Finding centre in the chaos!

LIving from a place of rest

I’ve been taking a step back as the crazy season has started. Anyone else’s inboxes just flooded with an overwhelming amount of noise right now? I probably need to unsubscribe from some more lists!

But when things start getting loud - I tend to go the opposite way. If you’re receiving the 100 Days journalling emails, we are going to be on pause probably until after the new year, so that we can all offer ourselves a little more space. I don’t want to add anything that just feels like another thing to your to-do list.

Even though some logic might say it’s the time to capitalise on the buying mood and join in with offering deals, and people might tell me it’s the wrong time back off… it just has never felt natural to me. I don’t feel like adding to the noise.

So this is your invitation too - if you’re feeling the pressure, like you should be doing more, or else you will miss out. It’s ok. Take a step back. Even though it feels like the whole world is joining some party and you’re not - I promise you, there are a lot of us opting for something different!

If joining in the big sales feels fun to you, if you love that kind of party - go for it. I’m sure your people will love it too, because that’s you.

If it’s not? You’re absolutely not going to miss out if you don’t participate.

What does it mean to live from a place of rest?

This has been a huge theme for me recently. Choosing to ONLY ever operate from rest. But what does that mean? Working from bed??

Not necessarily - though I sure have done that. I’m writing this from bed right now actually!

But it really doesn’t have as much to do with what your physical body is doing, as it does with your mind and spirit.

In fact, more physical movement helps you be more at rest in your mind - we sold our car recently, and now travel with backpacks and via trains, buses etc. And as a natural result, I have been doing a LOT more walking. And I feel so much better for it.

We notice it in our kids too - when their bodies get properly worn out during the day, they sleep so much better at night.

This is the aim of yoga as well - the physical postures engage the body so fully, that the mind becomes free, and we can be wholly at rest.

This is the place we want to live from.

INNER REST

This is the rest I am talking about operating from.

The place where you are not striving, not worrying, not running from or towards out of needing to escape or control. Not doing anything in order to force a particular outcome.

It is a place of surrender and trust.

Do you feel like you can trust yourself to always make the right choice? Do you feel like you are trusting the universe to respond to your desires?

It is very common to answer no, or at least not completely to those questions.

But without that trust and surrender, without access to that state of rest within… we will always be working against our own manifestation, our own desires, and our own goals.

The Universe wants to OVER DELIVER!

Imagine you went to a restaurant that everyone is raving about, because the best chef in the entire world works there. And you got an invitation table, you’re anticipating great things.

But the way this restaurant works, is you have to trust the chef. They have promised an amazing feast is about to be placed before you - and they have asked you for your desires, your tastes, what you like and what you don’t. They know all of that. But ultimately, you have to trust them to work their magic.

You know this is exactly what this chef is known for. You know that everyone you have ever spoken to who has eaten this chef’s food raves about how amazing it is.

But still… you’re human. Giving up that control is a challenge! You’ve invested a lot to be here.

There are a few ways this dinner could go.

The first is what so many of us do far too often:

• You’re too anxious. What if you walk away disappointed? What if it’s terrible. What if you hate it? You can’t stand the unknown. Plus you’re so used to being the one that manages everything, so you can’t sit here and relax and do nothing. So you go into the kitchen yourself and take over. You might like what you make yourself well enough, but you aren’t a master chef, so even working with the same ingredients, it was a lot of hard work for just average results. After all that investment to come to this restaurant, it’s very anti-climactic. You didn’t have any fun. You feel resentful of everyone else who did, and wish you could feel the same.

The second option is the other one that so many of us do too often:

• You resisted the urge to go in the kitchen and do it yourself. But you spent the whole time so worried about what the result was going to be, if the food was even going to come, was it going to be worth what you paid for it? Are you sure the chef is not putting onions in mine, I hate onions remember?… that you don’t enjoy yourself at all while you’re waiting. When an appetiser arrives, you can’t enjoy it because you’re still worrying about the feast that was promised and whether it’s really going to come. You see what is arriving for others, and it’s not what you would order - so you lose faith and leave the restaurant to order pizza next door. It’s not food from the best chef in the world, but at least you got to choose exactly how it came, it was handed to you quickly, and at least you know you’ll like it well enough.
  ​
  Or maybe you go home instead, and eat leftovers on the couch - because they were good enough yesterday, and at least you’re comfy.
  ​
  But when you see everyone else that was in that restaurant absolutely over the moon with what they ate after you left… you’re kicking yourself.

