Surrender in layers

      The only thing I really celebrate this time of year is the Winter Solstice. The shortest day gives way to longest night that opens into the slow return of light. This week I’ve been reflecting on my year in preparation for celebrating the Winter Solstice on Sunday night.

   This year has been and still is a full tilt roller coaster of challenges, opportunities, good adventures and ginormous gifts. When I looked at where I’ve been this year, two things kept jumping out at me – surrender and freedom.

    Surrender gets a bad name in Western culture. It’s often associated with waving a white flag, giving up and relinquishing your power to some external thing. Before I got into recovery surrender was something forced upon me by various external authorities that wanted me to do something I didn’t want to do. My introduction to surrender as spiritual principle came when I got clean in the mid-eighties.  The idea that the only way I was going to learn to live clean was through surrendering to something greater than me was hard to swallow. I didn’t like the idea but it made sense. My addiction had kicked my butt. I needed to do things differently. I had no idea to do that. Surrender was the only practical option.

    That surrender, born mostly of desperation, was my introduction to the idea of letting go. Even in my first few attempts at that level of surrender brought an immediate sense of relief. Surrendering let me off the hook for trying to do the Universe’s job.

     From there my definition of surrender expanded to include not messing with the things I can’t change. There was a sense of both relief and freedom in looking at something I was scrambling to “fix” and realizing I couldn’t change it.  However both the relief and the sense of freedom were pretty limited.

     Although I was learning not to take action on things I couldn’t change, I didn’t know how to stop spinning around in my fuzzy little brain about them. Learning how to redirect my mind when I found myself endlessly analyzing a situation and running scenarios about how it might come out took years. I’m still a work in progress on that one.

     My path this year has brought me a new understanding of surrender. Surrender is the art of getting out my own way. Each time I surrender I cross the threshold of freedom and make more room in my life for magic.

     I also have a new clarity about what I let go of when I surrender. Surrendering to an external authority is surface level sort of surrender. I invite in something much deeper when I surrender to the unknown.

      This year has brought me face to face with big piles of unknown. I experienced many moments of yikes and wanting to fight with what was happening. Fear blocks surrender. Once I got past the fear and my ego’s desire to control, I found myself in a very different place. Although my head still wanted to run scenario’s and analyze the situation, it didn’t hook me for very long. I couldn’t talk myself into believing what my monkey mind was spitting out.

     Surrender is more than letting go of control. It’s letting of my illusion of control, any beliefs I’m holding that this “shouldn’t” be happening or that I “should” be in control. Control is an attachment to outcome. Yes, in most situations I do have a preference for how things come out. But when I keep feeding that preference with my attention until it becomes an attachment, I box myself in.

     That feeling of being cornered or boxed in triggers my fight instinct the same way it did when I was kid and an authority figure wanted me to do something I didn’t want to do. The difference now is my awareness that what I’m really being cornered by is not an external authority or situation. It’s me; my need to control. I can’t blame that on someone or something else.

     Being faced with an ongoing heap of unknown, I knew I had two choices. Surrender and go along for the ride or refuse to surrender and keep pushing the river. Again, surrender was the only practical option. Because I had more clarity about what I really letting go of, I was able to see surrender as choice and not something that was being forced on me.

     To my surprise, surrender without resignation brought a more enduring sense of freedom. Much of that freedom came from some trial by fire learning about staying in the now. With so much unknown, redirecting myself over and over again to the present moment seemed the only way to move with what is without making myself crazy.

     In that I discovered another lovely little paradox. Although I often chose surrender from feeling powerless, surrender is one of the most powerful choices I can make. All the power I have lies in the present moment. When I surrender, I give myself the power to be fully present and work with what’s happening.

     Another aspect of this new freedom has come from inviting the Universe, my soul and the unknown to be my partners in the life I’m creating for myself. My life works much better when I don’t limit myself to living in the confines of what my little self (personality, ego, etc.) can grasp.

      As Albert Einstein said, “There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.” Surrender paves the way for everything being a miracle. When I’m able to stay in surrender and equal partnership with the unknown, my soul and the Universe, I let of my need to know where anything is going to come from. In that place everything that arrives becomes a gift.

   

Demystifying "psychic"

     One of the most common questions people ask when they first meet someone is “What do you do?” For me those conversations usually go something like this:

            “So what do you do?”

            “I’m a shamanic healer.”

            Pause.

            “Oh.”

     The meaning of “oh” varies according to the length of the pause and the tone of voice. It usually conveys disbelief, curiosity, recognition or awe. Curiosity and recognition are fun. They can lead to some great conversations.

    The disbelief/incredulous “oh” usually follows an awkward pause. Two minutes ago I seemed like an intelligent, rational woman. Now I’ve become something else. No one reasonable believes in that “woo-woo” stuff so I must be crazy or full of crap.

