The closer you are to the brink of liberation, the more constricted by resistance you're likely to feel. You're likely to feel uncontrollably compelled to do something to stop the increasing intensity of discomfort and find some relief. We tend to believe that when things get hard we should try harder, work harder, do more to overcome and rid ourselves of what feels overwhelmingly difficult. What if the key to change is in doing nothing at all? What if the alchemy actually lies in the being rather than the doing?
I used to confuse letting go with giving up. I had two modes of operating---push onward with great effort or give up, which inevitably led to despair. After decades of living in despair, I mostly ditched the despair of giving up in favor of pushing onward no matter how hard the struggle seemed to get. The "Little Engine That Could," right? I will not give up!
Yet after more years of exhausting struggle, to my surprise, I discovered that letting go is not the same as giving up. I discovered that letting go, which eerily looked a lot like giving up, was actually about letting go of the struggle, the fight, the defense and the resistance that was so familiar and habitual, a compensatory strategy that took hold during a stress filled childhood feeling alone and unsupported.
No one knows exactly what to do all the time. Throughout life, we are confronted by experiences we feel completely unprepared for, the trauma of which can often leave us frozen in feelings of inadequacy. In the wake of those experiences, we tend to close off from life little by little until we reside hidden, isolated and separate behind a fortress of unconscious protective defenses. We do more and feel less believing that if we could just get the doing right, we won’t ever have to feel all the things we protect ourselves from feeling.
Over the course of a lifetime, we accumulate a reservoir of unfelt emotion that becomes like a pressure cooker inevitably seeking release. Yet in closing ourselves off from life, resistance and control have become the habit, which only further contribute to the building pressure of overwhelm, frustration, increasing paralysis and forced doing. Feeling familiar?
After 20 years of personal exploration into the realms of transformation, this I have learned. You can’t force alchemy. You can’t do alchemy. That’s just more of the same effort perpetuating more of the same struggle in resistance. But if you let it, alchemy will undo you. If you let go and allow the process, it will wind its way into your most unconscious patterns of self-protection and preservation. If you let go, it will recalibrate your nervous system naturally releasing the internal pressure of so much unfelt.
It is my honor to accompany clients on this journey through the uncharted territory of transformation. Uncharted as it may be, paved by doubt and uncertainty, there will be revealed something steadfastly present as an illuminating beacon guiding the way---the enduring, insurmountable essence of you. I don’t mean the altered version of you adopted to make yourself more palatable to the preferences of others. I mean the unique, creative expression that only you have the power to be in the world before it felt like the world demanded that you change to suit it.
The unadulterated essence of you has always been ready and available for your attention. Yet somewhere along the way, we started to believe the only attention that mattered came from outside, from others who had the power to validate our value and assess our worth. Only then when approval was bestowed by others could we believe that we mattered to anyone or had the right to claim our place in the world.
When you’re ready, you can let go of all that. When you’re ready, you can let go of the striving, let go of the struggling, let go of the proving and let go of the need to preserve and protect an identity that doesn’t even remotely reflect the radiance of your true nature.
I guarantee the journey won’t be anything you can predict, and you may become unrecognizable to yourself. Along the way you will likely claim a sense of personal power and autonomy that arises unconstrained from within and elevates your trust in you above the chatter of other’s points of view about you. You emerge as the sovereign ruler of your life not because you require control over a world that feels threatening to you, but because you live in harmony with life trusting it’s abundance, trusting your resourcefulness and resilience, and grounded in your capacity to create from a space that no longer requires submission to outer authority.
Sound too good to be true? It can be your reality if you’re ready to let go of the countless insidious ways you rely on resistance to uphold and stabilize the structure of your identity and life ensuring things don’t really change.
It’s not for everyone, and definitely not for the faint of heart. But for those who feel the call, it’s perhaps the most rewarding choice you could ever make.
I used to confuse letting go with giving up. I had two modes of operating---push onward with great effort or give up, which inevitably led to despair. After decades of living in despair, I mostly ditched the despair of giving up in favor of pushing onward no matter how hard the struggle seemed to get. The "Little Engine That Could," right? I will not give up!
Yet after more years of exhausting struggle, to my surprise, I discovered that letting go is not the same as giving up. I discovered that letting go, which eerily looked a lot like giving up, was actually about letting go of the struggle, the fight, the defense and the resistance that was so familiar and habitual, a compensatory strategy that took hold during a stress filled childhood feeling alone and unsupported.
No one knows exactly what to do all the time. Throughout life, we are confronted by experiences we feel completely unprepared for, the trauma of which can often leave us frozen in feelings of inadequacy. In the wake of those experiences, we tend to close off from life little by little until we reside hidden, isolated and separate behind a fortress of unconscious protective defenses. We do more and feel less believing that if we could just get the doing right, we won’t ever have to feel all the things we protect ourselves from feeling.
Over the course of a lifetime, we accumulate a reservoir of unfelt emotion that becomes like a pressure cooker inevitably seeking release. Yet in closing ourselves off from life, resistance and control have become the habit, which only further contribute to the building pressure of overwhelm, frustration, increasing paralysis and forced doing. Feeling familiar?
After 20 years of personal exploration into the realms of transformation, this I have learned. You can’t force alchemy. You can’t do alchemy. That’s just more of the same effort perpetuating more of the same struggle in resistance. But if you let it, alchemy will undo you. If you let go and allow the process, it will wind its way into your most unconscious patterns of self-protection and preservation. If you let go, it will recalibrate your nervous system naturally releasing the internal pressure of so much unfelt.
It is my honor to accompany clients on this journey through the uncharted territory of transformation. Uncharted as it may be, paved by doubt and uncertainty, there will be revealed something steadfastly present as an illuminating beacon guiding the way---the enduring, insurmountable essence of you. I don’t mean the altered version of you adopted to make yourself more palatable to the preferences of others. I mean the unique, creative expression that only you have the power to be in the world before it felt like the world demanded that you change to suit it.
The unadulterated essence of you has always been ready and available for your attention. Yet somewhere along the way, we started to believe the only attention that mattered came from outside, from others who had the power to validate our value and assess our worth. Only then when approval was bestowed by others could we believe that we mattered to anyone or had the right to claim our place in the world.
When you’re ready, you can let go of all that. When you’re ready, you can let go of the striving, let go of the struggling, let go of the proving and let go of the need to preserve and protect an identity that doesn’t even remotely reflect the radiance of your true nature.
I guarantee the journey won’t be anything you can predict, and you may become unrecognizable to yourself. Along the way you will likely claim a sense of personal power and autonomy that arises unconstrained from within and elevates your trust in you above the chatter of other’s points of view about you. You emerge as the sovereign ruler of your life not because you require control over a world that feels threatening to you, but because you live in harmony with life trusting it’s abundance, trusting your resourcefulness and resilience, and grounded in your capacity to create from a space that no longer requires submission to outer authority.
Sound too good to be true? It can be your reality if you’re ready to let go of the countless insidious ways you rely on resistance to uphold and stabilize the structure of your identity and life ensuring things don’t really change.
It’s not for everyone, and definitely not for the faint of heart. But for those who feel the call, it’s perhaps the most rewarding choice you could ever make.
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