Originally Posted by
Sheila
Total synchro, Mike. And great thread. I was just working on this today – that I really have to trust and let go of fear. That that is what is holding me back. It’s just so hard to do when the concrete circumstances of your life are genuinely yucky.
I can inch forward with fear. But, I feel like I could soar if I could deeply trust.
Anger and protest – although sometimes healing, and always understandable – can also get in the way for me. Like how a kid holding her breath in protest ends up….without oxygen…..
For me, an important part of acceptance or surrender is trust or faith – the belief that, despite my current suffering, I am still fundamentally OK, safe – and the belief that I will be even more OK in the future.
What I need to do, though, is shift that faith-struggling-with-fear towards a more constant, resounding conviction. Don’t get me wrong – I have a lot of faith. But, like I said, if I had even more (there are degrees), I believe I would soar.
I can’t tell you how many anecdotes I’ve read of people struggling with fear and anger, and then they really let go, surrender, and boom – their lives transform. So, having read 6 trillion of these stories, why can I not do it?
Neuro-emotion makes it much harder, of course, but, for me, this lack of faith has roots in my earliest experiences, and, at this point, having done lots of good work in my own psychotherapy, it feels almost like an addiction to an old way of being that I can’t quite let go of (although, again, don’t get me wrong, I have let go of it a lot). I believe this w/d illness is a kind of purge of this issue – and things get worse on the way to getting better than ever.
Already, due to the work I’ve *had* to do to get through w/d, I have gotten so much better on this issue. But, there is more triumph to come…..
In fact, I want to end by flipping your point around, and saying that I think we have all *already* done a phenomenal job of letting go, surrendering, accepting, trusting, keeping the faith. Yes, there is always room for improvement. But, we have already grown so much in strength, endurance, wisdom, humility, courage, awareness, critical thinking, independent-mindedness, and grace under fire – more than most people ever do.