“You aren’t a drop within the ocean. You’re the whole ocean in a drop.” —Rumi
The final days of the yr felt like the precise time to let go. I stood in my yard with twenty-five years of journals—thick notebooks crammed with prayers, confessions, and late-night spirals—able to launch them to the flames.
I wasn’t being dramatic. I used to be being deliberate. I ended every day journaling a number of years in the past.
For years, I’d used these journals as a type of internal courtroom, consistently constructing a case in opposition to myself or others. Each web page held proof of failures, proof of my profoundly superior capability to gaslight myself. I might shrink or morph into no matter was requested for one more particular person’s consolation.
Small flowered booklets documenting all of the methods I couldn’t get “it” proper.
I believed I used to be processing. I used to be truly prosecuting.
However one thing unusual occurred as I flipped via them one final time. The primary journal opened with the fervent prayers of a fifteen-year-old religious Christian lady, begging God to indicate her the best way. The final one closed with a forty-year-old lady asking her spirit guides for path. Completely different phrases. Completely different cosmic addresses. Identical determined power.
I used to be at all times asking another person—one thing else—to avoid wasting me.
Throughout many years, births, strikes, profession adjustments and a number of religious identities, one theme remained fixed: I wrote like I used to be trapped in a universe I had no management over. My phrases painted me as a passenger in my very own life, watching myself make decisions I didn’t perceive, helpless in opposition to forces I couldn’t title.
Please assist me cease doing this.
Why does this hold occurring to me?
I don’t know why I can’t change.
When will the proper factor I really want be delivered to me?
Each entry bolstered the identical story: one thing exterior of me was pulling the strings. Whether or not I known as it God, the Universe, my Larger Self, power, or my spirit guides, I associated to it the identical manner—as a powerless youngster begging a mum or dad for scraps of management over my very own existence.
I didn’t understand I used to be doing this. That’s the insidious factor about religious bypassing disguised as devotion. It feels holy. It feels humble. It appears like give up.
However there’s a distinction between give up and abdication.
When Spirituality Turns into Disempowerment
Final yr, I enrolled in a shamanic coaching program. Of all of the trainings I’d ever taken on, it was by far my favourite. My mentor observed one thing in our very first session that I’d been blind to for many years. She listened to me describe my religious observe—my every day prayers, my readings, my checking for indicators—and stated merely: “You’re regarding the religious realm like you don’t have any company.”
I bristled. Wasn’t that the purpose? Wasn’t I purported to make requests to the sky? That’s a fairly central theme throughout the huge spectrum of the way I’ve associated to a pressure past myself.
“Prayer isn’t the identical as powerlessness,” she stated. “You’re allowed to ask for what you need. You’re allowed to make decisions. You’re known as to be a pacesetter and director in your individual life, even in case you consider in one thing larger than your self.”
Over the next months, I returned to this theme repeatedly. I paused each time I slipped into that acquainted language of victimhood—if it’s meant to be, it is going to be; I’m simply ready for affirmation; the Universe will present me when it’s time to go or to remain.
“You’re the one residing your life,” Chris jogged my memory. “Not the Universe. Not your guides. You.”
Wanting again at these journals with new eyes, I might see how this core disempowerment had formed the whole lot. Each relationship I’d stayed in too lengthy as a result of “possibly that is my lesson.” Each alternative I’d missed as a result of I used to be “ready for divine timing.” Each dream I’d deferred as a result of I didn’t obtain the straightforward and clear approach to start.
I had outsourced my decision-making to the cosmos. And the cosmos, in its infinite knowledge, had apparently determined I ought to spend years caught in patterns that didn’t serve me, asking the identical questions, making the identical errors, ready for permission to dwell otherwise.
The reality is less complicated and scarier: I used to be ready for permission from myself.
When You Cease Asking and Begin Selecting
The shift didn’t occur in a single day. It began with small, uncomfortable acts of company.
As an alternative of asking my playing cards whether or not I ought to apply for a brand new alternative, I requested myself what I truly wished. As an alternative of praying for readability a few tough relationship, I received sincere about what I already knew about my wants. As an alternative of ready for an indication that it was time to vary, I modified.
At first, all my previous stuff got here up. Who was I to resolve? Who was I to need particular issues? Who was I to behave with out cosmic approval?
However slowly, I started to grasp: spirituality doesn’t require me to be small. Religion doesn’t imply abandoning my very own will. Believing in one thing larger than myself doesn’t imply I’ve to consider I’m not necessary.
I might honor the thriller and nonetheless make decisions. I might belief in divine timing and nonetheless take motion. I might give up management over outcomes whereas claiming full duty for my selections.
So I burned the journals.
I didn’t learn each web page. I didn’t have to relive each disaster or cringe at each determined plea. I already knew what they stated. I’d been saying it for many years: Save me. Repair me. Inform me what to do. Convey me what I want.
As I watched the pages curl, I thought of what I wished to put in writing in my actual life throughout the yr forward. Not prayers to exterior forces. Not requests for rescue. Not proof for the prosecution.
Simply fact. My fact. The messy, imperfect, typically an excessive amount of however nonetheless highly effective fact of a girl who lastly understands that she’s allowed to decide on her personal life—even whereas honoring forces past her understanding.
I’m nonetheless religious. I nonetheless consider in magic, in thriller, in issues past my comprehension. However I not relate to the sacred from a spot of powerlessness. I pray otherwise now—not as a beggar, however as a companion. I ask for help, not salvation. I search for indicators, however I don’t await them to present me permission to dwell.
As a result of right here’s what I’ve realized: the Universe doesn’t need my obedience. It desires my participation.
And I’m lastly prepared to indicate up.
About Christina Lane
Christina Lane is a author and somatic coach. You’ll be able to take her new archetypes quiz, which can information you to your main and non-dominant archetypes and their finest matches right here: www.christinalanecoaching.com/e-mail. We are able to study a lot extra about how our persona blends finest with the persona of others via lenses like archetype work!