When Life Feels Unfair - Your Next Move
A counterintuitive approach to handling life’s curveballs
"Surrender is the simple but profound wisdom of yielding to rather than
opposing the flow of life."
- Eckhart Tolle
or read below
Hi friends,
This full moon /eclipse week has all the feels surfacing. Are you swimming in the seas of emotions too?
Eclipses can be times of exciting shifts, revelations, or surprises and sometimes they bear endings and clearings. I find myself on the latter end of the spectrum this time around. Feeling very human.
Growth can be exciting and alluring when it entails the more palatable aspects like new opportunities emerging or new ideas to put in play but what about when it involves letting go and surrendering when we don’t really know why or what follows?
This week I am writing about just that..what do you do when you have more questions than answers? I hope that if these times are touching you in ways that feel more like growing pains than growing gains, that you can receive some solace in knowing that this too is part of the natural cycles of life and that times like these allow us to be carried by life and forces greater than our own determination which is quite profound.
Where is life inviting you to trust the unseen forces and open your hand? I would love to hear from you about your journey…connection with others is a vulnerable but affirming way to travel these emotional waters without feeling alone! We often learn just how much people do care when we take the time to share.
When Life Feels Unfair - Your Next Move
A counterintuitive approach to handling life’s curveballs
This post has been in the works for a bit as I worked through a really challenging issue. I was discussing it with a friend and he said “this might be your next newsletter topic.” And I guess he was right. Thanks Ryan!
Recently, I had an experience with another person that seemed really unfair. I felt I had been really clear with my communication, extremely honest in boundaries and expectations, generous with my time and energy and had done “everything right” as I knew it. Yet, this other person did not seem to recognize or acknowledge any of my efforts and in fact failed to deliver “their end of the bargain”. I was dumbfounded. If I had to draw an emotional timeline it would have looked something like this:
Excitement/Inspiration>Hesitation/Apprehension>Frustration>Anger>Resentment>Shock>Confusion>Frustration
This situation took me on quite the roller coaster ride. Not only because of the results and interactions between me and the person were troubling but because the experience cost me financially and the end results seemed like I was walking away empty handed while this person walked away with full hands.
What really triggered me even more in this situation was that I felt I had been most connected to my intuition for all my decisions, I felt I had communicated better than normal and that I was vulnerable with honoring my needs an feelings… and I was in constant reflection about my choices and the situation so that I could learn and make “all the right decisions” and yet here I was in my own pool of uncomfortable feelings and unwanted results. It felt totally unfair.
I vacillated between blaming that person (that felt good momentarily despite knowing it was a dead end street) and blaming myself (felt not so good but seemed appropriate). What did I miss? Why didn’t I see this coming? What did I do wrong? Why was I on the receiving end of this unfortunate outcome? These were the relentless questions that replayed over and over again in my mind. It was exhausting. It drained me. I needed a Genius move….
Does this sound familiar to you? Have you ever felt like you were victim to life’s unfairness?
I wish this was my first time here but I have been here before but this time I knew I had some additional choices than before: Here were my previous choices and learnings through the years:
1. Distract myself with work or anything to get the feelings to go away (theoretically but never works)
2. Exercise a lot to get the anger out (temp relief but equally exhausting)
3. Keep trying to figure out what went wrong so I could fix it (keeps it a problem and attracts more like energy hence more problems)
4. Avoid doing anything “like that again” with another person (I learned my lesson! This breeds greater mistrust in myself and others so-lose-lose)
5. Avoid that person (protective right? But back to the mistrust loop)
Have you tried any of those before? I felt like this time I wanted to try something that actually worked and allowed me to honor the wisdom I KNOW to be true.
That life is inherently generous and is always working through me and for me…even when I don’t understand. Life wasn’t out to get me. I was not being punished. Life was just happening and I simply didn’t like it.
I could get behind this and knew there was something here for me despite what I thought I was signing up for…but what about the other person?
How were their actions generous and “for me”. I simply could not “find the wisdom” and I tried journaling, reflecting with others and I was always still at a loss. I could come up with some small “gifts” the experience yielded me but to be honest none of them felt comparable to the money I lost.
So what new Genius move was available to me? What is the next move when we feel life is “unfair”?
