Month: September 2018

To a certain extent if we are going to regain balance, we need to let go.

It’s taken me so long to write this out because I’ve become so connected into a new level of myself- and what I’ve been learning is requiring a total rewrite. I’ve been sitting in a deep doubt that creates an even deeper belief that I’m on the right path.. doubt and faith have a shared purpose.. to demand we ask more, release more, and see more.

Being in transit so frequently spins both my internal and external worlds into a web of simultaneous accessibility and inaccessibility. I seem to exist in a world full of paradoxes lately. Fully experiencing what each location (between MB and AB) bring to the surface.

On one hand I’ve been stepping away from my day to days, but on the other in that stepping out phase I’ve shrouded myself with a new busy-ness. This in itself has kept me inaccessible to what I want next.

I’ve been submerged in a funny kind of depression lately. Experiencing survival anxiety but also a deepening in the knowing of my path. Doubt arises to demand faith in the process, and the question keeps being asked.. what do I want? What am I willing to sacrifice and shift?

I realized early this year that I needed to begin shifting, as I am always shifting, into a new operating system. The love I have for my job was being tainted by the wearing down that comes along with the high level of energy delegation needed to create the visions I have- and perform as a practitioner. The fire of my impatience burned strongly as ever as I hurdled towards new endeavors, and as usual it all caught up and taught me where I needed to fill in some gaps.

As summer carried onwards I spent much of my time between many locations. Both locally as IM expanded into it’s new homes on either ends of the city, and grew in it’s rural reaches- and then in Alberta as RW and now IM expand into the west. The knowing that I needed to cut back client work and figure out ways to develop other parts of my personal journey grew, and my collaborations in AB grew to include a new big picture endeavor titled ReVive Collective. I took on more therapists, and still am taking on more associates, and even began delegating to an admin assistant (this has come with it’s own new realizations.. aka.. I am more of a control freak then I realized..).

SO much expansion. Progress, diversification, growth. In all directions, at all levels. What they don’t tell you is that even when everyone is telling you how well you’re doing, you won’t always feel like it. Simultaneous to this, occasionally all you’ll feel is that you’re drowning.

On many levels this summer and heading into fall has been about learning what to and how to let go. Parts of my personal history that I didn’t even realize had left scars came to the surface, conveniently around the same time I recognized I wanted to seek more balance and companionship in my life. The journey inwards to do that furthered the need to step out of the business, which brought up a fear for survival. Where I’ve held the business up for a long time I just removed- and gratefully saw that the business could hold itself up without me.. but in turn experienced the bottlenecking of a lot of growth all at once with no external tangible support and the need for more organization.

I’ve said before that the most difficult about being a business owner/entrepreneur is not the actual task of starting and running businesses- it’s dealing with the blunt face of fear and insecurity that sneaks up in opportune moments.

In the hours I’ve spent traveling between AB and MB I’ve gotten to know the inner workings of myself in different ways. I have learned that I still have not got a clue as to how to process and manage stress. The minor but consistent health issues I’ve been experiencing are that same poor stress registration bubbling over, and that when I’m not thinking about it I death grip the steering wheel.

A metaphor for how I’ve been running my life, to be sure.

You see- one of the things I’ve seen clearly, but have not mastered- is the fact that to progress and to release into the next phase you must get comfortable with letting go of control. To bring this to a physical example.. often to accomplish a certain lift, yoga pose, or movement pattern it’s the act of releasing control and letting the nervous system operate in a flow state that allows us to achieve, rather then the conscious act of controlling each phase of said movement. The shadow to this is that in the art of developing a flow and a trust- we must become aware of our underlying reactions, scar tissues, and internal barriers to our success. We all have them, and we all have shadows that haunt us – becoming aware and accepting of them allows simultaneous release and shifting.

Understanding that things you thought you had processed may come back again and need to be processed multiple times in different contexts. That the growth and inner work is never done. And that death gripping the steering wheel of life makes you no safer then if you were blindfolded and hands free. I wrote about a similar feeling in my winter post after skiing in the mountains.

Lately it’s been a grapple of surviving the day to days of twenty something life while envisioning where I want to be in the next three to five years. I have a tendency to get far ahead of myself, which has both forced my progress and hindered my balanced wellbeing.

I’ve spent more time in nature this year asking the sky for signs and guidance then ever. I’ve experienced faith and lately I’ve experienced doubt. I accept both and understand that the presence of the latter implies there are things needing processing within. The things I crave now more then ever were things a year ago I scoffed at. I crave time away from work, I desperately want someone to come home to- and the hyper-focus on those two things has spun me into a web of doubt, frustration, and retreat into the comfortable atmosphere of the professional life I’ve created.

Someone made the comment not too long ago that maybe I was just too busy for some the things I was looking for- and upon receiving that message and spiraling into a fit of tears I came to the conclusion that I was indeed having a tantrum and that being told I’m “too busy” is indeed a trigger for me. Have I not designed a life where I choose my schedule? How has success and living the life of my dreams made me unworthy of balance? Why do I keep ending up in this cycle?

However, triggers are often just signs of inner voices we are innately avoiding listening and to through the storm of emotions that hit with that message I also was forced to recognize that maybe I still have not let go enough. The thing with letting go is that you think you’ve released, only to find out that you’ve only let one finger relax from the wheel of life- and that in order to truly let go there is still 9 white knuckled fingers left to relax.

Though now, even with a deep appreciation for what I’ve built and what is growing, I feel less of a fire behind my professional organizations. When you want more, what you have only reminds you what you are missing. Yet, when you seek the things you think you’re missing you’re only met with what you haven’t given yourself in compassion, patience, and due process. The bottlenecking in different areas of my life is also likely a sign from above that releasing expectations of what’s ahead and accepting the patience of the here and now are what’s needed.

As I spend time in this dark (and this isn’t a negative thing in the slightest!) internal spot, I’m recognizing that the embers of my fire are there.. as strong as ever. The phase I am experiencing now will only allow those embers to rekindle down the road. Burning at full intensity doesn’t serve all phases- and heading into the season naturally intended for releasing, shedding, and turning inwards I feel settled into seeing things from a different light. A gentler, inwardly focused, and intuitive glow of the embers while I allow myself to continue the process of releasing, opening, and reflecting.

Being privileged enough, despite all my fears and doubts, to spend time in the powerful presence of the Canadian wilderness has been the perfect treatment for all these shifts. 10/10 recommend to anyone, at any phase of life. Find some trees, move around with mountains, flow with water, and sit with the earth. She will always have an offering for you.