I Surrender…

Sweet Lehua demonstrates the joy of surrender., her favorite do-ga pose.

Prompted by a comment on “Postcards from the Chrysalis”, I was originally going to call this story “How I Stopped Worrying About the Butterfly and Learned to Love the Chrysalis”.

But as I sat with her comment all week, I came to realize that like the spoon in the Matrix, there is no chrysalis.

A chrysalis implies a safe container, a solid structure that encases and holds me as I transform. I’m not feeling safely contained or held right now.

I’m being sucked down in the darkest recesses of my psyche, getting to the really deep work — drowning in what feels like an endless sea of core wounds and generations of ancestral shit.

Having awakening after awakening like I’m living a conscious remake of Groundhog’s Day.

Wondering when — if— this period of intense suffering and struggle will end and the joy return.

Wishing Bill Murray were around to provide some comic relief in the meantime.

A chrysalis also implies a butterfly will automagically emerge from this mucky, gooey darkness into the light and take flight. That transformation is a linear process with a predictable trajectory and a defined timeline — caterpillar → chrysalis full of goo → magnificent butterfly.

When it comes to this stage of my heroine’s journey, this metaphor for metamorphosis is starting to lose its relevance — starting to become one of the many tools that served me well until it didn’t. Because the path of self-discovery is anything but linear or predictable. And it takes as long as it takes.

Unlike the butterfly, my relationship to transformation has involved a whole lot of striving. For the last 12 years since mom took the A train to the spirit realm, I’ve been striving to transform as if my life depended on it.

Striving to do my inner work —work that she was unable to do — to prove to myself and the world that her tragic life story didn’t have to be mine.

Striving to find the joy within.

Striving to turn tragedy into triumph, pain into purpose.

So

much

striving!

Striving that has honestly become fucking exhausting!

It has had its side benefits. In an effort to identify and “fix” all the things inside of me that were obstacles to joy, I made transformation my superpower. I lost 50 pounds, got out of chronic pain and into the best shape of my life in my forties, aged backwards by at least 10 years, liberated myself through amicable divorce and engineered a complete life redesign.

I was — and am — super proud of all that I’ve accomplished. And I’ve unlocked a lot of joy along the way.

And, I’m exhausted. Deeply tired at a soul level from all this transformational striving. I’m also at a point in my evolution of self where the work is getting harder. I’ve found the gems in the uppermost chambers of the cave I feared to enter and have now journeyed down into deeper, darker realms of my inner landscape where the treasure is buried deep in the muck.

This striving started long before mom died and isn’t just about transformation. It’s connected to the whole “I’m not worthy of love” thing which I wrote about in “The Other Side of Fear”.

I was born to a mother who felt unworthy of love — who made her life a never-ending, show-must-go-on performance designed to elicit love and external validation of worthiness. Love and validation that she was showered with but tragically could not receive.

I absorbed this energy in the womb and, when I entered the world as her first born, started my own desperate, never-ending song and dance for love. Trying to be just like her.

She taught me to please others, to anticipate their needs and exceed their expectations. Like her, I tried to be the perfect good girl striving for yet another gold star, approving smile, pat on the head. And like her, I did it all for love.

Because worthiness was determined from without, not within. Because love wasn’t something you received. It was something you worked for, something that you earned. And like all kinds of women’s work, the work never ends.

It’s never enough.

Because you’re never enough.

Because I am never enough.

I really thought that over the past 12 years I had proven that I was not like her. That I was able to heal myself in ways she couldn’t. That I had found self-love through self-discovery. Only to find that we share the same core wound— and that this wound is the (wo)man behind the curtain orchestrating all the joy-seeking transformation of the past 12 years.

This particular awakening has been the roughest one yet. And yet as hard as it is to realize this, it’s also liberating.

It’s given me permission to stop striving and surrender to the process. To go with the proverbial flow and stop struggling to transform. Stop struggling with the ups and downs of the journey of self-discovery and just be in it until it reveals all that it is here to teach me.

I know deep in my heart that I am worthy of love — as the amazing being that I am — without having to perform or work for it. That I am more than enough!

I also know that the urge to please, dazzle and delight others is so deeply wired into my psyche that I’m often not even aware when it’s at work. I don’t do it because others ask or expect it of me, I do it because it’s super low-level code that’s been running in the background for so long that I don’t even realize it.

And, shining light on this and sharing it with the world gives me the power and the courage to change that.

I also know that I remain deeply committed to my heroine’s journey of self-discovery. Because when you’re this far down in Campbell’s cave system, there’s no other option but to keep exploring to uncover the treasure and find the light within. The only way out is through.

I’m not giving up. I’m surrendering.

Trusting in the wisdom of the universe and being with what is.

Staying open and curious about all that is emerging.

Turning my super-powered pleaser back onto herself in an act of self-love and self-care.

Being gentle with myself and patient with the process.

It’s gonna take as long as it takes. So why fight it?

Why struggle? Why make it more difficult than it already is?

And in case it didn’t come through in this piece — or the last one for that matter — I remain a committed optimist. A proud daily wearer of rose-colored glasses and always see the glass half full.

None of us know how our stories will evolve, nor how they will end. I believe with all my heart that mine will end in joy, blessed with an abundance of love and gratitude. That I will end my life as I live my life, choosing joy, always hopeful.

If you’d like a guide as you do your inner work, please book a curious conversation to explore how the Vulnerability Doula can be of service to you.