Let me introduce you to a new friend I am getting better acquainted with: Surrender. You may say I already know this “friend” and to be honest- not a fan. I hear you because before the last week, I likened surrender to giving up, to admitting defeat and it felt like a kid that was just told you can’t have ice cream but you can have another helping of broccoli. Wonderful! Sign me up. 🙁
Let me share my refreshed take on surrender that may soften your heart to this Genius ally.
Here was the timeline…
Step 1: I had to arrive at the acceptance that I was not able to “figure” out why this happened and boy did I try. But I owned that in my current state, the wisdom was not ripe for me and who knows when it would be or ever be. I had no control over it and so I decided to end the wrestling match. It was wasting my energy.
Step 2: I had to accept and feel all the feelings I was feeling and actually own them as mine for me to tend to and do it (opposed to thinking my way through them). So, I let myself be mad, frustrated and disappointed. It was not fun but it had to run its course and it took longer than I would have liked but that is simply the way it went.
Step 3: I let myself and the other off the hook (aka forgiveness). I didn’t need to blame myself and blaming the other person just kept me hooked to them in an activated emotional state and I didn’t want to be there. It was like adding fuel to a fire. Losing money and having this experience did not mean I was wrong, did not invalidate any of my skillful actions and did not have to mean anything at all. I could take back my power to tell the story another way. I explored something I felt called to and I tried my best and what happened happened and it was not what I wanted. End of story. Maybe that was all there was to it?
Step 4: Then here was the big part, I offered it back to the divine intelligence, spirit, source, love-whatever you want to call the universal energy that allows the sun to rise and the oceans tide to ebb and flow and the seasons to come and go. I had to not only with words but with full heart felt intention say “I simply don’t want to be in struggle and suffering to this. I don’t know why this happened and I don’t know what if anything to do next. I give it back to the source that gives me and everything living life and I say this, take from me and I open my fist and allow it to go.”
Full disclosure, I have done this every day for a while. Each time I imagine giving it to a source of flowing water, or dropping off a suitcase and leaving it. Whatever image allows me to give the energy away and go back to where it belongs.
How does this work you might say? Well, so far all I can tell you is that I am just going to do this practice until I feel it is complete and I will not “do” anything further on this situation until I feel otherwise which may mean I never do anything but this surrender practice.
So, how is this different from my old “defeated style” surrender?
1. I recognize that I was not defeated unless I choose to tell the story this way. Did I lose money? Maybe or maybe I invested money in something that had different results than I expected. I am story teller and I choose to lighten it up and not assign blame or tone that it unnecessary and hurtful.
2. I also realize that I am not defeated because I am choosing not to carry around this heavy and burdensome energy any longer. Is it totally gone-no but is it way less restricting than it was-yes! I feel lighter each day.
3. Surrender is a conscious choice of an action step that I make each time. No one makes me do it and I can do it or not. So I remain chooser and in my seat of creator and so I am not disempowered in fact I am more in my power because I can choose to feel better instead of the situation choosing for me (and causing me to feel bad).
In essence, surrender can be a powerful act of self love, courage and the choice to ride the wave instead of getting beat up by the surf. Our world generally shows us two ways to deal with life’s undesirable experiences: fight back and push harder to get what you want OR give up and assume defeat. I think surrender is option C and takes us out of polarity. It allows us to choose to accept, trust and be open to what DOES want to flow naturally. This doesn’t mean we can’t want what we want, or have what we want, it simply means that when we stay in flow with life, trusting that we often just don’t know “how it should be” but an intelligence that can give our planet life most likely does and we allow that flow to carry us we don’t have to know.
So, what is your life could use some surrendering?
Is it that relationship you are trying to so hard to find or maintain that seems illusive?
Is it that extra financial flow each month that seems to be going to everyone else but you?
Or is it a reason why something happened that you wished had not?
Join me in this powerful practice and see what happens when you lighten your load and allow a more intelligent source to carry it and show you a better way forward!
What if knowing how and what to do isn’t a prerequisite for it to transpire in your life.
What is your Genius move?
Love,
~ Jill
Support Practice Recommendations for this week
Rose Oil+Breath Practice
I love Rose oil when I need a hug but one isn’t available. Let Rose (Geranium or Jasmine works too) provide that solace for the tender places that need some TLC. While I inhale this oil I energetically receive its gift of presence and calm, then I exhale 2x longer than my inhale and imagine myself breathing out all that I no longer want to carry. I imagine giving it to the ocean, the river, the earth mother who gently carries it away for me.