Are you strong enough to surrender?

Yesterday a friend of mine went to the dentist to have a tooth extracted.

As I told her how much I admired her bravery (I’ve been putting the dentist off for quite a while now) she commented that she did indeed find herself needing to be brave.

As the Dental Nurse was getting her ready, she suddenly felt terribly anxious and had to ask for a moment to prepare. My friend is a complete weirdo like me so naturally this preparation meant taking some time to have a quick chat to the tooth that was about to be pulled.  

When she asked the Nurse if she could take a moment to talk to her tooth, the Nurse was pleasingly sympathetic and agreed to give her and her tooth ‘a moment.’

As the Nurse left the room, she suggested to my friend to tell the tooth to “Be Strong.”

To which my friend replied, “I think I’ll tell it to LET GO.”

Wow. That’s some inspired spiritual genius in the dentist’s chair. What an answer! As those words came out of my friend’s mouth, I felt a powerful knowing arise in my body. A revelation.  

All my life I feel that I’ve been operating under that first command: Be Strong.

When confronted with hurts, pains, and difficult emotions – my system automatically goes into ‘be strong’ mode. Looking to push it back down (suppression ending in illness) or push through it (avoidance while being a workaholic perfectionist).

But in that instant, I connected with what my body, my Inner Child, had truly needed and wanted all along. It didn’t want to fight pain, or withstand it, or push on through it.

It wanted me to let it go.

I became so quickly enamoured with this concept that I then questioned whether we need strength at all? Was the answer to everything to just LET GO?

This hurt my brain for a while before I settled on this question:

What if it takes strength to let go?

And then this came:

What if the strength we channel into putting on a brave face could be channelled into taking a leap of faith?  

When confronted with difficult situations and emotions, we are usually fighting, withstanding or pushing through them because we feel powerless to them. We feel weakened by them. We believe we’re somehow failing. And so, we must ‘summon the strength’ to get our power back.

Yet true strength means not buying into the bullsh*t story that emotions are a sign of weakness. True strength means being able to masterfully express emotions and let them go. True strength means feeling empowered enough, and trusting enough, to surrender. Even when you don’t know what awaits you on the other side.

When we meet our emotions from this empowered place, there’s no need to push down, push away or push through. There’s simply: Be Strong and Let it Go.

Would you like help in letting an emotion go or finding the strength to take a leap of faith? You can book a session with me