The third option is what that master chef really wants for us:

• You trust the chef for their uncanny ability to completely understand the desires and preferences of each diner. They are truly the best in the world. This is their whole obsession. And while you wait at the table, you enjoy the atmosphere, the drinks, the people you’re with. The appetisers that arrive just make you more excited for the feast that is on it’s way. You don’t even for a minute doubt that it is - why would you? You just know you’re going to get what you asked for - but even better, because this is no ordinary restaurant. No two people get exactly the same food - but seeing other receive their own feasts just makes you even more excited for your own, because seeing others so happy is just more proof this chef knows exactly what they are doing!
  ​
  And with every single thing that is placed on the table in front of you, you realise this chef doesn’t intend to just give you a nice meal, or just give you enough - they intend to overwhelm you and delight you beyond what you could have ever imagined on your own.
  ​
  From the presentation, to the quality of the food, the flavour pairings you’d never thought of before, the service, the experience, and who is at the table with you. Everything is especially for you, and by the time you leave you feel so satisfied inside and out, so cared for, so known - you’re so glad you gave your trust to this experience. Not only was it the best meal of your life, but it has raised your standards from what you expect from life from now on!

​

In each of these ways we could experience that dinner - the only thing that was different was our own ability to trust & surrender.

It wasn’t worth or deservingness. It wasn’t what you brought to the table. The only thing you needed to do to be there was show up to the table you were invited to - in a restaurant you might invest money for an experience, but in life your investment is of yourself, your full presence, and your decision to say Yes.

That is all that is required of you. To continue to choose YES. To say yes to the invitation to the table.

The universe wants to over deliver - but so often we get anxious, we try to take back control, we try to do it all ourselves, to earn it, we leave the table and go back to something “good enough” that feels more comfortable.

Or even if we receive some of what the universe is offering, we can’t fully enjoy it, because we spend the entire time worrying about what hasn’t arrived yet.

It’s Natural to Feel Scared

As far as the analogy goes, a meal in a restaurant might not make you feel deeply anxious. Most of us have had generally consistent experiences in restaurants - you go in, you order, you receive what you ordered. And it’s most often good enough that we feel we got enough value out of it to be satisfied.

But imagine you’d, had nothing but consistently horrible experiences in restaurants. Never receiving what you actually ordered, receiving things that tasted awful or made you sick, paying exorbitant amounts and sometimes receiving nothing at all. Some servers even seem to go out of their way to give you something you dislike on purpose!

If that has been all you’ve ever experienced, and you get invited to the table in this master chef’s restaurant… it’s totally understandable you would have a very hard time trusting this experience is going to be any different, let alone something really good!

Why would you give over trust? Why wouldn’t you just do it all yourself, so at least you’re in control of the outcome.

Life can give us this experience - because of what we grew up in, the “reality” that was created for us while we were so young, we don’t always realise that what we experienced wasn’t the only experience possible.

We always went to that one particular street for restaurants, because we didn’t realise there was anywhere else to go. Even though it was always bad, we just thought that was all there was.

Then someone introduces us to a whole new world of options - it’s going to be hard to believe it, hard to choose, hard to know what we want or what we like. Hard to trust that we can actually be taken care of, instead of hurt. Have someone give to us, instead of us having to do it all on our own.

This is why the universe tends to draw us into healing a little at a time.

It can take time to recalibrate

It can feel like a big leap of faith to trust again. Even if you know you are now in a different place, your whole body and mind is trained on the experiences of your past. Your guard is up.

You need to encounter good experiences over and over again, to begin to recalibrate. To retrain your body and mind to believe that good is possible. That life is not just one disappointing experience after another.

Being Triggered is Not Going Backwards

Ever resisted something really good happening, because you fear it will just be taken away again, and that will feel even worse than not having it at all?

On this path of healing and expansion into what’s possible, or learning to trust and surrender and operate from rest - you’re going to have the amazing experiences you’ve asked for! You’re going to manifest things that were beyond the wildest dreams of your past self. It’s going to be amazing!….

But sometimes it’s also going to make you want to run away.

Imagine you had the third option at the restaurant, you thoroughly enjoyed the most amazing meal and night of your life, and you went to sleep that night in pure bliss. It totally raised the bar on what you want your life to be like from now on, and you’re never settling for mediocre again.

But then you wake up the next morning full of anxiety - what if that was just a once off? Who are you to get that experience all the time?

