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Forcing something to be what we wish it to be is counterintuitive to what we wish to be.
On a small scale, a screw we want to remove, but it won’t budge. If we keep forcing it, we will eventually strip the screw and likely will never be able to remove it to do what we desired.
On a large scale, demanding that someone do what we want and if they don’t, threatening, giving the cold shoulder, or throwing guilt. If we treat others in such a manner, the trust is destroyed and no secure person would want to engage with us for fear that if we don’t get want we want, we would never let the other person be truly free to be themselves and have their own thoughts and express their own ideas, wishes, etc. A loving and trusting connection cannot be built on strangling and issuing ultimatums.
It has been my experience that not once has something I ‘required’ to happen by thoughtful persuasion or unconscious manipulation because I didn’t trust that being myself would be enough, has ever worked out as I had hoped, and only detrimentally or simply not occurred at all. Whether it was stopped dead in its tracks and the supposed results never materialized or the results materialized, but the outcome was not what I had anticipated, in either situation, their not working out was actually a good thing because it detoured me from something I didn’t realize was not for me. However, by trying to force a particular outcome, I wasted valuable time and energy, strangling any given situation, when if I had instead just let go, other opportunities would have had the chance to cross my path and potentially be noticed.
When it comes to letting go, we are engaging in an act of trust. Whatever or whomever you call the entity that you put your trust in when you let go can be called a variety of different things (the universe, God, the Divine, the Tao, Buddha, etc.), it is when we let go that we gain the great potential of being aided in stepping onto the path that is where we will find our deepest contentment. A fundamental key to being able to trust letting go in such situations, and what makes it easier to let go, is to be engaging in the world with your true self – no masks, no false selves, no conforming, etc.. And because we are honoring our true self, we are genuinely enjoying and at peace in our everydays, so just as Winnie the Pooh states, it is possible to be true, “Today is my new favorite day.”
The letting go becomes easy when we enjoy the life we are living. When we look around us, and even when not everything is going as we would like or where we are is not where we would prefer to be, we can see something to be grateful for; that is an example of letting go. But the letting go I want to talk about today is something different, or should I say, more specific. One of the most important times in your life to let go and trust that what will unfold in your future will be grander than you could hope is when you are just about or have just stepped into a dream come true.
What I mean to say is, if there is a dream you have long worked for, and because of your clarity about yourself, you are grounded in confidence it is the best decision for the life you want and are living, there will potentially still be moments of wanting to know and wanting to control, but because of the nature of life, we cannot control and we cannot know. What we can know is ourselves, and that is where we find our calm and our comfort amidst the unknowns of life. In other words, there is uncertainty, and because this dream is so grand in the perspective of your life journey, you may want more certainty before cementing your decision – whether buying a house, moving and working abroad, selling your house, adopting a child, having children, welcoming a furry family member into your life, quitting your day job, saying yes to your dream job, there will be aspects you will want to know, but simply cannot and this is when you must let go and trust.
Some of us will take a great deal of time and investigation before making significant life decisions, while others of us will act more swiftly. We cannot compare ourselves to others, even if the decision appears to be the same. What we each have to do is invest in the tools of self-awareness and self-knowledge, and then simply pay attention. What brings us to life, what causes us feel deeply comforted, what ignites infinite excitement and curiosity? What supports us on our chosen life path?
For some of my most significant life decisions (some I knew at the time and some I realized were such in hindsight), it was not others’ opinions about what I should do that led me to the best decision for me, but rather time with myself, exploring my needs, applying the knowledge of myself and the journey that felt intuitively the best one even if it made no sense to others. From calling off a wedding, to moving to Bend, to purchasing a house, to welcoming each of my pups into my life, to retiring from teaching early, each of these were never made with 100% certainty of what would occur once I made my choice. Some had a higher degree of confidence than others, none 100%, but each possessed 100% trust in myself that it was best for my life journey.
I carry that knowledge gained through life experience with me when I approach new decisions, what I define as opportunities. It is important to note that not all opportunities are for me to seize, but I definitely cross paths with many more when I am living in self-awareness, honoring my true self and letting go of expected outcomes. And you know what? The truth shared above continues to ring in harmony each time when I do choose to seize the opportunity. Each have been a different dream achieved or nearly chosen, yet there were feelings of wonder because not all could be foreseen as to how it would play out. That is why we have to let go because if we hold on and require that a certain outcome has to happen, we miss out on the beautiful, loving and extraordinary surprises that can only happen when we make that choice of a lifetime and step forward with an open mind and open heart.
Wishing you a wonderful and full-of-delightful-surprises week, this first week of October. Bonne journée.
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How to Notice the Awesomeness in Your Life and the World, episode #331
Thank you so much Shannon! So helpful for me to read today!
Shauna,
Thank you for stopping by and happy to know this post resonated for you at this moment. I am excited for your journey. ?
It’s funny how things sometimes appear in our lives at opportune times, like this post. 🙂 I’m consciously making a stronger effort to align my self knowledge and preferences for day-to-day living to deeply consider how I want this next season of life (empty nesting) to be. One thing I need to work on, though, is to be content where I actually am instead of constantly focusing on the future. That has been a struggle for much of my life. I am a planner (INFJ, to be precise), so dreaming and erstwhile “planning” for a future life is a hobby of mine, and I have recently realized that it gets in the way of the NOW. This is not the essence of your post, but something in your words prodded at me, and my thoughts led me here. Such is the pondering mind!