This journal article features an extract from the book “Surrender” by Nicky Clinch published by Hay House. You can purchase a copy here.
When any of us is given the invitation, ‘Do you want to break free of your patterns and live more empowered and free?’, every single one of us will immediately say, ‘Yes, yes, yes’, without ever considering what that really means. This is one of the greatest misconceptions when it comes to transforming who we are being and how we are living.
If I were to ask you, here and now, ‘Are you now ready to break free of your patterns and suffering so you can live empowered, joyful and free in your life?’, what would your immediate answer be? It’s ‘yes’, right? Without even a moment’s thought? Of course that’s your answer, because who doesn’t want that? Because what sits alongside that answer is often a perception that, once you get to live in freedom, empowered and free, everything will be better. Everything will be good and peaceful and it’ll be easy being you. You’ll sit alongside God feeling full of euphoria and shining your beautiful light on the world.
Such a pretty, beautiful picture. And one that is not remotely aligned with truth. Sorry. This is the picture that’s sold to us as a beautiful marketing ‘sell’, but it’s not the truth.
To break free of our patterns, to embody our most authentic, empowered and free selves, requires us to surrender – surrender everything we think we know about who we are and how we should be living our life. The beliefs, ideas and survival strategies; the behaviours, patterns and programming that have dictated how we have lived our lives up to now. Led by unhealed trauma from our past, fuelled by the stories we have identified within our minds, but none of which have anything to do with what is real in the here and now – none of which is who we truly are.
This is not an easy ask and it takes remarkable courage of heart – to surrender what we know, even if what we know is causing us pain, even if that suffering at least gives us some sense of control and security. As opposed to diving headfirst into the complete unknown, consciously leaving behind that false sense of security, in service of what is authentic and true. That requires great bravery.
For now, take a moment to think about what you do ‘know’ – about who you are; about what you need in order to get what you want; about all of your life, in fact. Where did you learn what you ‘know’? Think about it. Everything you think you know about yourself and your life has been inherited from someone or somewhere else. Everything. The ideas and beliefs of who you are as a woman or man. The patterns, the ways of behaving in life, in intimacy. Even the language you speak. All inherited from parents, teachers, friends, society. The ideas of what is the ‘right’ way and the ‘wrong’ way for you to live your life. The options you feel you have, and choices you feel you should be making, in order to ‘be loved’ or ‘acceptable’. Every single view you have about who you are – who you are meant to be, how you are meant to live your life, what is required of you in order to be loved or unloved or worthwhile or not – has been given to you by someone else, and was given to them by someone else, and to those before them by someone else. And if every single view is simply programming, but nothing is original nor authentic, then what is true and what isn’t?
In this moment I’d like to invite you to ask yourself the following question and, as you do so, take a moment to be still and to reflect on what this question offers: what do you actually know for certain?
Your maturation and healing are about unlearning what you ‘know’ – what you’ve been programmed with that is blocking your ability to see who you are and to see clearly full stop. Everything you know, everything that’s got you to where you are right now, might indeed have served a purpose in many ways. As you’re here with me reading this book, however, I’m assuming that such knowledge hasn’t given you what you hoped it would give you.
Nicky Clinch is a Transformational Coach, Spiritual Mentor, Entrepreneur and Founder of the Warrior Woman movement. It is her purpose in life to empower women to become their most authentic and aligned selves, knowing that everything they need is already within them. Connect with her on Instagram, Facebook and Website.
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