Now you wish you’d never gone, because now everything that tasted “good enough” yesterday, tastes like trash today compared to what you experienced last night, and everything else feels unsatisfying. And now you curse that chef for ruining your comfortable life!

This is all a natural experience too! It’s why so many lottery winners burn through their money so fast, and say they wish they’d never won. If it feels too good, it feels uncomfortable, and we try to get rid of it as soon as possible to go back to our comfort zone.

Having this feeling and taking a little step back doesn’t mean you need to go all the way backwards though.

This is where the practice of operating from Rest comes in.

When you make a bold move from faith, from flow, from intuition - your brain is going to freak out.

I just recently booked overseas flight for the end of December - my little family is becoming full time world nomads at the end of this year! We have already been nomadic in our caravan for the last 8 months, which was a leap of faith on its own. But then we quickly felt we had already out grown that.

The universe was using that as a safer-feeling stepping stone to warm us up to accept the desire we really had - which was to go overseas. It’s a deep desire I’ve had ever since I was young - but it was my “street of bad restaurants” - I had so many reasons why I didn’t believe it was possible for me.

The caravan was an appetiser. And now I just went ahead and said yes to the full meal! (In the form of flights to Vietnam, to begin with!)

You’d better believe the next day I had what felt like a day-long panic attack, and that my brain was telling me I’d just made the most insane decision of my life.

I definitely wanted to back-pedal, to make contingency plans, to find something I could control.

But I’ve had a lot of practice in operating from rest - and only rest - now, and so what I did was… nothing. I let my brain and body freak out. I didn’t push the chef (universe) aside and start chopping my own carrot sticks for dinner instead.

I stayed at the table and I took in my surroundings. I remembered all the things I have already received, all the moments of trust and surrender, all the good things, big and small the universe has given me. All the ways my desires have lead me to the most wonderful places, and all the ways I have been shown I am known, I am deeply cared for.

There are still several steps between now and us catching that flight that need to happen. Passports, visas, even money things that are still up in the air. My brain wants to panic about all of them. Wants to rush and push plans ahead, so I can control things - or at least feel like I am controlling things.

But as I sat in the sun with panic coursing through my body, that’s when I thought of this restaurant analogy. And as I told it to my partner, I realised how insane it would be for me to have access to the absolute best chef in the world, only to go into the kitchen and try to do it all myself instead.

Just as it would be insane for me to have access to all the magic of the universe, and instead let my limited, fearful brain be the one to lead.

And so here I am… sitting at the metaphorical table. Leaning into rest. Leaning into joy. Leaning into anticipation of the feast that is being prepared for me, while also fully inhabiting the moment I am in so I can enjoy every minute along the way.

Operating from a place of rest stops us forever being in the energy of, “When I get xyz, THEN I will feel good, THEN I can be happy, THEN I can rest. When I get proof that I can trust the universe, then I will trust.”

If we operate from “when/then” energy, then we will forever be in a place of not receiving yet - because we are actually holding what we want at arms length.

If we choose to only act from a place of rest and surrender - even when we don’t feel particularly restful on the surface - then that is the energy we are attracting more of into our lives.

And that is when we open ourselves to receive the gifts the universe is already offering us - and it is all absolutely above and beyond anything you have so far imagined!

But the universe is kind to us, in that it doesn’t overwhelm us with everything that is possible all at once. We are not inundated with the full meal the minute we sit down - and the universe definitely doesn’t shove the forkfuls in our mouths for us!

All you have to do, is say a tiny little Yes. Whatever you can manage. Say Yes to the invitation. Say yes to the door that is opened for you. Say yes to the seat you are shown. Say yes to the drink that is poured for you.

Take it all in. Little by little. Be present in this moment and look around at all the things in your life you already have to be grateful for. Enjoy every little taste test and appetiser you are being given.

The truth is this “feast” you are being invited to the table for, is your whole entire LIFE! It’s not a once off. It’s not fast food or a microwave dinner. This is an experience unfolding over your whole existence!

There is no rush.

And trust the master chef that is the Universe to do what it does best - all that is being asked of you in this life is to trust a little more, so that you can fully enjoy the ride.

That’s it. There is nothing else you must be or do. You don’t have to earn your existence. You don’t have to earn your invitation to joy, and peace and rest. It’s all there for you.

Say yes to it.

And let everything else flow from there.

Thank you for being here!

You are beautiful. You are loved. You are worthy of the life of your dreams!