ISSUE 41 - Leave Room for the Answer

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about the difference between movement and control.  For so much of my life, I think I believed that if I made the right move, took the right step, said the right thing or worked hard enough, I should be able to anticipate what would happen next.  And when the outcome didn’t match what I thought should happen, frustration would come in.  Why isn’t this working?  Why hasn’t this happened yet?  Why did I feel so guided toward something if it wasn’t going to turn out the way I imagined?  But I’m beginning to understand movement differently.  Movement isn’t a transaction with the universe.  It’s a conversation.

You move in alignment, and then you receive feedback.  You take a step. You pay attention to what opens, what closes, what expands, what feels heavy, what continues pulling you forward and what begins asking you to change direction.  Then you move again.  When I look at manifestation through that lens, so much of the pressure around timelines and outcomes begins to disappear.  Because if I believe that making a particular move means I am owed a particular outcome, that isn’t really co-creation anymore.  That is me trying to manipulate life into the version I have already decided is best.  And what if there is something better than the version I can currently imagine?  What if the relationship that didn’t unfold the way I expected is giving me information?  What if the opportunity that didn’t work out is a redirection?  What if the idea that isn’t growing in the way I thought it would is asking me to evolve it?  What if the pause itself is part of the conversation?

There is a saying, every action has a consequence.  I have started looking at what we often call a “consequence” differently.  Maybe it is simply feedback.  Keep going.  Pause here.  Let this settle.  Look again.  Move differently.  Not every piece of feedback is going to feel good. Not everything that happens is going to immediately make sense. There are experiences in life that are painful, unfair and incredibly difficult to understand while we are living through them.  But even then, there can eventually be information inside of what we experienced.  Something about ourselves.  Something about what we desire.  Something about what we will no longer accept.  Something about where we are being asked to go next.

And I think healing works in a very similar way.  Healing isn’t forcing yourself to stop hurting.  It isn’t pretending something didn’t affect you.  And it isn’t revisiting the same painful memory over and over again until you have somehow thought your way out of it.  Healing asks for movement too.  There are memories, patterns, wounds and experiences that sometimes need to be acknowledged because they continue showing up in the way we live today.  And I believe there can be incredible bravery in allowing ourselves to visit those places gently.  Not to live there.  Not to force ourselves to feel differently.  But to listen and understand.  To take the pieces of wisdom that belong to us and begin releasing what no longer does.

One of the things movement has taught me is that I can acknowledge what I am feeling without becoming permanently stuck inside of it.  I can walk with it.  Breathe with it.  Let my body experience something other than the thought looping inside my mind.  And little by little, I can move forward with it.  Because there is another side to protecting ourselves that I think we sometimes forget.  The walls that keep pain out can eventually begin keeping everything else out too.  Love, connection, vulnerability, nurturing, opportunity.  The depth of life that we actually deserve to experience.

And that realization has become especially personal for me this week.  I have always found comfort in trying to predict outcomes and anticipate what comes next.  When I really looked at where that came from, I realized that for a period of my life, prediction actually was protection.

During my marriage, I became incredibly aware of behavioral patterns and changes in the environment. I was constantly trying to anticipate what might happen next so I could keep my children and myself safe and keep things as calm as possible.

That part of me learned something very important, if I can stay one step ahead, maybe I can stay safe.  And that is a very difficult grip to loosen.  Because even after the circumstances change, sometimes the strategy stays.  The instinct to anticipate.  The need to know.  The desire to figure out the ending before I have even lived the middle.

And I am realizing that what once protected me can also prevent me from fully experiencing the life that exists in front of me now.  Because when I grip too tightly for an answer, I lose some of my ability to listen.  When I decide exactly how something has to happen, I leave very little room for life to surprise me.  And when I am so focused on where I think I should already be, I can completely miss the evidence of how much is already unfolding.

So this week I have been practicing something different.  I have been loosening my grip.  And instead of constantly looking ahead for proof that everything is going to work out, I have been looking around.  At the actual evidence of my life.  And there is so much of it.  I see transformation in my relationship with my children.  I see transformation in my relationships with other people.  I see transformation within myself.  And I see incredible movement happening around Manifest in Motion and the experiences we are beginning to build.

There are people entering my life that I could not have strategically orchestrated meeting.  There are conversations happening that I could not have predicted.  Ideas are changing because I am actually getting out into the world and experiencing them instead of trying to perfect everything in my head first.  Some things I thought would look one way are beginning to take on completely different forms.  And instead of immediately interpreting that as something going wrong, I am trying to become curious… Oh.  What is this showing me?  Where is this leading me?  Is there something here that is even bigger than what I originally imagined?

That shift has changed the feeling of redirection for me.  It becomes less, why am I not getting what I want?  And more, wait…what if there is more here than what I knew to ask for?  Maybe trust isn’t sitting still.  Maybe surrender isn’t giving up our ambition, our discernment or our willingness to take action.  Maybe trust is being willing to move without demanding that every step immediately reveal the destination.  That feels very different to me.

Because I still believe deeply in movement.  I believe in sending the email.  Having the conversation.  Creating the thing.  Going for the walk.  Making the ask.  Following the idea.  Showing up.  Putting something into motion.  But then there has to be space to listen, to receive and for the response to be different from the answer I originally expected.  Space for God, the universe, source, whatever language feels right to you, to participate in the conversation too.

I have said for a long time that the universe meets you in motion.  Maybe the part I am learning now is this… The universe meets you in motion, but you have to leave enough room for it to answer.  And maybe we were never supposed to know the whole path before we started walking it.  Maybe the movement only needs to reveal the next step.  Then we listen.  Then we move again.