only person alive that can do this. What will it take to believe in you? What would it sound like to listen to your own intuition - even in your business (which is oddly the place most of us don't listen)? I'm holding a vision of a world where we dive into that heart space and live from there, where we learn to surrender to our own loving and wise inner voices and we take council with ourselves first. No one has your answers but you. Find someone who 'gets' that and will help you cultivate THAT instead of someone who will push their own answers into your brain. Talking with a client today and she asked me what motivates me, why do I do what I do. I had a simple answer... "because it makes me happy".
I need no other reason. See I don't have a big 'WHY' and I've talked about this before. I know it's a little polarizing. I don't really care to have a 'why'. I don't need to quantify it or quality it. I just need to know how something will make me feel. The answer to 'how does this make me feel' can change every single day. How exciting does that make life? Which is for me so much more of a feminine, organic way of being in my business. What feels right today? In this moment? What brings me joy or peace or freedom or vitality or inspiration? What warms my heart? Listen, I don't coach people to change the world, create world peace or end famine or injustice. That is just a really fortunate bi-product of me doing what makes me feel happy and whole. And that's not selfish. That's the MOST unselfish thing to bring into the world - a person feeling really really good doing great things that are in alignment with who they are in that moment. I don't know why. I don't care. Someone asked me if the deeper questions behind what makes you happy is why does it make you happy. I think that's backwards. How does it make you feel is the deeper question to why you do something... At the mastermind I was at last week we all were asked to create a 10 minute talk. I showed up with a topic but not what I was going to say. It wasn't scripted or prepared.
I wasn't nervous. I wasn't even anxious. I was mildly excited and curious about what I would say. It wasn't in the least bit 'edgy' for me. In fact I felt totally comfortable standing up and delivering in my own magical way. It was easy for me to do. And I rocked it. I get people asking me every day how I write what I write, how my posts are so amazing. They want to know how I do it because writing scares them. Posting is frightening for them. I don't know. It's easy. Writing isn't edgy for me. It isn't something that I have to force myself to do or schedule it to make sure it happens. I just write. And I rock it. What I don't rock? Networking. Being face to face with people. Interviewing others. Calling people. Follow up. Small talk. A whole list of other things that I "should" be doing in my business. Those would all be edgy for me. They makes me nervous and unsure. So... Why do to 'experts' keep trying to tell me to do x-y-z and step out of my comfort zone? The comfort zone is where things are easy. THOSE EASY THINGS ARE MY SUPERPOWERS. Why wouldn't I just do that? Could I do them more? Could I do them bigger? Bolder? Could I capitalize on them? Could I stretch my comfort zone everyday just a little? Yes. Totally and completely. AND I'm not going to marginalize them by saying that they hold less value because they are comfortable ways for me to communicate with people. My challenge to you then becomes - what would you create if you were totally comfortable with the vehicle? If you didn't need to stretch outside of your comfort zone and you could just do the EASY thing what would the easy path look like? We think great things always come from great risks. And that's true sometimes. It is also true that great things come from our natural genius and talents... you know, the stuff that doesn't feel risky, the stuff you can do like breathing, the stuff found right inside of your very own comfort zone. Risk when it feels right. Create from your comfort zone when you want to make magic easily. There are days you're going to want to quit.
DO IT! Quit Be okay with not forcing yourself Allow yourself to have space to breathe STOP PUSHING SO DAMN HARD Let yourself pause Hear yourself giggle just a little. Maybe just a little more Eat really great food Grab a drink with a friend Pick up the phone for no other reason than to say hi Quit Because it's a natural part of the cycle and the more you fight it the longer it will take to get past it. The void IS the flow. Love it Allow it Be IN it Trust yourself Create Play Read Cry Yell Sit QUIT Because magic can only happen if you open yourself up to it and it can't happen if you're busy clenching your muscles efforting every step of the way I give you permission to quit Quitting IS flow Stay in flow my dear. It will always lead you in the right direction I stood in the center of the room trusting I would know what to say and where to go. It wasn't planned out. I knew where I wanted to start - I knew that I wanted to express that surrender isn't lying down hoping to attract things, that surrender isn't rolling over and allowing things to happen to you. I knew I wanted to bring home the idea that surrender is the path of the warrior.
SURRENDER IS THE PATH OF THE WARRIOR To surrender to your own inner voices. To surrender to trusting yourself above all others. To surrender to the higher source in all things, every thought, every action, every moment of every day. It takes work. It takes constant questioning and diligence to release the mental control that seeps in. SURRENDER IS COUNTER-INTUITIVE BECAUSE WE'RE NOT TRAINED FOR IT We are trained to control and force. We are taught systems and structures. We are taught that there is right and wrong and that society dictates that for us. We are not taught to trust ourselves and do what is internally right above all else. See Surrender is the highest form of SELF TRUST... knowing that you can proceed in life and take actions and BE so much more if we follow our own divine wisdom, in our life, our loves, and yes, our businesses. SURRENDER DOESN'T HAVE A UNIFORM I wasn't calm in the center of the room... I was bad ass powerful. I spoke with passion and intention. I allowed my whole body to feel the words and wove them into stories that would land. I didn't cry I didn't get all airy fairy woo woo I didn't 'appear' to be surrendering Because surrender for me in that moment looked like trusting my power to wash over the room. SURRENDER IS COMING FROM THE PLACE THAT IS MOST TRUE TO YOU IN EACH AND EVERY MOMENT It's an active practice in extreme self trust. So where can you trust yourself more? Where can you surrender to those internal nudgings that simply 'KNOW'? Where in your life could you surrender to your own power, your own rawness, your own love? Where can you actively bring forward more YOU and trust that it's right and perfect? Can you allow yourself to walk the warrior's path of surrender in every moment, in every thought and in every action? My next book has already begun... The purpose of a coach is to help people succeed and become more.
THAT'S TOTALLY BACKWARDS BULL. Our purpose is to help people embrace the failure and the messiness so that they can help themselves succeed and become themselves. DETAILS ARE A CREATIVE PERSON'S SUCCUBI
They latch onto our creative spirit and suck the fun out of projects. Future details and current details alike - they clutter our minds and block our flow. They need to be attended to and our minds need to be cleared to be able to move forward. But most creatives don't want to. Many won't even start and most won't even finish because of these tiny little details. Because they suck. So surround ourselves with finishers and detail people Have download pages where you can dump out the details to attend to later so you can stay in flow Trust that most of those details don't mean anything at all Keep creating AT ALL COSTS because the world needs what only you are driven to bring. |