ISSUE 43 - The Energy You Get Back When You Let Go

There comes a moment on your spiritual journey when you realize you have actually surrendered.  Not when you have said you are letting go.  Not when you have tried to convince yourself that you trust.  But when something inside of you finally releases its grip.

The weeks leading up to this have felt like the Universe turning up the heat, asking me to confront what I was still holding onto. Even in my last reflection, I could feel that invitation growing louder, “What are you being asked to release?”  For me, some of the hardest things to let go of are the things that sit closest to my heart.  People who have impacted me in beautiful ways. Relationships that have meant something deeply. Visions I could see so clearly that I began believing they were the only way something could unfold.  And sometimes the invitation is not to stop loving something.  It is to stop controlling what it has to become.

There are moments when I can feel that God, the Universe, Source, whatever language feels true to you, is transforming me, another person, or the dynamic between us in ways I cannot yet understand.  And I am learning that if I want to experience the fullest potential of what something can become, I may have to release my version of what I think it should look like.

That requires trust.  Trust that there may be movement happening behind the scenes that I cannot see.  Trust that something can be rearranging itself without my involvement.  Trust that what is trying to reach me may be far beyond the limits of what I have been able to imagine for myself.

And recently, I could physically feel myself letting go.  I felt the release move through my chest, down my arms, and through my fingertips, as though energy I had been holding tightly was finally being allowed to move again.  What surprised me most was what came after.  Energy.  Because holding on requires energy.  Trying to predict the outcome requires energy.  Trying to manage another person, a timeline, a circumstance, or a future you cannot yet see requires energy.  And when you release what is outside of your control, you get that energy back.  You can pour it into what is actually here.  Into your life, your children, your purpose.  Into what you are creating.  Into the next inspired action sitting directly in front of you.

Surrender does not mean you stop moving.  It means you stop forcing.  You can still move with your heart.  You can still follow excitement.  You can still have desires, questions, dreams, and visions for where you are going.  But you are no longer demanding that life arrive through one particular door.  You begin taking the lesson that is here today, listening for the guidance available today, and taking the aligned action you can take today.  That is what is yours.

When I look at the life I am living now and the things I am creating, so much of it is beyond anything I could have imagined when I first began this spiritual journey.  Some of what is unfolding feels more beautiful, aligned, and moving than what I once knew to ask for.  And that has become evidence for me.  If life had handed me exactly what I had imagined years ago, I would not be standing where I am today.  Some of the greatest things in my life came through routes I never would have planned.

Which means perhaps the work is not always to know exactly where we are going.  Perhaps the work is to become the person who can recognize the next step when it appears.  To create the capacity to hold what we are asking for.  To notice the lesson.  To follow the guidance.  To move when we feel called to move.  And to release when we feel called to release.  Every time I have truly surrendered, when I have stopped gripping the outcome while continuing to move with aligned action, space has opened.

And again and again, something I could not have orchestrated on my own has entered that space.  Maybe that is what surrender really is.  Not giving up on the life you desire.  But releasing your insistence on knowing exactly how it must arrive.  You continue moving.  You continue listening.  You continue becoming.  And you allow life to meet you there.  For me, surrender often feels physical before it feels logical.  My chest becomes lighter.  The anxiety begins to quiet.  My body softens.  And underneath the uncertainty, there is expansion.  There is warmth.  There is a quiet excitement for what comes next.  I may not know where the path ultimately leads.  But I know the difference between gripping and trusting now.  And perhaps that is enough.

To release what was never mine to control.  To move with what is mine to move.  And to trust that there may be a life unfolding beyond anything I could have planned for myself.