letting go

Letting Go and Finding the Wisdom of My Soul

February 12, 2016emilydownward

A few years ago, my life seemed to fall apart. One by one, I experienced major losses in my work, my social support, my health, my relationship, my hopes for the future… At the bottom of it all, I was quite literally adrift, not even having an official address to call home. It was obvious I was in what we Martha Beck coaches call Square One, which is analogous to the caterpillar going into the chrysalis and melting down into goo. And I knew that Square One isn’t the best time to make decisions, so I gave myself permission to sit in the unknown: I didn’t know where I was going to live – not even which city. I didn’t know if my coaching practice would bounce back or when I’d be ready to coach again. I didn’t know how I was going to make money to support myself since the consulting work I’d been doing was gone. And I didn’t know how I was going to repair my health, or mend my broken heart.

I am fortunate that I have an amazing family and friend network that literally took me in during that time. For six months, I stayed at different loved ones’ homes, in different parts of the country. They fed me and housed me and let me grieve, as I tried to make sense of what had happened and why.

It was difficult for this “control enthusiast” to sit in all that unknown. My brain was spinning with all the questions, focused on all that I had lost and all that wasn’t certain. It was challenging to sleep because I couldn’t get my brain to shut it off. Although I had tried meditating before, it became a necessity now. I used guided meditations and mantra meditations just for the few moments of peace it offered.

“Wherever you go, there you are.”

I grew up moving around every few years, as the family followed my dad’s career in the airline industry. I’d continued the moving pattern throughout my adulthood, so I was used to relocating and creating my home wherever I lived. This time felt different, though, because I didn’t know where to move. And I had never been in a situation where I didn’t have a forwarding address.

As I was staying with different people, living out of a couple suitcases for months, I began to turn more and more inward. With so much having been stripped from my external world, I clung to what I did have: the love of family, the support of friends around the globe, my coaching tools, my resilient spirit.

When you lose everything (or nearly everything), You still exist. While I actively focused on healing and recovering, I began developing a stronger connection to my spirituality. As one of the healers at that time said, “It’s as if your life has been going along on a horizontal path. Now, it’s vertical.”

I also began experimenting more, trying different healing modalities and techniques to connect into my soul’s wisdom. I began hearing my inner wisdom stronger than I ever had before, and I learned how to trust it and use it to create my new life.

Following My Heart & Soul

The path to healing – for my heart, my body and my spirit – hasn’t been easy, but I have discovered the treasures my challenges offered. I’m a different person than the one I used to be…more Me now, more authentic, more peaceful and grounded in the truth of Who I Am, and more accepting and loving of myself.

The gifts of my healing process have been many, and I’m pleased to be able to share them now with others. One of the ways I’m doing this is through a private community I’ve built called HeartBeing. For years, I let my head lead my life, ignoring the yearnings and guidance of my heart. Now, I’m practicing letting my heart lead the way, and the community I’ve created nurtures and supports others who are courageously following their own hearts. (Reach out to me if you’d like to join us.)

SoulMsgs_OpenHeart I’m also in collaboration with my dear friend and colleague Jody Low-A-Chee in the upcoming Messages from Your Soul workshop. I have had the honor of knowing Jody since we went through coach training together in 2011, and her wisdom and immense capacity for love have often been a safe harbor for me during turbulent times. We have created the workshop to share several techniques for accessing the wisdom and guidance inherent in each of our souls, knowing the opportunity to gather together with others who are on the spiritual path of growth and discovery can accelerate and strengthen those connections. The workshop is scheduled for April 21, 2016 in the beautiful Umlauf Sculpture Garden in Austin, Texas. We are also in discussions to offer it in different cities later in the year. (Let me know if you are interested in bringing it to your area.)

If the woman I am today could speak to the past me, during that time of so much loss and uncertainty, I would tell her: “It’s all going to be okay. I know it’s not okay now, but it will be. And you, with your strength and your big heart and your resilience, you will get through the pain and find joy again. Be gentle with yourself. Be kind to your wounded heart. Find the places and activities that bring you peace and immerse yourself in them often. Take comfort in the fact that one day, you will wake up and feel so incredibly blessed and grateful for the life you are living. You are me. I am you. All is well.”

Claim What You Want

June 19, 2014emilydownward

Over coffee with a friend, I encourage her to claim what she wants, to state it aloud, and as I’m saying it, I recognize the irony as I realize this is EXACTLY what I have been not doing for myself. Why can’t I claim what I want for myself?

Perhaps it’s a strange attempt at protection – if I don’t admit what I want, I won’t be so disappointed when in doesn’t happen.

Or maybe it’s that if I don’t say it out loud, no one will know when I fail to get it, compounding the disappointment.

Or it could be that I just don’t believe I deserve what I want. That it only happens for other people, those who work hard or are better people or more enlightened or always do what’s right.

