Luscious Soulful Beauty: April 7, 2015. The Grace of Surrender
Dear One,
How are you? Loving life? Remembering your soulful, elemental self?
Me? I have been caught in the grip of perfectionism that has had me circling around some really old, tired, self demeaning tropes to the point of stand still.
That is the lie of perfection. It promises to help me move forward, but really it just focuses me ever more minutely on details until nothing can move. This bout snuck up on me,
hijacking some wonderful inspiration and creativity and pushed it from musing over ideas and having fun into slogging and struggle, inner criticism and never enough-ness.
Yup. Two of my heart's deepest wishes "sacred contribution" and "living a beautiful life", two of my most cherished values and guiding energies, became twisted into a hair shirt and matching pants I don't
remember putting on. Perfectionism had gained control of my desire and drove it into trying to solve problems it wasn't intended to fix.
Yesterday I felt the full, prickly restriction of it. The overwhelm that is always in the wake of perfectionism. What had been building for weeks came to a head in a day filled with tiny disappointments that felt like daggers, tears log jammed
in my throat making it hard to talk, and the sinking realization that my best efforts were just not going to be enough to solve a current situation stemming from some long past missteps and misjudgments.
Questing for perfection hoping to find absolution is a form of self punishment intent on moralizing failing and penalizing the Spirit until restitution can be
made.
What is true is that sometimes trying harder doesn't work. Sometimes my best isn't enough. Sometimes the problem can't be solved fast enough to avoid consequences. Sometimes, doing more, trying to do it- what ever "it" is, perfectly, is like waiting for the hair shirt to stop itching and poking
because only when it does (which it never can), all will be well. When really, the only thing that will help is casting off the hair shirt, rejecting the belief that one's goodness or beauty of spirit is dependent on any standard of perfection or that a cosmic "pass" can be earned through enough suffering and diligent struggle.
Sometimes what the Soul calls for,
what the Spirit longs for,
instead trudging on trying to do better,
is Surrender.
Surrender is one of those things that has a lot of baggage. It gets confused with loosing or giving up. Of being beaten and being forced into submission. Of being less than what ever is being surrendered to.
But Surrender, true Surrender, is divine letting go.
It returns us to wholeness by allowing the release of struggles, burdens, patterns and beliefs that are not ours to bear any longer, if they ever were ours to begin with. It allows us to
get current, with clarity and acceptance.
True Surrender is given in a state of Grace we grant ourselves. The Grace to return to our nature newly. Unencumbered by the weight of what isn't and fully aligned with what is. This is a profoundly holy inside job only we can do.
Surrender doesn't change circumstances, it changes possibilities.
The possibility to move on rather than hold on, to rise up in power rather than try to overpower, to accept the growth of renewal rather than penance of reprimand, to gather the resources of now rather than trying to
resurrect the shadows and wishes of the past.
Surrender can't be faked or bargained or forced or manipulated. It must be opened to, felt into, released into. It is a most feminine energy and high, holy magic.
There is no holding back, no second guessing, no trying it
on to see if it works. These are the confused ideas of Surrender as a strategy rather than an energy of alignment.
True Surrender will bring you to your knees, to the ground you hold most dear. So you remember. It will ask of you your whole heart and you will give it gladly when you are ready. Because it is the portal to your
freedom, it is the unbinding of your true and sacred heart.
It will return you to your innocence of self, where you begin anew.
And me? Where am I in all this? Beginning to peal away the hair shirt of my perfectionism, my
misplaced belief it will save me pain if my struggle is correct. (I know, this stuff is twisted and snarled and makes no logic when brought into awareness.) I am starting to feel my organic breath again, even as I more clearly see the impact of past choices. The truth is always sits better in the body, even when it hurts, while the distractions come with contacting and rigidity.
Have I
Surrendered this struggle? Not quite. Yet. But I can feel the warmth of it, feel it near. There is a softening inside where I know Peace, Beauty and Love live, where healing happens. Where solutions are born of truth and tenderness. Surrender is my doorway.
What about you? Are you struggling, trying to escape or win or
overcome? Has the ternary of perfection overtaken your desire and inner truth? Where can you feel your way into the Grace of Surrender? You heart awaits you there.
Let's go together.
Love, Peace, Beauty.
Always,
Sandi
