On so many levels we can grasp, hold and carry. Burdens that is, and I’m curious… what do you carry?

I for one, feel the old shadowy burdens creep in like a known weight of what I no longer wish to carry. But yet it creeps in like it’s welcome, by default, by me straying ever so slightly off the path. It jumps in like an excited mess.

Getting busy doing that thing, then the next thing and not seeing in that moment I’m distracting myself from a feeling that is stirring inside me. “Just keep doing!” it says, “This is how we roll”.

This is old and programmed, it’s the conditioned survival mode of Jessie living on struggle street. This fresh awareness knows it well and can see it moving in and out as I explore transcending this outdated pattern of mine.

Breaking these little life-long embedded default settings can be hard work, and the awareness needed to break that cycle of old can feel bigger than what you carry.. but perhaps it’s because what is carried is so known and you’ve held it so long that you now feel it has no weight?

What if you could drop into the weight of it, to feel whats lives there?

I recently did, unexpectedly. It started when I had a break from my children in the school holidays because I knew I had to reorganise my business and life for new direction, BUT the universe had other plans… I was learning a lesson on surrender instead.

To give you context, I hadn’t had a break from both of my boys for over 18 months. I do not live near family, I am a single Mum and I run my own business. I did not give myself time or space for my needs very often and what I have discovered was my form of self-care was just another thing I was ‘fitting in’ rather than really leaning into that care.

The shakeup occurred when I couldn’t work. I got sick, I had to stop, I had to surrender my way through two weeks of not ticking off my list of things to do, because who knew when the next time I’d have time alone to get it all done. I felt a huge pressure and frustration build from what I thought was me being behind in what I needed to do.

I hated every minute of the process, I’ll admit it. I did not surrender easily.

There came a point where I looked around the house and at all the things I needed to do, I felt I was getting sicker and sicker, and cancelled more and more work as the days went on. I had some beautiful support in this time that reflected my responses to me. It started sinking in that I was in a known way of being – to push, to force, to get things done when my body needed a bloody rest. It needed to recover from all the work I do as a healer and a mother. It showed me I needed firmer boundaries in every aspect of my life. By this stage I started really listening.

I cancelled work for the rest of my break and my body replied with instant relief – I had space now to heal.

I went to nature, even though I didn’t feel good. I listened to what I needed in each moment, I started writing and things just showed up one after another. The setting of boundaries was first, the clearing of time to heal was my way of committing to self-care, and by leaning into support and asking for help, the surrender process had begun.

In it I saw parts of myself that no longer need to struggle and create extra or the need to do it all, no one is giving me a badge for being the most tired mother that’s successful in all areas of life and overachieves at the expense of herself. It’s a way of living that served at a time when I was struggling, in many ways, and I had to survive. I thank that part of me in the release of that pattern.

Catching the thoughts, the actions, feeling into where it was coming from, being triggered by the rest into surrender felt like a mini-epic mission of the soul. I feel I am emerging lighter. I also feel I have a lot of integrating to do to this new way of being and there is some adjusting involved but I am showing up for it.

From surviving to thriving, to thrive I must be open to receive, I must be willing to break this pattern of self sabotage and to replace with all the things that allow me to thrive in this world. To also be unconditional towards myself.

These processes are here for us, how often have we been missing them when they do show up. I have no doubt they flooded in for me like a relentless hammering of the truth because it was a time I allowed myself a break. I look back in gratitude, even though it didn’t feel good. I look back with a fuller heart, in a deeper understanding for myself and the survival path I walked.

I now breathe in relief to be releasing the old and I look forward to walking a path into the new, with clarity and an epic adventure into surrender to remind me, just like that – things can be different.

And that’s the beauty of change.

Yours in welcome evolution.

Jessie