Exploring what happens when you really ‘let go and let God’.
After six months of very targeted and intense periods of work following a particular strategy that involved lots of stretching beyond what I’d ever done before, I now find myself with time and space – in my head and in my calendar – coinciding brilliantly with our, so far, gorgeous summer weather.
And yet I’m aware of an ingrained habit that’s tempting me to fill this glorious space with ‘DOING’…
I don’t know about you, but while I’ve been running my business, particularly through the first couple of years of hard struggle, I would frequently fill my time with busy-ness because somehow I equated that with moving forwards.
At the same time I was also aware of how important it is to take time out completely to rest, relax and recharge, but more importantly, to disengage from constant thinking about the business.
Practising this regularly is one of the keys to success, but it’s easier said than done!
When you’re starting out in business you need to make lots of effort and take action. For many of us that includes doing most of the myriad number of jobs required to operate our business ourselves – the admin, book keeping, accounts and banking, the networking and all other kinds of marketing, and so on, and on and on… and that’s all to enable us to do the work we really do want to do, by which time we’re often exhausted!
And of course, if you’ve not started a business before the amount of things you have to learn can be overwhelming!
Not surprisingly it can be a bit of a shock to the system when the clients don’t come knocking at your door, especially if you had visions of being happily occupied doing the work you love that you gave up the security of full time work for.
When that security is gone, the money is disappearing out of your bank account at an alarming rate, and you find yourself not knowing what you need to do to find clients and customers, it can easily put you into fear.
In the grip of fear…
As you continually discover how much you don’t know and you get bombarded by all the marketing ‘should dos’ that hit your inbox or you learn about at seminars and trainings, it can seem impossible to make a clear decision about what the right way forward is because there are so many options, and all require so much of our time.
The fear makes us waste this precious time because it causes us to procrastinate, making it hard to commit to one course of action in case it’s the wrong one and doesn’t work. It tells us to follow the advice of the experts, ‘who obviously know better than us’, so we end up trying to do it all – dabbling here and there, using every marketing tool we can – often quite superficially and ineffectively – and getting nowhere fast! And boy, can that kill your confidence!
Our minds can go into overdrive frantically trying to think through our options, learning everything we can so we don’t feel so green and out of our depth. Success can feel so far off, and that puts us more into fear. And so the cycle goes round. As it does, the stress builds, the doubts rise and the self-defeating head talk gets louder and louder…
“…How did I ever think I’d be able to do this?” “I’m no good, I can’t do this!” “I’m not cut out to run my own business.” “Why would anyone want to work with me when I’m such an amateur?” etc, etc.
When we’re outside our zone of experience and in fear the mind desperately searches its memory banks trying to find a solution to our current situation, to bring us back into what it knows and understands, and it will throw in every sabotaging idea about us in order to make us believe that’s the truth about who we are, so we’ll step back from the threat of the unknown and back into the known where it feels safe, comfortable and in control.
But that safety zone isn’t where the magic happens!
Allowing the magic in…
The inspiration that fuelled your decision to go for your dreams lives outside the limitations of the mind, and inside your heart.
Divine guidance will prompt you with visions about what’s possible for your life through your dreams, through inspirational people, uplifting ideas you encounter and through moments of clarity that just pop into your head and make sense, giving you direction, like breadcrumbs leading you along a trail towards the fulfilment of living your higher purpose.
But the Divine speaks in whispers, and if we’re too darned busy with work, and distracted with mental chatter and ‘doing’ we won’t hear it.
So it’s imperative to STOP, take time out to listen, and to be still. Or if it’s too hard to turn your head off, go and enjoy yourself, fully immersed in the fun and pleasure of the moment, doing something you love where your heart is wide open, because that’s when Spirit can slip in those nuggets of inspiration that help us to know the next right step.
There’s my plan and there’s God’s plan… they’re not the same!
So although I’d had six months of intense activity I hadn’t actually intended to stop, except for the odd day here and there! I had a whole new strategy planned for my next phase of where I wanted to take my business…
…but there is ‘my plan’ and there is ‘GOD’S PLAN’, and my plan didn’t work out at all! What I thought would happen didn’t – not through any lack of effort.
I got the distinct feeling that yielding to this and letting go of any expectation or need to keep moving forwards was what I was being guided to do.
I decided to challenge myself over the last two weeks by only doing what felt good to me, where there was flow and energy.
So I have been having lie-ins, I’ve taken lots of time out to walk barefoot in nature, I’ve been joyously meditating, listening to audios on developing higher consciousness, seeing friends, connecting with old friends and making new friends online, and doing activities that bring me fun and pleasure.
I’ve finally caught up with some webinar trainings and interviews I’d been meaning to listen to, I’ve had some wonderful client days which energise me rather than drain me, and I hosted and facilitated a workshop for my group of wonderful business women at Winning Women Central London, which is one of the highlights of my month.
I’ve been watching the flow of energy around things intensely, and if I didn’t feel like doing something I didn’t do it! (which is why you’ve not heard from me for a while!)
Trusting the flow brings magical synchronicities
My head was quite resistant to this experiment at first, but ever since I’ve been doing it all kinds of synchronicities have come about. Work is coming to me, doors are opening, resolutions to sticky problems are coming about effortlessly, I’m noticing endless little pieces of good fortune occurring and I am in flow with the universe, feeling full up again.
The term ‘yielding’ rather than ‘surrendering’ seems a beautiful word to describe a more feminine way of letting go of the need to control, and of course it also means harvest.
I know that when the next inspired action is required I will take it and it will continue to lead me along this incredible unfolding journey of life that just gets better and better, but until that prompt comes I’m going to continue to go with the flow and not force things to happen.
And it’s not just me who’s experiencing this phenomenon. It must be something to do with the summer weather and the desire to be outside enjoying the warmth on our skin and the lightheartedness that lifts the collective psyche in this country at this time of the year, but I’ve noticed lots of women doing the same. We’re putting ourselves, our families and what matters most to us first, and we’re reaping the benefits.
We’re letting go and trusting that things will turn out fine.
And you know what? They always do!
Blessings x