As I put it down on paper, I can see how silly this reasoning is. In my mind, it seems completely logical. My mind tells me not to claim what I want, and by following its reasoning, I stay completely stuck in ways of thinking and doing that keep me from EVER getting what I want.

How can I possibly achieve or receive what I want if I don’t ask for it?

And I know I must ask and release my attachment to it. This is tricky for me sometimes, and probably part of the reason my mind twists itself up in not stating what I want. Because if you ask the Universe in a state of “I NEED this,” that grasping energy repels what you want, just like a desperate lover can repel the person they want to connect with.

By the grace of a friend who lent me a book, I found this prayer by Tosha Silver: “Let what wants to come, come. Let what wants to go, go. If it is mine, it will stay. If not, something better will replace it.”

I truly believe holding on to something that wants to go is not only futile but also keeps that “something better” from getting to you. We must create a vacuum to allow the space for that better thing to come in.

Today, I am going to claim one thing that I want, stating it in the present tense as if it is true. I’m going to write it on a slip of paper and burn it, letting it go with this prayer – Let what wants to come, come. Let what wants to go, go. If it is mine, it will stay. If not, something better will replace it. – knowing that I am always taken care of and that the Universe often has better ideas than I do about how to fulfill my wants.

Holding On, Letting Go

March 11, 2014emilydownward

For the past six months, I’ve been on a journey, emotionally, spiritually and physically. The ending of my relationship thrust me into the chaos of grief and being uprooted without a home base, and it also sent me into an intense healing period and connecting to myself at an even deeper level. I’ve become more in tune with my spiritual center, and less interested in superficiality. I’ve had to let go of many attachments, to people and things, and I’ve found I can get by on much less stuff than I thought.

When I packed a couple suitcases in September, I had no idea it would be six months before I discovered and decided where I wanted to live, found a place, and recollected my things from storage. I guess I could have sped up the process – with my work being virtual, I can live and work from anywhere with good internet and phone service – but I wanted to allow myself time to grieve and not make a hasty decision, to not make a quick decision out of fear and uncertainty but to allow the time to regain my peace and choose wisely.

It hasn’t been easy. Even with all the coaching tools and knowledge, it’s still difficult to let go sometimes. I cling to old ideas of who I thought I was, how I thought my dreams would look, and my heart still wants some of those dreams. I’ve had to grieve the loss and tease out the parts of my dreams that I can hold on to, and those I have to surrender. I still get to keep the essence of the dream, but I know it won’t look like I thought it would. I’m choosing to believe it will look even better than I thought, even though that is currently an exercise in faith.

Trying to hold on is painful – it’s impossible to succeed and it’s painful. The pain for me manifests physically, and I’ve been dealing with some extreme physical pains lately – an indication that the letting go is a process, and I’m still working on allowing it.

I listened to a guided meditation recently that included this phrase: “It all melts away…all that doesn’t serve.” I liked it – I liked it enough to open my eyes and write it down before resuming the meditation! It makes me feel better about letting go, realizing that those things (people, ideas, or objects) no longer serve me. And it reminds me to focus instead on what DOES serve me. I’ve also found this refocusing helpful when dealing with so much uncertainty – focusing instead on what I am certain about, even if sometimes that’s not much! For example, I can get pretty wound up about being technically homeless, or I can give thanks for the friends and family who have graciously invited me into their homes and to their tables. I can recognize that I have a roof over my head, somewhere to sleep, food in my belly. And, I can remember that having always moved around and travelled (being, as my Auntie Norma calls me, a gypsy at heart), I am always at home in my body, wherever on the earth that happens to be. Focusing on the certainties helps me relax, even if just a bit, and that enables access to the creative parts of my brain, allowing me to come up with solutions and ideas.

Many people I know, friends and clients and colleagues, are also dealing with incredible changes and losses. If you are experiencing massive changes and letting go, I encourage you to focus inwardly, find your inner peace – the part of you that is always okay, always perfect. Some may call this the soul or the spirit or your essential self. Connect with that part as often as you can and allow yourself time and space to grieve, feeling your emotions and allowing them to wash through you. Find the essence of your dreams, those pieces you can keep, and let go of the rest. In letting go of those things you try to grasp in your hands, you open your hands to receive something new.

Let Go

September 5, 2013emilydownward

This quote came to mind for me today, as I’m consistently and repeatedly being asked to let go:

Some of the things I’m being asked to let go of are easier than others. For example, letting go of a career a couple years ago that never really felt like it was a good fit was exhilarating. And it was also scary, as I contemplated the unknown and began life as an entrepreneur. Sometimes we hold onto things that are familiar even if we know they aren’t a good fit for us because we’re afraid of the unknown. “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t” goes the saying, but I never liked that way of thinking. It only gives two options, and both aren’t that attractive. What about heaven? And by heaven, I mean joy, bliss, contentment, excitement? Why would I stay in a situation that I KNOW doesn’t work for me rather than take a chance that a new situation will REALLY work for me?

