Letting Go Of Needing To Know

Everything in the world is impermanent.  Change is inevitable. The deeper I surrender into this fact of life, and accept this inevitability, the more my life actually flows, and the more peaceful I feel.  The more abundance actually comes to me.  For someone who came from a highly dysfunctional childhood, and with a nervous system so hardwired for dealing with daily high stress (that I actually lived my whole life with permanent anxiety and didn’t even realize it until my 40’s) this type of surrender to the unknown feels not just scary and dangerous, but like death. 
I know I’m not alone in this fear.

​I’m moving for the third time in less than two years and while I didn’t chose this current move, or the last one for that matter, it’s what is happening, and I must face what is out of my control.  I could have complained, felt sorry for myself, and taken on a victim role, even blame others for my misfortune.  Why is this happening to me? Why can’t life be easier? Heck, it’s even tempting to blame and shame myself; why didn’t I just stay in my (toxic) marriage; I had all the worldly comforts one could wish for, financial security, owned a house, vacations in Hawaii, etc.  

When I got the email that my landlord was planning to sell the rental house I’m in, after only 7 months of living in it, I had a wave of panic and pain flood over me. It was an intense energy that surrounded me for several hours, and many negative thoughts surfaced; you’re a bad mom, how could you do this to your children, you’re unstable and irresponsible.  All thoughts I harbored from my own childhood that were never expressed, faced, compassionately held.  And which I stored in my nervous system year after year, resulting in unending anxiety, fear & doubt about my safety and my worth as a human. 

This old programming, this pain-body energy wanted to overtake me after reading this email, and make me unconscious and set me back to flight/flight mode, but I didn’t let it. I suffered consciously. I allowed it to be there, and watched it, became the compassionate witness to my unresolved childhood pain and then set myself free; free of these thoughts, emotions and blockages that repetitively, year after year, created a barrier to my truth, and my ability to manifest the life I desire and deserve.

And when I did this very important work of consciously (re)parenting myself, a deep calm and peace came over me.  A belief in the benevolence of the universe, a deep faith and trust in the unknown.  This situation didn’t happen to me, it happened for me.  For my growth and evolution.  Had it not happened, this old childhood pain, this baggage I’ve been unconsciously carrying around with me my whole life, would have remained a blockage to my creativity, my truth, and my ability to fulfill my purpose in this life.  That old fear, that lived in my nervous system and manifested itself as anxiety, kept me in fight/flight mode, and permeated many areas of my life, including my belief in myself and ability to succeed in life.  I have always had a fear of success, a fear that if I do what I’m called to do, I won’t survive.  
I know I’m not alone in this fear either. 

So, when I sat, rather uncomfortably with this old pain, held space for that terrified little girl inside of me, and finally liberated myself from it, and that deep peace and tranquillity came from within me, I knew, with out intellectually knowing, that it was all going to be ok.  That this change was a positive step forward for my kids and I. I would not only survive, but thrive.

And so, I spent the next several weeks trusting that my next home would present itself when the time was right.  I was by no means passive about searching, but I wasn’t worrying about it either.  My daughter, on the other hand, grew more anxious by the week, and made no bones about telling me that I needed to get on it.  She, most unfortunately, inherited my anxiety.  But, unlike the little girl inside of me experienced as a child, I hold space for her negative thoughts and emotions, and provide a safe space for her to freely express herself.  She is my greatest teacher, that’s for sure. Every time she mentioned that I haven’t secured us a new house, I would remind her, I haven’t yet. “It’ll all work itself out”, I'd say to her, “trust me.” And she would reply, "But how do you know it will?” And, I would say back, “I don’t know, but I have faith it will, because I’m in alignment with the universe.” I’m not worrying, stressed, anxious. I’m present, and the present moment is all we ever have.  Past and future are the false reality.  Teaching her how to hold her anxiety up, look at it, and choose whether to let it consume her or not, is a gift that I give her every day, but also one I give my inner child who was perpetually afraid, perpetually anxious, growing up.  This is conscious parenting.  I don’t save her from her emotions, but I don’t leave her alone with them either. I am teaching her to be the master of her life, and to trust in the unknown, to trust in the universe. 

Traveling on a plane last month, I had the opportunity to watch one of my favorite movies, Shakespeare In Love. One of the lines repeated throughout the movie resonated deeply with me, and my current life situation, both materially and in parenting: 
“How do you know?” “I don’t know. It’s a mystery.” 

Indeed, life is a mystery not to be figured out, but to be surrendered to. To accept what is, and allow it all to unfold as it will.  Consciously, from a deep truth within, that is in perfect alignment with the totality and abundance of the universe. 

Much love xoxo,
Carrie