25 Aug Expanding To Your Next Level And Mastering The Art of Surrender
If you find it hard to navigate change and uncertainty, if you’re going through a hard time, or if you want to jump to a new level in your life, then this article is for you.
Expanding To Your Best Self
Two years ago I moved into an ocean front apartment in a resort.
I called it my expansion apartment.
It was a new level for me in terms of my home environment. A dream come true you might say. I could see the sunrise over the ocean and the sunset over the mountains which was once a dream of mine.
I thought when I moved into the apartment everything would expand in my life. And it has. I have. But not in the way I expected.
This is one of the biggest take aways of my experience with expansion season:
To get more you need to expand your capacity to hold more.
It sounds so simple but it’s not because it’s a nervous system thing.
Unless your nervous system feels safe holding more, you won’t get more. Or if you do, it won’t last.
Think of it like a rubber band.
It can hold a certain thickness of pens. To hold more pens it needs to be stretched.
If it stretches too fast then it’ll snap. If it does it slowly and gradually then it’ll expand.
It wouldn’t feel very comfortable being stretched out at first but with time it can comfortably hold more as it’s new natural state is the stretched out one.
This is what happens to you during expansion season.
Prior To Expanding
I thought everything was finally going to be amazing when I moved into my expansion apartment.
All my other dreams would start coming true.
Instead, it’s been a a wild couple of years with high highs and lower lows.
Everything is duality.
To expand and hold more, you also need to contract more.
To have more love you have to be open to experience more hate. To have and keep more money, you have to be open to losing it and feeling safe without it. To expand and reach new levels in your career, health, love… you must also be able to contract to deeper levels.
This happens internally and then externally because everything is a reflection of your inner world.
You might think this is great, I’m doing the work, I feel different.
Internally you are, but externally things take time to catch up.
You can be doing all the right work, yet things are still falling apart in your life.
This is when you have to stay in your power and keep going anyway, trusting it’s all part of the plan that you won’t be able to see until you look back in retrospect.
Contracting can make it feel like you’re going backwards.
Things seem harder when really they’re just setting you up to propel forward.
Like an arrow being released from a bow- it has to go back first.
It’s the contraction that creates the space that you need to be able to grow.
Expect The Unexpected
You can’t plan how expansion season will unfold.
There are going to be countless unknowns which can be scary.
You’ll need to learn how to step into the fear whilst also learning how to regulate your nervous system to stay calm.
You’ve never experienced what it feels like to be at your next level.
It won’t feel safe at first even if it’s what you think you want.
You might be thinking this sounds crazy, what do you mean it won’t feel safe, I feel fine!
Remember, a lot of this is subconscious. You won’t be aware of it unless you bring it up.
You’ll be tested over and over to make sure you’ve learnt the lessons to truly hold your new level and feel safe there.
It’s impossible to know what these tests will be beforehand.
You can only expect the unexpected.
When you’re tested you’ll want to go back to the behaviours of your old self.
You might see it as “self sabotage.” Really it’s just your nervous system keeping you safe.
You have to learn how to respond differently.
That’s when you’ll have truly expanded and everything else comes in.
The Easiest Way Forward
You have two options when things get tough or you’re faced with uncertainty…
You can either try and control everything, worry about how it’s going to work out and stress about what may go wrong.
OR,
You can surrender, let go of control, not stress about the how and trust: everything is exactly as it’s mean to be and it’s all happening for your highest good.
You can either live your life thinking about worst case scenarios or you can live your life in the present moment and enjoy it.
When “problems” come up, you can deal with them knowing they’re not problems at all because everything is working out for you.
You’re strong enough to handle anything that comes your way.
How To Surrender
Expanding to your next level in life is a process that requires courage and faith.
You’ll need to surrender into it otherwise you’ll keep coming up against resistance and block yourself.
The art of surrendering becomes easier the more you do it and see that it’s actually the path to success.
It’s about letting go of the outcome and how things will unfold. It feels like peace amongst chaos and confusion.
Here’s some things that help me to surrender…
Become the observer of your thoughts
You’re not your thoughts, you’re not even your feelings.
They are just there.
You can choose what thoughts to believe and you can choose better ones to create better feelings at any moment.
You don’t have to force yourself to feel happy when you’re deep in despair.
But once you’ve felt your feelings out, what is the next best thought you can choose right now to feel just a little bit better?
Release fear mentally and physically-
There’s two things you can do to diminish your fears:
1- Reframe them
You need to learn to think of fears differently.
Ask yourself what are you really afraid of – usually it’s deeper than you initially think so you have to dig a little. A question that can help here is “why don’t you want the thing you think you want?”
It’s because you’re scared of actually having it or you don’t believe you can.
For example, I held myself back for years because I was scared of success even though I thought I really wanted it.
But I wasn’t acting in alignment with the person who had more success because deep down I was actually scared of it. I didn’t want it.
Awareness of your true fears helps you stop giving your power away to them.
Other questions that might help is why is this fear coming up, what are you making it mean about yourself, is it actually true? Can you see a different perspective that serves you more?