And then it seems that taking that leap of faith opened up the door to other leaps of faith, and some of them haven’t been so easy to accept. The song from Les Miserables comes to mind: “I had a dream my life would be so different from this hell I’m living. So different now than what it seemed…now life has killed the dream I dreamed.” Sometimes it’s not so easy to let go of our original dream of how we thought it would be.

So you have a choice: you can choose to stay in the hell that Fontine captures so eloquently in her song, or you can choose to let go of the dream. And letting go isn’t easy. If your journey is anything like mine, it includes grief and fear and frustration, which all must be felt and allowed to flow through your body. And when it seems that the dark night will never end, you come to a place of acceptance of what is the reality, at least for now, and it opens you up to new possibilities, new dreams, and magic. For I don’t believe we were given our human life to suffer, but rather to find our way back to peace and happiness again and again.

The Messy Side of Becoming

June 12, 2013emilydownward

[My lovely teacher Martha Beck developed the Cycle of Change model that describes the process we go through with any major change. It begins with Square One: Death & Rebirth. I’ve been experiencing a lot of major change this year and getting intimately familiar with Square One. I thought I’d share my experience in hopes it sheds a little light for someone else.]

I think what’s so hard about Square 1 is the Death part. I have some friends who beautifully model a graceful embracing of death and dying. I value that quality and thought I was making strides towards that, but there’s this petulant part of me that is more like child that doesn’t want to go to sleep and miss something. I cling to who I once was, or what I thought I was, or, more aptly, my old way of thinking. The kicker is, even if I didn’t really completely like everything about who I once was, I still cling to it all just because of its familiarity, rather than seeing this as an opportunity to jettison those parts that weren’t working and create something new that fits better.

Logically, I know that death is a part of life, and that it’s the natural order and cycle of things. But emotionally, I struggle with the grief, fear, sadness, and anger. I fear the feelings will be permanent, so I resist them (thereby prolonging them, ironically). I try to mask my feelings, pretending everything’s fine, which takes so much more energy and creates dissonance inside me as my heart yearns to speak the truth. I dip my toe into the feelings and feel nearly overwhelmed by the undertow, so I quickly jump back on to the shore of resistance. There I am, clinging to the sand as the waves are sweeping it out of my clenched fists anyway. It’s painful to hold on, but I’m more afraid of letting go. But at some point, the pain gets to be too much, and I feel like quitting, giving up. “What’s the point of it all?” I feel like screaming.

Still petulant, I say to the Universe, “Fine! I give up!” and I let go. I let go of everything. I let go of my ideas and my dreams of who I thought I was and what I wanted so badly, and I let go of the pain of trying to be okay. I fall into the depths of my emotion. Falling, falling, I relax and let it carry me down. But then, I’m not down. There’s peace. Glorious peace that feels like a balm of contentment. Having finally let go, I can see new possibilities. I have so many more options than just the one I was clinging to. And I don’t have to let go of my dreams, it’s just the plans I had to get there that have changed.

I can see light again, the calm after the storm. And it feels so sweet. Still scary, as I navigate new territory that I haven’t been through before. I feel as vulnerable as a crab that’s just outgrown its shell, having split the old shelter and crawled my way out, I find that my new self is tender and exposed. But also hopeful. And I know the contrast between the storm and the peaceful aftermath are what make it so sweet, even though I wish I could bypass the storm altogether. (Maybe next time? Nah, probably not.)

Are You Ready to Let It Go?

January 23, 2013emilydownward

Budgeting is a skill most of us learn through trial and error. We learn how to budget our time to get necessary tasks completed. We learn how to budget our energy, recognizing that some activities and people replenish us while others drain us. And we learn how to budget our resources, which can include time and energy as well as financial and creative resources. Occasionally, what looks like a good investment at first may end up to be a lost cause. And sometimes you’re smack in the middle of investing when you realize it’s better to cut your losses and redirect your energy.

I’m currently facing just this sort of dilemma…with a tooth. I’ve had my share of dental woes, but the majority of them are with one particular tooth. Tooth #12 has had a crown and two root canals over a period of 6-7 years, but the pain persistently returns. I was recently referred to an oral surgeon who gave me two options and posed the question to me, “How much more are you willing to invest in this? Are you ready to let it go?”

Perhaps it’s because I’m a life coach and I see everything as a great learning opportunity, but I couldn’t help but see the metaphor in this. I’ve spent a great deal of time, effort, money and dealt with a lot of pain from Tooth #12. We’ve drilled it, hollowed it out, given it new insides and outsides and all that’s really left is a shell. My mind jumped to times when I’ve done this with projects, jobs, and relationships.

