The Highest Level of Inner Work
I was tested this last week. It felt good and scary and annoying and I totally pissed off my husband. So, let’s dig in.
TOOLS
A lot of times, podcasts make me anxious. At the beginning of my experience with them, I was listening to the standards of This American Life, How I Built This, Mind Body Green. What made me anxious was either the enormity of problems I couldn’t solve or all the things I should be doing that I wasn’t doing yet.
I’ve taken a long pause from podcasts because I also realized I was getting information from people I didn’t even know and was curious if I’d read their book or follow their advice in any other format.
When it comes to consuming information, I’ve found again and again and again is that our greatest tool is our own inner wisdom. If I’m looking for answers about my own life or direction I need to take, it’s not in a podcast, book or even in the advice of a friend. It’s not even in horoscopes, oracle cards or personality profiles.
Now, I find when I listen to a podcast I do it for different reasons: simply, joyful entertainment or research for work.
GRATITUDE
Now, I understand that for a lot of people, actually, 90% of people, trying to cultivate clear, self-direction is really hard. Why?
Well, our minds are cluttered with daily tasks, stressors, narratives, limiting beliefs, running on confirmation bias and unconscious behavioral reactions and habits.
Of course, if you struggle at all with anxiety, depression, burnout, trauma or narcissist abuse, trusting yourself feels all but impossible.
I can notice my habits of ego and self-sabotage driven from my fears and shames and for that I am so grateful. This last week I was so acutely aware of a habit taking place. It was like a slow moving train crash. I could see it while I was in it, doing it. Which is annoying and insightful at the same time.
I knew I was reacting from a place of fear and scarcity. My ego habitual behavioral response in that mode is to go towards control… like impulsive, fury, control. I steamroll and operate with laser vision to get what I want done.
But of course that’s exhausting and has it’s limit so then I “treat myself” and I consume. This time it was retail therapy at Target for an enormous amount of throw pillows. Sometimes I skip the Ego step and go straight to consumption when I’m feeling scared and scarce because I’m avoiding the feelings, the pain of “not enough”.
BTW, this is essentially the Shame Triangle model we use with all of our clients to help them better understand themselves!
You see, as a therapist, I have the tools and it’s my job to know my stuff. But I still get wrapped up. We all do, regardless how evolved you’ve become. I always tell my clients: it’s not about never reacting… it’s about how quickly you return to equilibrium.
And in this case, my return was…epic.
INNOVATION
So on my way home from Target my phone randomly skipped to, low and behold, a podcast episode. One I’d never listened to and never heard of and wasn’t even “saved” on my phone.
And it didn’t skip to the beginning… it skipped to just about 12 minutes from the end. At this part the interviewee, Dr Lewis, was talking about her Near Death Experience. She was talking about her car crash (yes, I was seeing the signs people) and what it taught her.
Then, she started talking about surrender.
For those of you who don’t know, surrender is tattooed on my left wrist. It was my first tattoo before years later I completed the loop and got trust on my right wrist. So, surrender is my word.
Okay, so Dr. Lewis is talking about surrender and a car crash and I’m driving home and I’m like okay, okay, okay I feel like maybe this was some intentional purpose for me to be listening. The episode ended and they said, “wait, there’s a part two!” and I’m like, OF COURSE THERE IS.
I start playing part two, WHICH IS CALLED SURRENDER and the first 20 minutes continue on the same theme. By this point I knew. My lesson of surrender was coming up again, telling me again, to let go of trying to control when I’m scared.
What is surrender? It’s not giving up, which is what so many people imagine it is. Surrender is not quitting. Surrender is giving over. It’s the highest level of inner peace. It’s the ultimate inner work.
For me, it’s the release of control. It’s the knowing that I do not know what will happen next and I can be okay in that. It’s letting go of the “hows” and the “whys” and the “whens” and just being in the space I’m in. It’s accepting what is without resistance. It’s trusting that whatever will be, will be, so let’s not create more suffering by my own fight against it. Que serà, serà.
It’s trusting in myself, in the process, in the ultimate lack of control I have over anything and finding peace in that.
FEELS
But it’s HARD. I once read somewhere that people who say “everything happens for a reason” are the ones still alive to speak those words. I feel that.
I don’t believe everything happens for a reason. I believe everything is a series of choices. I believe in binaries. That we can feel pain and heartbreak at the same time witness beauty and joy. I believe we can have both/and - we can be devastated by what is while also finding peace in what is.
That, is surrender. We can lament what is happening and be sad, mad, sit in self-pity and unfairness and at the same time practice letting go, relaxing into the unknown outcome, releasing resistance and easing into what is.
Surrendering does not take away the reality of the sh*t that is happening. But it can take away our suffering.
It doesn’t take away the pain, but we can settle into the pain with a peacefulness of giving over, we’re no longer consumed by our worries, fears, anxieties, grievances.
We can find peace within the storm.
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