2- Release your fears
You can’t always think your fears away.
That’s where somatic work comes in.
Breath work is a great way to do this. EFT tapping can also work. Massage can help.
Any kind of body work when done intentionally can help you connect deeply with your body so that you can release those fears.
It feels incredible once you do- you’ll instantly feel lighter and more free from within.
Come back to the present moment
It’s going to FEEL tough at times.
Is it actually or are you FOCUSING on the wrong things?
You might feel worried but is there really anything to worry about right now in this present moment?
Maybe you’re worried it won’t work out.
Do you have any evidence for why it wouldn’t? Don’t go back to the past and think about failed attempts. Right now you have no evidence either way and you don’t need it.
You just need to believe you’re more than capable and everything is always working out for you.
When you keep yourself in the present moment you will see that it’s not as bad as your mind is making it out to be.
Do you have your body and mind? Then, you have everything you need.
Look at your history of feelings
Ideally you stay in the present moment most of the time.
If you do come out of it and go to the past or future you need to do it like this:
The past is where you go to see what patterns have played out for you so you can gather evidence that things were always working out.
Think of some uncertain times in the past when you’ve felt the feelings of fear, overwhelm, stress. Did you really have any need to worry? Did it all work out for the best for you?
It always is and by going back to the past you’ll be able to see it. Why would it be any different this time?
The future is where you can go to imagine all the best outcomes.
Rather than worrying about things that haven’t even happened yet, take your mind to places where you want to be.
Imagine all the best case scenarios and get delusional being in that energy of all your wildest dreams already having come true. What would it feel like? How would you be acting if that were the case?
Play the “what if” game
If you find yourself stewing over potential problems that don’t exist yet, turn this into a game.
What if you just surrendered and decided to believe so strongly that things were going to work out because they had to? How would that feel? What would that version of yourself do right now?
What if the universe has a better plan than you can create?
What if it is as simple as just trusting, taking inspired action and letting it come together?
Wouldn’t it be more fun to let go and see?
Learn to trust yourself
Part of this is keeping your word and improving your self integrity.
You wouldn’t trust someone who kept saying they’ll do something but doesn’t follow through.
If you do this, then you’re not going to be able to trust yourself!
Start practising keeping your word.
If you say you’re going to go to gym tomorrow then do it. If you say you’re going to start working on your dream biz every day for 1 hour then don’t miss a day.
When you get good at this, you can develop a deeper sense of trust in yourself by testing your limits.
Start to do things that are a little more scary or uncomfortable. When you do you’ll start to see you truly are capable of anything.
You can extend this to learning how to trust the universe more.
Play games with small things first.
For example, practise manifesting small things that you don’t really care about. Ask for signs when you have to make a decision. Buy something that’s a little more expensive than you can afford and trust the money will flow back to you. Or when you get an intuitive nudge to do something, do it and observe the good that comes from it.
It’ll get easier to trust with bigger things the more games you play and the more you see how it works.
Leave the how up the universe
Creating that trust in yourself and the universe is important so you can do this.
Let go of control and embrace the uncertainty.
Trust wouldn’t exist if you had firm evidence that it would happen.
In order to truly trust, you have to be ok with not being able to see how it’ll come together.
Trying to create certainty only makes you feel worse, because you can’t.
The only thing that’s certain is to expect the unexpected.
Are you able to just sit in your feelings and stop thinking so much?
I know it’s hard, I have ADHD my brain never shuts up. But every time thoughts come up to figure out the “how” and “when”, let them come and then let them go.
Surround yourself with people who get it
The last thing you need is small minded people putting their fears in your head. You have your own fears to work through.
The people who have a logical life because that’s what makes them happy won’t be the best people to talk to when you’re going through expansion season.
If you want to expand and get more out of life you need to let the magic in.
Part of this means letting go of controlling HOW it’s going to happen.
Logical people will ask how and need to know this first.
The wild souls of this earth don’t need to know the how.
They only need to show up and keep listening to that intuition leading the way.
The action they choose to take often won’t make sense. It won’t be logical.
If you want extraordinary things then you can’t operate from logic.
It’s so much easier to remember this if the people you’re listening to daily have the same mindset.
If you don’t have anyone in your life like this, don’t be scared to cut people off and stick to yourself for awhile.
Doing this will make space for those people with a similar mindset to come into your life.
Finally…
At the end of the day it’s simply all a choice.
You can choose to surrender or you can choose to freak out.
One will open you up to receive magic in your life.
One will keep you stuck in your own fears.
I’m at the end of this expansion season and about to leave the expansion apartment.
I truly am a different person from the person I was when I first moved in. And it has started to show in terms of the people, places and things I’ve been attracting into my life recently.
I’m excited for what else is to come!
Yes this work is hard but if you have the desire for getting more out of life then it’s necessary.
You’re so capable of getting through it.
The fact is we are always expanding but it’s up to you how you approach it and what you create out of it.
Do you have the courage to go after what you really want?
I highly encourage you to journal on the questions in this article. And if you would like to work together to change your life, you can reach out for coaching here.