If you’re feeling like you’ve done all you can to improve your situation, if you’ve contorted yourself to fit the needs of others to the point you hardly recognize yourself anymore, if you’ve tried babying it, medicating it, renovating it, and it’s still not working…perhaps it’s time to let it go. Here are some questions to ask yourself:

What do I want from this?
What am I getting out of this, as it currently stands?
What am I giving up to be in this?

You’ll know it’s time to let it go when what you’re giving up is more than what you’re getting out of it, or what you’re likely to get out of it. And more than likely, there are multiple ways to get to your ultimate goal, or what you really want. Perhaps you have to let go of the idea of one path to see the other roads that open before you.

Faithful Friend

April 10, 2012emilydownward

“The dark does not destroy the light; it defines it. It’s our fear of the dark that casts our joy into the shadows.” – Dr. Brené Brown

The past month has been difficult for me, and I just couldn’t write about it before now. At the beginning of March, my 18-year-old cat Sabrina was euthanized. She had been with me basically all my adult life. I got her when she was 6 weeks old during my senior year of college. I saw her the day she was born, as my college boyfriend’s cat was her mom. Of the litter, Sabrina picked me, coming to sit on my lap and claiming me as hers.

She was my “little love,” and was with me through some of the most difficult transitions in my life: divorces, break-ups, cross-town and cross-country moves. She was my constant, my steady companion, providing me with so much love and affection.

I’ve struggled with my grief, wanting it to be over already. I’m tired of crying. I’m tired of feeling sad and expecting to see her when I come home. I’m tired of missing her, tired of feeling the ache and emptiness in my heart when I think how she’s not here to sit beside me. Tired of not being able to sleep because her absence is still so acute.

I’ve tried to rationalize with myself. I know she had a really long life, and I am grateful for it. I know the last year in particular was difficult for her, and her health had deteriorated so much. I don’t feel guilty for euthanizing her. It was time. I never wanted her to suffer, and although I treated her conditions to keep her comfortable and functioning as optimally as possible, I didn’t want to do extreme measures just to keep her alive. Her body was just shutting down, unable to keep going.

But all the rationalization doesn’t diminish the pain of the loss. And as much as I want to push it aside, get over it already, or pretend it doesn’t hurt as much as it does, it’s still there. And I know that disconnecting from my sad feelings also disconnects me from all feelings. You can’t shut down just some.

I know in time, it will feel less acute. I know her leaving has left an opening for something new to come in. I know she’s at peace, free from her declining and painful body. I know we had something special, a bond that changed me, and her memory will always live in my heart.

“I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.” – Mother Teresa

August 9, 2011emilydownward

“Don’t settle because you’re afraid you won’t find something better. Don’t compromise because you don’t want to be alone. Give your perfect life, lover and job time and space to grow into our life. Don’t rush, don’t hurry. Take your time, be easy, have patience. Allow everything to come to you with your subtle guiding and intending. Your days of constant chasing with little reward are over. Everything you’ve ever wanted and more coming to you, you just have to let it in with love, receptivity and non-judgment. Letting it in is how you become it.”

– Jackson Kiddard

I have a hard time letting go. I really want to control everything, including time and outcomes, but funnily enough, I’m finding this impossible. (Shocking, right?) My life has been full of opportunities to learn this, and since I’m still getting new ones, I know I haven’t yet mastered the art of letting go.

I love the above quote by Jackson Kiddard. It has so many good bits of advice, but today, the messages of “don’t rush, don’t hurry” and “let it in” ring especially true to me.

Leaving a Job or Leaving a Relationship

I have played the role of the rat in the race and it didn’t suit me. However, it was familiar to me. I knew the basics of playing that corporate game. Leaving the corporate world and entering into entrepreneurial land, I am like a child exploring a brand new environment. It’s exciting and scary. And a part of me is grieving what I’ve left behind, even though I know deep inside that it wasn’t right for me.

I felt this way when I got a divorce, too. It’s a mixture of feelings, really: sad and grieving for the lost relationship and the loss of the dream, relief that the painful parts are over, and wonder and a little fear about what lies ahead. I never wanted to be a “divorcee” — I used to look down on people who had gotten divorces, as if they just didn’t try hard enough — but being faced with one, I realized it’s not as black and white as I had thought. I had to shift my perceptions and admit I was wrong. That’s never easy, but it is sometimes necessary to forge a new path.

Help Along the Way

Fortunately, as I head down this new path, I have many resources (as well as past experiences) to draw upon. I know I’m not alone: I have friends and mentors who are also entrepreneurs. I have many blessings from the tools I’ve learned from Martha Beck. And I have faith, a deep inside knowing that I will make it.

If you are facing a new path, or the ending of an old one, I encourage you to reach out, whether that’s to a coach, a friend, or someone who’s faced what you’re facing. You’re not alone, and you don’t have to do this alone. And what challenge isn’t better with a friend to help you along?