Krista in Del Mar
I can’t plan this. Some academics spend eons planning, researching, writing and editing their material. Forgive me my typ-os (typos?), my dangling participles, my fragments. This is the joy of creating, like a delicious soup that gets made from half-made things all thrown together into a stirling mix. Who can plan this? Who wants to?
Have you let go of planning yet?
Preparation is one thing. We all have to buy our tickets to get to where we’re going. But once we’ve prepared and shown up, our job is to let go and experience it.
Here’s what happened to me: I met a woman in a cafe whom I have admired for a long time. We spoke briefly over the course of a year. One day I returned to the cafe just brimming with my news, of what I was doing with Evolutionary Women, this circle of women I started in Scarborough, who wanted to connect and transform, together. I was sparkling with joy. The mists had parted, and she noticed this exuberance, this life. She wanted to know Everything, as most women do (which I adore). I told her my story. First, the five-minute version, which wasn’t enough. She was enthralled. Tell me more! I told her how I got to where I am now, what I had to give up – the trying, the “efforting” for a pre-set notion of my future. But it wasn’t working. Everything felt like a no-fly zone. I was lost in a daydream, a maze with no door. Then I awoke. I joined several groups, sought help. I began talking, searching, writing, creating. I struggled, I fell down. I didn’t know how I was ever going to get there, this nebulous new world. I didn’t know how I was going to start all over. I had visions, daydreams, images that would come to me, words that would flow through me all the time. I was pretty isolated then. It took time to build a support team. I became relaxed into this new way of being. My life became an editing room. I was being edited down to my finest, most crystalline form. Everything else was tertiary.
Soon, in the span of two years, my daydreams began to form. Something Inside began to show up all around me. I began to transform myself. Show up differently. There were dips and curves, valleys. Breakdowns and breakthroughs. I suffered A LOT. So did my family at times. I knew I had to change the way I was thinking about myself and my life. What I was here for. It wasn’t to glorify myself. I had to go a different way. I had to let go!
Letting go doesn’t mean having nothing, or doing nothing. It doesn’t even mean loss necessarily, as it is so often associated with grieving. Sure, I cried my tears in the letting go of “me”, who I thought I was. The pain of sustaining an image of myself that I couldn’t live up to (that wasn’t true). I had kept my true thoughts well hidden. It took awhile to crawl to the surface and breathe dry air. To trust that I could tell others the truth. That I wasn’t happy the other way. I had to let go.
Letting go is New. It’s You! It’s Why We’re Here, What We are For, It’s the deliverance you’ve been waiting for! It’s the door! It’s Thank God I don’t have a plan anymore! Thank God I can just be me! Isn’t it fabulous, just to be me?
And then – people started noticing. People started wanting to join with me, to participate in: to listen, to speak, to share their hearts, their minds, to co-create. To begin! Suddenly I was not alone – I became swept up in a giant swell. There was something much more important at stake – my happiness and theirs, not some arbitrary future life I wanted to create – No. I wanted my Life NOW!
This is what happened when I let go: My woman friend and I sat and had a real conversation. We lit up the room. The world closed in around us like a giant blanket. Other women listened and enthused. Possibilities and ventures sparked. We started saying Yes, I would love to do that. Let’s talk about it. Now, things are happening, and I have so much to do!
How did it all happen?? I couldn’t have planned or predicted this. I had an idea to join with other women. To connect. I began to create something small. I thought of doing more, reaching more women. I talked and wrote about it – A LOT. Too much, in fact. But, I didn’t give up. I got positive feedback. I kept putting it out there. There were slumps and insecurities – there still are! But this idea, this adventure, this feeling to keep going kept coming to me. I kept dreaming and sharing. And soon, when I took that terrifying step of asking someone about renting a space to hold a workshop - THEN and only then – I heard the giant chorus of YES! chiming back at me. Other women wanted this too. Then – did I notice: This was a good idea! It wasn’t just some “idea” in my head. Some other scheme to “get ahead.” It wasn’t just for me anymore, it was also for them. Serendipity took over. People started approaching me for more. This was something brewing deep down in the hearts of all of us – at least the women I’ve met. And even men!
