Abundance is Found in Surrender
Peace. Ease. Inner Abundance. How do we attain these states? Are they only possible when you’re in a beautiful location, beside a serene view? Or is it possible to attain these states in the chaos of our typical days?
There is no stillness outside of us, only within us.
I started working with a therapist in January as part of my 2022 first quarter goals. I didn’t like the anger and bitterness I was feeling over certain aspects of my life that I couldn’t control. I was sleeping less and ruminating more. Certain people and certain comments were getting on my nerves. I was getting on my own nerves.
I found a therapist (I highly recommend BetterHelp.com), told her my issue, and my goal to return to the generally positive, optimistic, and happy person I had typically been. I thought we’d talk and identify the issue, and within a month I’d go on my way, happy once again.
I was making great strides with my therapist’s help. I was unraveling fears and old outdated misbeliefs. I was completing my homework, and even doing extra research on my own. I’m a bit of an overachiever. I want to do things “right.” I was feeling good about it all, and a month passed quickly. So, I thought, “I’ll do this one more month, just to make sure I’ve covered everything there is to cover and that I am really back to my old happy self once again.”
And that’s when my therapist gave me the assignment to allow all of my emotions and feelings and thoughts. We’d been working on a technique my therapist called RAIN. Recognize the emotion. Allow the emotion. Investigate the emotion. Nurture the emotion. I felt comfortable with the technique and in my mind I was using it well.
I thought, “Easy enough. I can allow.” And I did. I allowed the emotions to show up, and I identified them one by one. And then the whole allowing thing started to become uncomfortable and the tears began.
Tears wrapped in fear over things I couldn’t and can’t control.
Tears of grief over my losses of people (my Dad), hopes, and dreams.
Why did my therapist want me to allow? This felt yucky. This felt bad. It felt down right shitty, if I’m being honest.
Allowing tears, and especially so many tears over a succession of days, brought up emotions I didn’t like. I didn’t want to feel sad and weak. I wanted the opposite —happy, optimistic, positive.
More feelings and emotions crept in, along with more negative thoughts.
There’s something wrong with you.
You really don’t have anything to cry about.
And then, You are losing your mind.
The strongest position you can be in is complete surrender.
When I talked to my therapist a little over a week later, I told her how I’d cried and cried and cried, and how uncomfortable that felt. I tried to dismiss my extra emotions, blaming them on a cold I had during that emotional week, and also on my menstrual cycle.
My therapist said, “We were given a rainbow of emotions.”
Somewhere along the way I’d come to believe that only certain emotions (happiness, optimism, positivity) were okay, and others (crying, anger, bitterness) were not. The “wrong” emotions were a sign of weakness, and I wanted to be strong.
I had this idea/belief that not only am I supposed to be strong and put together and happy, but I’m supposed to be this way All The Time. And that was really the crux of my struggle with allowing. I only wanted to allow certain emotions, which were the ones I deemed “good.” I didn’t want to spend time with the emotions I found uncomfortable and deemed “bad.”
We were created as emotional beings. It is our divine right to honor and give grace to each emotion, and to allow each emotion to work its magic within us.
Surrender (Allowing) is where peace and ease and abundance live.
Somewhere right before my week of allowing was over, I found release, and that release felt good — really good. The tears and sadness and waves of grief passed. Of course, I told myself that my return to a good-feeling state was due to the end of my period and recovery from my cold, but I now know it was really from allowing the rainbow of emotions to show up and guide me to what I needed to see and nurture and heal.
Crying and feeling difficult emotions doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with me— it means I’m human.
A rainbow is a gift of brilliant color given to us after the rain. May you allow yourself the grace and grit to experience each and every brilliant hue the rainbow has to offer you, so that you may move forward with a greater sense of peace, ease, and Abundance. It is your birthright after all.
xo,
Have you missed a post in the Abundance Series? Here are the posts thus far:
