20 May Surrender to Being YOU
I was sitting here on this lovely Saturday evening working on my next book when I was suddenly inspired to change tack and write this post for my site.
It is 20 May and tomorrow it will be one month until my birthday and it has taken me until one month and a day before my 46th birthday to be truly happy with who I am and with where I am. This realisation came to me earlier – that I am totally and truly happy and at ease with me.
It wasn’t a wow moment. It was a simple moment of realisation from deep within and then overwhelming gratitude for that.
There have been glimpses of this moment before (would have been a bit dire, wouldn’t it, to get to certain stages in life without some level of understanding and acceptance of myself!) but always there was something missing, something that just didn’t quite sit quite right and there was that inner sense that I wasn’t quite where I needed to be within myself. I can’t define what made the difference. I may never know. And to be honest, that doesn’t matter; I accept not knowing.
Your moment will be different. For you are YOU, just as I am me.
I am happy with the things that I like about myself, that I love about myself and actually there are a lot of things I like, love and appreciate about myself. I am usually the first person in talk or workshop where the presenter asks who loves themselves to put their hand up! Because I do; I hold a great deal of love and respect for myself. Equally, and contradictory as it may seem, I am also at ease with the things that aren’t so great about me.
I am not perfect. I don’t believe any single human being is without flaws. I have done things, said things that I am not proud of. I have hurt people and I have been hurt. There are things I didn’t do that I should have done, things I didn’t say that I should have said. I have carried guilt and I have grieved, I have broken down, raged at life and I have despaired to the point of suicide. I have shattered into so many pieces that, at that time, I didn’t ever think I could be whole again. But I am. And all of that is ok.
Just as all of YOU is ok. No matter where you are in your life. No matter where you are within yourself.
Sitting here now I know that if I had my time over I would not change a single thing. I am exactly where I am meant to be and life is exactly what it is meant to be at this moment, as it has been in each moment. I am not special or unique or in any way any different from anyone else, except that I am me and each of you, is YOU.
From the outside looking in, my life may not seem perfect or ideal. From the inside looking out, it is – and this is the view that our soul is trying to get us to see life from.
I am sure that tomorrow, perhaps, or a few days from now this sense of completeness, wholeness, unity within my Self will shift. Life, and us within it, move on. It evolves and as we evolve as part of this existence, we move deeper within, uncovering deeper layers, unfolding more of our hidden and as-yet-unknown Self.
I wonder if next Saturday I will be able to sit here and say that I am totally and truly at ease with who I am, with everything about myself and my life. I am not sure. Next Saturday hasn’t arrived. What I can tell you is that I will remember this day. And when life’s curve ball next gets thrown this moment will always be within me and I will (in the calm moment of course but perhaps not the initial chaotic one) remember that curve balls land exactly where they are meant to and I will be accepting of what that curve balls starts to curve! – In all honesty, I do tend to step back, breathe through and see the bigger picture, life has taught me that and I am grateful to say I have learned its’ lesson.
In all of my 45 years and 332 days of life to date (quite proud of myself for that calculation!), I have never had such a sense of complete freedom; I can’t ever remember such a feeling of being at home within myself. One hopes of course that it doesn’t take another nearly 46 years for the next moment! That said, I can be stubborn…
I believe that we are all simply trying to reach the place where we are happy being who we are, warts and all. Perhaps we don’t know that is what we are searching for, but it is. And it is not a mental thought process to ourselves telling us to be happy but a real knowing from the core of our being that we are who we are and that that is all there ever needs to be; that we are where we are in life at this moment and that that is all there ever needs to be.
Life distracts us. Society attempts to control us.
Most of us are striving, endeavouring, searching. We have dreams, ambitions. We have a sense of responsibility and commitment; we feel a sense of purpose somewhere that we strive to reach to understand in order to fulfil it. We distract ourselves from the only real work we ever need to do – which is on our Self. Whatever we strive for outside of ourselves – none of that will be enough if we are not content, happy, at ease with who we are.
We start on the spiral of life, following its curve outward as we grow in age, seeking the experiences of life to inform us as we develop in intelligence, maturity and understanding. Our soul starts its work on the outer curve, drawing us inward to our Self. Our inner core. Our being. Whatever we wish to name it, that inner spark of the divine that is at the centre of the essence of who we are and which we have come here to radiate outwards into the world.
You are who you are. Right now, right at this moment, there is no one as uniquely and wonderfully you as you. This isn’t new and I, myself, have said it before. But it feels different to say it now.
Truly, you are YOU. And there is nothing more beautiful than simply being you. Nothing more beautiful or empowering or humbling than truly allowing yourself to be happy; to be ok with being YOU. With ALL of YOU. With every aspect of your life at this moment.
I am even happy with the pounding headache that I have at the moment! (I can’t tell you why I am…actually I can as the realisation has just come. It is part of me. It is that simple).
You are so innately you that you could never ever be another. You could never do such an amazing job being someone else as you can do by being you. No one else could ever be you in the way that you are – no matter what others may say.
No one could be the mother to your children that you are; the father that you are; the son or daughter or grandson or granddaughter that you are. No one could be the friend, the lover, the husband or wife that you are. No one can listen or laugh or cry or grieve or rage or hug or forgive in the way that you can. But all of you is YOU.
We cannot accept some things about ourselves and reject other aspects.
We all have things that we don’t feel great about – either about ourselves or about things we have said or done in our lives. Honestly, that doesn’t matter now, they are past and we cannot change them . They are the yin to your yan; they are the shadow that defines aspects of your light and make you appreciate the sun even more when it shines down after a rainy day.
Being you, allowing yourself to be you brings freedom within a world that restricts in almost every way possible. Being you, being ok with being you, accepting being you actually shifts the things you have been trying to change for months, years, decades. Effortlessly.
Be YOU. Love being you, even when you think you’re not loveable or you will never be loved, especially if you think you’re not loveable, LOVE being YOU. LOVE every aspect of that hurt heart within you. Love it until it can’t hold any more of your love within it.
Being you is who you came into this world to be. By simply being you and allowing you, you surrender – unintentionally perhaps but you do surrender.
And the grace of surrender shifts everything.
Blessings – from me to YOU.
Nicola xx