About how commitment to your dreams and surrender takes you to the next level in your life.

There are place in ourselves we wouldn’t choose to go willingly. Aspects of us we would do all we can to avoid showing them. Because we learned throughout life that these aspects were weaknesses, not acceptable, shameful. And unconsciously we do all we can to avoid needing feeling that again.

And still, in these places is gold to be found.

The power of the choice to show up in the unknown, surrendering to the moment and what is.

At the end of the week of Embodied Speaking at New Eden (Holland), as a conclusion of our training we were invited to prepare and perform on stage a presentation speech of 4 minutes. 

We were given the time over lunch to get prepared. I had quite a few ideas, but to extract the essence, it was clear that I needed more time. And I really felt the futility and counterproductivity to work hard to try to force my creativity. I know things need to be dropped a while to let the process continue in the background and complete it effortlessly when it’s ripe.

So I first had to let go of the expectation to be able to articulate right now THE message that says all about my work and passion. I would have so loved to have an impactful, clear message I would be proud to publish to inform about what I want to serve. I realised that I had to accept what was ready to be expressed now in its imperfection.

But even so, preparation time was over before I managed to formulate a coherent message with a visible red thread.

The other participants began to perform their pieces. I was amazed how they one after the other could bring a strong beautiful content about their passion and what they want to bring to the world. As time passed, I was more and more aware that my turn would come and I still had no clue about how to present why I’m doing what I do. Distress grew in me to the point it was disturbing me and I needed to do something to let it move.

As I didn’t want to interrupt my friends on stage and I no longer could focus on their performance, I chose to eject from the event room and meet my feelings outside.
My tears running, someone came to me to hear what was going on for me.
I expressed all my distress of not having a speech ready.

After a while explaining to her why I couldn’t perform and feeling the familiar frustration of not feeling able to take my next steps in my heart centered business, I finally asked myself what was worse that could happen now: being on stage and being the only one who didn’t manage to come with a coherent content for her message? Or not going on stage and sit afterwards with the group in circle when we would celebrate that we all made this decisive courageous step toward speaking from our heart in an impactful form, however the performance went.

Rather show up than hide anymore 

At this point it was clear that the shame of being the one who is not being able to bring an coherent content was nothing compared to the feeling of misery of not having symbolically taken that step. I understood that I’d rather dropped any ambition to make it right and allowed myself to just come on stage without other ambition than showing up.

So tears still running, I went back inside. Someone just finished his talk and the next person was called to go. To the questioning look at me, I decided that this was the time to go – my emotions were anyway unlikely to settle within the coming minutes.

A deep breath, moving my body and feeling it, stepping on the stage, go and stand in the middle of the front of the stage and take in my audience. After a few eye contact, a wave of emotion swept over me. So I began to speak, presenting myself and naming my uncontrollable emotional state I face so often as the highly sensitive person I am. How it shuts down my logical left brain and although my emotions are there running I had this day chosen to show up anyway.

I told my story of the gifts of having my logical rational minds qualities that were appreciated and encouraged since my childhood. How I became a Ms mechanical engineer, whose work and performance were appreciated. I was good and praised at my work but I always had to fight back these emotional waves outburst that were seen as inadequate weaknesses. And my slow pace to answer in the moment were considered as signs of incompetence- quick answers were king.

As good I was at my engineering work, 8 years ago I remember how I was telling my best friend how I was doing my best at my work and still didn’t feel satisfaction and pride – only so drained. Her answer came like a slap in my face. ” Well it means that it’s not your best”. What was she saying? Then it became clear: I did my best as an engineer but this wasn’t the best I could do. I had something else to give.

So from that point I have been in a quest to align myself with my truth, a self discovery journey where I learned different skills to support others to create and step into a life of deep satisfaction, purposeful, meaningful, where their very qualities, their essence find her expression.

As I got tense while speaking, I invited myself to breathe together with the audience.

I closed my speech by inviting people feeling that they don’t fully fit in and or feel stuck, not able to express their fullest self to take contact with me to explore what could help them.

When I still stood there on stage, I could feel the joy of having done my speech despite my fear of exposing my emotions and not having a coherent message. At this point, I just enjoyed having dared to show up. And at the same time hearing my mind telling me “that’s all good, but why on earth would anyone be interested to hire me after seeing that, when showing myself so fragile with so strong and visible challenges- not having it all together? »

Only when debriefing with some of my friends could I realised the positive impact of what of me had just shown up. 

These tears I so feared to expose, all these authentic emotions served my message, guiding me to tell just what was relevant of my life story for the purpose I’m here to serve today. “It felt as if you planed your tears just to make the necessary impact ” was one of the comments. 

I had just been shown by Life what a new paradigm leader can look like, in full coherence with who I actually am, without pretending of having it all fully under control.

This dive in the unknown and surrendering to what is, gifted me with a clarity that had eluded me until this moment: I knew more now about who is the specific audience I’m here to serve: highly sensitive persons whose emotions and pace have been in the way of their full expression in life, and let them find their way toward the impact and change they long to gift our world with.

Commitment to my purpose 

Another gift that I have been given and reminded of through this experience was to witness that my commitment to show up to what I felt was most serving me gave me access to resources in myself to respond in real time to what is needed in the moment. And that my preparation didn’t need to be complete, meaning that I don’t need to know exactly what to say before hands. All the pieces can fall into place in real time.

I experienced this again two days later. At the beginning of the week, I had committed to lead a body movement morning practice. And when time came, I just had had a very unsettling short night sleep. 

By feeling into the fact that practicing my leadership was a step serving my purpose I wanted to take, and this was a beautiful opportunity, I could decide to be fully present and gently take care of my energy as it was before starting the session, trusting that I would find a flow. During the session, I witnessed how my intuition delivered in the moment ingredients I had wondered before how to integrate.

And the feedback after the session was so good. I could gratefully see the progress of my loving command to guide others.

Now it’s your turn!

How can you use more commitment to your higher purpose and let go of the control habits and  surrender to your intuitive intelligence in your life?

What are your experiences? 
What can you do today that serves your growth?

Tell me in the comments!
Have a vibrant living day!