The Void
The darkness, the abyss, the in-between, the unknown, the unseen, the nothingness, the emptiness, or my favorite - the undefined. When you enter the void, you know life’s about to get very real rather quickly. The greatest potential for personal growth lies in this space, yet most of us are afraid of entering it.
It’s dark, uncomfortable, and uncertain, so it tends to come with a healthy dose of fear. Oftentimes, we’re led to this space by the loss of a job, death of a loved one, the ending of a relationship, or a deep realization that one’s life is out of control in some way. Change must happen. Whatever your situation, you’re generally forced into this space against your will.
How do you make the best use of a most transformative spiritual experience? The answer is simple yet so hard to actually accomplish: We must completely surrender to what is. No fighting, no denying, no lying - just complete acceptance and surrender to what is happening.
My most recent trip into this deep space of transformation led me to really examine myself in the most profound way. Throughout the years, I’ve peeled back many layers of myself; thus, this time it hit me deep. My first reaction was to go into self-protection mode and use my anger to armor up and charge forward. I used my self-righteousness as a shield and my judgments as the sword. I felt safe and validated in my decision and actions, but this false sense of security only lasted so long. Eventually, I had no choice but to completely let go.
For the first time in my life I truly leaned on my relationship with God and handed complete control over to him. Honestly, that was the best feeling in the world. I no longer had to have it all together and allowed the noise of my perfectionism to gently fall away. I finally allowed myself space to feel my feelings and the weight of my experience without self-judgment. For the first time, I was in complete and utter surrender, and I chose to get curious.
I began to examine how my beliefs led me to my experience. There was a huge shift in the way I began to view relationships and how I relate to others for which I’ll forever be grateful. Although I’ve done a great job increasing my self-awareness, empathy, compassion, and capacity to hold space for others, I discovered that I really wasn’t fully accepting the humanness of others to the capacity which I allowed for myself. That was a big pill to swallow. I got humble real quick.
My perfectionism had been quieted within my personal experience, but I still had high expectations of others and asked those closest to me to show up perfectly. With my trauma-informed background, I understand that this is directly related to the many years I was asked to show up and be perfect to make life easier for others around me. I have always played the part of the “good-girl” perfectly (ha ha), and I generally accepted nothing short of perfection from others.
Now I had to make a choice. I could choose to continue to keep up the high standards for myself and others, or I could choose to cut everyone some slack and allow us all to just be human. I chose the latter, and life has been so much sweeter as a result.
Now I show up in full authenticity. I use my compassion and vulnerability to help others to give themselves the same gift that I gave to myself. I invite you to put down the armor and quit fighting everything and everyone in life and just surrender. Allow messiness and pure bliss to co-mingle and exist in the space. Allow yourself to be vulnerable, and invite others in to truly get to know you and all of your beauty.
To get started, ask yourself the following questions:
Is this a recurring pattern?
How may I view this situation differently?
What may I learn about myself in this situation?
How would it feel to let go?
What do I want to invite in instead?
— Cyndi
