How to Surrender Your Fear

“To engender a sense of freedom, lie on your back and enter into the moods of the sky.” ~ Chrissie Wildwood

The night was so hot and uncomfortable. I went outside to lie down on the grass, the soft green chest of the great mother against my back. I breathed in the dark overcast sky knowing that no Goddess kissed raindrops would fall from it. Bats flew, criss-crossing through secret sky paths above me.

I could feel the tightness of fear and anxiety in my body and the many things that I’m afraid of rising to the surface: Judgement and uncertainty. The fear that I may never overcome the challenges of PCOS or carry a pregnancy to term, despite my efforts to heal and balance my body or nurture my spirit. And also those debilitating moments when I’m so consumed by anxiety that I cannot do simple things that come naturally to everyone around me. Fear has a sneaky way of convincing us that only dead ends lie ahead, even when that’s the furthest thing from the truth.

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I looked up at the tree tops against the dark sky and inhaled their wildness. Their silhouettes swayed in the wind and I drew their freeing energy into the tight places of my body. Let it all go, whispered something in me. So, I tried to. I let my tension dissolve. I wanted to surrender to the night, to become part of it and to free the parts of me that felt locked in shackles. I needed to embrace my fear, surrender to the flow of love regardless, trusting that it would guide me forward to a more nurturing and positive truth. As Gabby Bernstein’s puts it so perfectly in The Universe Has Your Back, “By embracing my fear and surrendering my desire to be free, an even greater pathway to freedom is opened up to me.”

I realised that there is no fear in the wildness of things of the night, just a confident sureness, a deep Trust. So, I recognised that must be like bats who trust whole-heartedly in their inner guidance system to navigate them through the dark. I must trust my truth and the sound of my own voice the way they trust their screeches to reverberate through the quiet air and then return to them as a sounding board. And I must shake off my fear like the wildness of dark tree silhouettes on a windy evening and guide myself back to the confident space of love, trust and hope for new possibilities.

I inhaled the coolness around me and felt myself loosening up, aware of the sense of ease growing within. I remembered how in many difficult moments, surrendering to energy of the Earth and trusting in the Universe offered me refuge and insight, and I felt grateful that these glimpses of wildness have carried me beyond the fear and home to myself again. As I listened to the sky, it seemed to look back down at me and say: “Surrender…Be fearless like the wild night.”

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“The practice that will serve your highest good is the practice of surrendering to the love of the Universe.” ~ Gabrielle Bernstein

Meditation for Surrender: Centre yourself with a few deep breaths. Relax your body and clear your mind. What fears are unsettling you right now? What is causing you anxiety? Take note of what comes up and then set the intention to surrender these fears and anxiety to the Universe. Let it all go. Visualise everything being released from your body, from you mind and your soul as you surrender and let go. Feel the tension melting way more and more as you release. Now think about the more positive thoughts and feelings that you would like to cultivate within yourself. What are they? How do you want to feel? Allow yourself to continue to surrender your fears and replace them with more nurturing beliefs that bring your peace of mind, calmness and joy.

Affirmation: I surrender my fear to the Universe. I choose a loving perspective that serves my highest good instead. I choose to think good thoughts that nurture my soul and help me connect to feelings of deeper peace.

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Closing Ceremony: Celebrating and Releasing the Year that has Been

How are you spending the last few days of 2014?

The last few days of the year are precious. I’ve learnt to spend them in an introspective space because it is a time to review what has been, to release the old and make room for the new.

As usual, Leonie Dawson’s Create Your Shining Life 2015 workbook is my companion at this time. It’s the perfect resource with which to review how 2014 has unfolded for you. The first section of the workbook includes a 2014 Closing Ceremony that I love because it’s a great way of taking stock of the blessings or achievements you have to celebrate, as well as what you need to release as the year comes to close.

In reviewing my own journey, there are a few experiences and lessons that stand out to me.

The spiritual lessons that I’m heeding: The lesson that I’ve been learning over and over again is to Surrender. Trust…and Flow. These three things have cropped up in all kinds of ways in the experiences and situations have have entered my life during the course of the year. Both my writing life and my conception journey have required my to relinquish my notions of control and to surrender, trust and flow instead. This wasn’t always easy to do, but each time I gave in to the reality of my situation and allowed Divine Spirit, Goddess and my wild essence to steer my forward, magic happened and new insights were uncovered.

The lowest low that I’m releasing: I’ve come to terms with my lowest low, which is having a miscarriage. It’s the most painful thing I’ve been through in a long while. It’s taken several months to reach a place of acceptance and to get back to the natural balance and joy of my inner essence. Anyone who’s battled with infertility knows that it isn’t easy. I’ve tried to keep my mind focused positivity on the fact that I actually got pregnant, which is a good sign that the health efforts and spiritual work I’ve been doing is working on some level. I just need to stick at it for a little longer and remember to keep getting out of my own way. I always go off track with my healthy eating and exercise routine in December, but today I am easing back onto the right path and I feel in my heart that my little miracles are coming my way pretty soon. So a ceremony of sorts is definitely in order to let it all go and to invite the possibility of fertility and childbearing in 2015.

Achievements I’m celebrating: Of course, my year has not passed without cause for celebration either.The thing that I’m most proud of is that this year I gave myself permission to focus more fully on my writing life. Doing so has opened so many incredible doors, all of which have reinforced that writing is a major part of what I’m meant to be doing with my life. After years of coming up with ideas and shelving files of half written stories and pieces, I’ve finally completed and published my book – Wild Essence. I’m blown away by the positive feedback I’ve been getting for the book too. I can’t explain how having this life long dream come into being has shaken my world. And I know there is so much more to come. That aside, I’ve done more freelance writing, guest posts and magazine articles this year too. One of the things that I wrote in my work book at the start of the year was to “get published in more anthologies”. Would you believe that this is exactly what happened? I’ve been included in two anthologies – one is Wild+Precious, which was compiled by Wild Sister Magazine, the other is called Spiritual Awakenings and will be launched soon.

How has 2014 treated you? And what are you celebrating and releasing as the year comes to a close? workbook