   I am most uncomfortable with the awe filled “oh.” With that one little word, I’ve gone from being just another person to being mysterious, extra spiritual and maybe a little intimidating. I’m not any of those things.  I don’t want to be anybody’s guru. I’m not magic. I’m not an oracle. I’m just me. A question that often accompanies this “oh” is whether or not I’m psychic. My standard reply is, “Yes and so are you.”

    The meaning of the word psychic has been obscured by overuse, miss use and projections fueled by misunderstanding. Many people associate psychic with fortune telling and the ability to see the future. A person who can see future possibilities is a clairvoyant. Clairvoyants are a type of psychic, the same way your bicep is a type of muscle.

    Dictionary.com defines psychic as:       

            1. of or pertaining to the human soul or mind; mental (opposed to physical ).

2. Psychology . pertaining to or noting mental phenomena.

3. outside of natural or scientific knowledge; spiritual.

4. of or pertaining to some apparently nonphysical force or agency: psychic research; psychic 

    phenomena.

5. sensitive to influences or forces of a nonphysical or supernatural nature.

     Nothing in those five definitions is mysterious or applicable only to certain people. We interact with nonphysical forces every day. To varying degrees, we are sensitive to those forces. The most basic example of a nonphysical force is emotion. Our sensitivity to our own feelings and the emotions of others is the basis of our capacity for compassion.

    We’re all born with both physical and non-physical senses. We all have intuition. Being psychic is as much as part of being human as being able to smell bread baking, hear music or see the color blue. As with any other innate ability, people’s gifts vary in degree and the way they manifest. However, intuition and being psychic is not some mysterious thing that only certain people have.

     The most basic way we experience our intuition is through gut feelings. This experience is so common the U.S. military has dubbed it the “spidey sense.” The U.S. Office of Naval Research is interested in learning more about both how it works and how it can be taught to soldiers.

     Gut feelings can be difficult for you to identify if you have a strong bias toward being logical and/or rational. Your brain responds to the gut feeling before you are even aware of what you're feeling and leaps in to logically substantiate the intuitive nudge. By the time you take action, you’re sure you've made a decision based solely on logic and reason.

     We live in the information age. Many of us are raised in societies enamored with technology and the scientific method. We are largely socialized and educated to believe the proof of whether or not something is “real” lies in the scientific method.

    The predisposition toward logic, science and technology influences how we’re educated. In school we’re taught to identify colors, what sound a cow makes and how to read. We’re not taught about non-physical senses, gut feelings or intuition. Few of us learn that at home either.

    In school we’re also taught the basics of math and science. Although most of us don’t really understand how a nuclear reactor works, we know enough of the basics to see it as technology and not magic. However, without any basic understanding of intuition and non-physical senses those things do seem like magic….and magic isn’t real.

     There is also a degree of normalization that occurs when something is talked about enough to become common knowledge. The existence of healers, mediums and other types of psychics is common knowledge. But what that means and how those people work is not. We as human beings have a long history of reacting with fear, suspicion or awe when confronted with something we don’t understand.

    I’ve often found when people react that way to finding out what I do they’re responding to a societal bias and/or the way mass media portrays psychics rather than any actual experience. The popularity of television shows like Ghosthunters and Ghost Adventures hasn’t helped any. The fear based reactions of the ghost hunters only serve to reinforce the belief that this piece of unknown is either a hoax or something to be feared and revered.

   If you’re interested in a realistic portrayal of a psychic, watch some reruns of Medium. You’ll see the way Allison’s intuition works. You’ll also see her struggle with raising children, running out of milk and being late for work. Sound familiar? Yep, she does the same stuff we all do.

    There are healers who employ theatrics to reinforce the belief that what they do is mysterious and beyond the realm of normal people. Neither I, nor the healers I count as friends and colleagues see it that way. The being mysterious and beyond normal people is a belief that’s projected on to us. It’s not one we internalize or intentionally foster.  

    I can’t take any credit for my gifts, my curly hair or being able to draw. It’s just what I was born with.  While many people experience their intuition as a gut feeling they can either acknowledge or ignore, mine was more persistent. From age five on, my experience was more like a musician who can’t stop hearing the music in her head. None of my gifts came with an instruction manual. Unlike the musician, there wasn’t anyone I could go to for lessons on how to use my gifts. I made the choice to listen to my intuition. The more I was willing to listen and follow, the stronger my intuition spoke. The rest was, and still is,  a ton of trial and error. The Universe blessed me with people who could help me figure things out and teach me to ask the right questions.

    I’m good at what I do, not because I’m magic but because I practice. I work at it, the same way a musician practices her instrument. If I’d been born with a feel for wood, I might have become a carpenter. I work as a healer because that’s what I was given.

   The ability to see others more clearly than we see ourselves is part of being human. Working as a healer doesn’t make that different. I rarely get previews for my own life. I'm often surprised by things. I still put on my jeans on leg at time and forget when I put my cell phone.