What really surprised me, when I let go and just spoke to this woman from my heart, was that she wanted to work with me one on one. I had never done this before. I didn’t know what I would do. How could I? How could I know what she was going to say? To plan would have been interference. I had to trust. I felt humbled by her trust in me, in the Presence – because that is what it was. My Presence spoke for me, on her behalf. I saw who she was, felt the tingling sensation of Yes! shouting through her – through the aches and pains of what was. I knew her. I wanted to join with her and help her as so many had helped me. And, because I allowed that Presence to speak for me, instead of some rigid, academic plan, some psychology degree – I knew what to say and when. I had compassion. At first, it just stumbled out. But then, as the energy moved me and I SPOKE. it just rang out! Her eyes lit up and she said, “Wow…this is Amazing.” I felt that too. I was as amazed as she was. I felt totally connected, totally alive, totally gifted by that moment with her presence too. Our awareness grew.
It is amazing what we can do when we don’t have a plan. When we let go. It’s amazing what’s Inside of us when we just let ourselves LIVE and give others permission to do the same.
The same thing happened the other night in a workshop I was giving. It had become more of a Circle, a quiet space of reflection and sharing. I had written reams of material, I had hundreds of exercises swirling around my head – some we had already tried which were quite invigorating, and I believe helpful. But this time was different. They had already begun without that. This time, it wasn’t “all up to me” as I had felt before, and so many women who carry that sense of responsibility very heavily. The burden of caring too much, planning too hard, frightened of the unknown. Afraid to surrender. To trust that I had enough. That I was enough.
I sat uncomfortably in my chair at first, knowing “I Have a Plan”. Then I listened to the women open up, their stories naturally spilling out of them, the electricity of their knowing filling the room. Their intelligence, their insight, their banter. Their laughter! Who could interfere with that? What more could I give that they didn’t already have?
I had to let go. I had already created this space for them to grow. They had already accepted, shown up. Given themselves. All I had to do was listen and give what came to me in the moment. I offered my thoughts, my passion, which caught fire when I spoke. I noticed when I tried too hard and stopped. I listened to myself. I remembered what my purpose was (to give them a space to heal) and spoke from my heart instead. And then they lit up. Because I was being true. There were still challenges and discussion. Healing moments and successes. Opportunities for further growth. Things I could do to help in future, but waited. It was not appropriate now. There would be more time. This was only a beginning.
At the beginning of that night, in silent preparation, I had lit 9 tiny candles in the centre of the table. And as I quietly sat by and listened, my friend turned to me and said, “Nine candles. Ah…. Birthing” She smiled. Beamed, actually. And now as I looked around at their faces, the nine women who came, we resembled the light itself. It was our quiet sanctuary. I felt I had done something exquisite, without “doing” anything at all. I had given myself permission to just be there, and to let them as well, to have faith that we would do the right thing together. Like women who know how to give birth to something. No doctor can tell us how to do it. Nature just knows.
Women know. They understand each other. We are natural creatures. Our instincts get dampened by too much structure. We need room to grow. That’s all. Just a room. Just a space. Just a collaborator or two.
Give yourself a little space to let go…
And let the miracle happen to You.
P.S. This is my way of surrendering. I’ve spent years thinking too much. And still do. I use to get rewarded for getting my semi-colons right. Now, all I want is You! To be happy. To be joyful. To reach people in a new way. To let the Spirit move me! I hope it moves you too.
Amen.
- Day 27: What is a Miracle? II (littlebookofmiracles.wordpress.com)
- “Miracles of Life & Death” 2: Waiting (littlebookofmiracles.wordpress.com)
- Miracle Tuesday…..WEEK 7 (empoweringmylife.com)
