Taking the leap with nothing but trust
I have been thinking a lot about my voice. The surgery date is fast approaching and I have consumed my life with logistic preparation.
I have never been one to shout or even ask for my needs to be met. This ability was knocked out of me somewhere in my childhood. It was inconvenient to others for me to need things. I learned to suppress, to push down, to silence. I learned to provide for myself what I needed from others. I learned to be easy. I was good when I was quiet and too much when I wasn’t. I had a deep sense of right from wrong and no idea how to stand up for myself. I could feel the imbalance in my bones but had no way to verbalise it. I didn’t know how. It just didn’t feel safe.
So, as I stand here on the edge of this “cliff” that my surgery date has become. I know that I am going to have to advocate for myself, to use my voice, even after I can’t. I will need others to meet my needs more than I ever have in my adult life. It feels terrifying! It feels intensely vulnerable. I feel a huge resistance to it. I’m safer if I am a “good” patient and I do what I am told. I am safer if I hide my pain and fear, apply the “I’m fine” mask. Or at least that’s what my nervous system wants me to believe.
I spoke with a client today about how your emotions fuel action. Fear wants you to run, fight, freeze or fawn. Anger wants to protect you. Shame wants to keep you small. So, what do you do when you feel a fear so deep it feels like fire in your veins but the action of running the hell away, or fighting probably isn’t appropriate? Freezing and fawning feels like giving in?
You trust. You surrender.
This year has been one surrender after another. I have certainly done my share. Collectively around me people are being asked to surrender too. A part of the surrender process is trust. It’s jumping without knowing where or when you will land but trusting that the jump is necessary for the next part of your story. So how do you trust? It starts with you. Trusting yourself. Allowing your true self to be seen and heard. Yes, some won’t like what they see and hear but those people aren’t for you. Some won’t like the change they see in you, probably because it activates something in themselves. A lack of alignment. Or a “should have” on their part. It’s not you, it’s never you. We have been taught to fear being ourselves, fitting in is safer. But it’s not happier. Express your true nature, like nature! She doesn’t hide herself away. She rests when she needs it, she blooms when it’s time. She shows all her colours all the time. So, take the lead from her, let her guide you. And she will guide you if you trust her. Trust her. Trust yourself.
I invite you to feel into trust. Sit quietly, focusing on your breath. Imagining a rich blue light circling you, holding you, cradling you, protecting you. Then feel into what it would feel like wholly and completely trust yourself. If that’s too hard to imagine, maybe think of increasing your trust by 20% or 50%. How do you feel? Where do you feel it in your body? Let that feeling expand, until it fills you up from inside. Journal about your experience, or reach out and let me know, I would love that.