How to Conquer Resignation
I’m still processing all the steep changes these past few weeks have brought since joining the team at Sage + Sound and beginning in-person classes. It feels so strange to be part of a community again and to be meeting so many new people - seeing their whole bodies and feeling their whole dynamic energy - not just faces on a computer screen.
The blessing of being human is that we have this magical capacity to acclimate rapidly to our circumstances and work with them skillfully in order to survive. The curse is that even if the circumstances are negative, we acclimate to them. Tragically, we can get used to feeling bad or settling for standards which are way out of alignment with the requirements of our Souls.
One of the scariest words to me is resignation.
There’s a window, when a new thing comes into our lives, where we can accept it or reject it. If we accept it, we integrate it. We make it a part of our world or ourselves. If we reject it, we either kick it to the curb or we find a way to change it.
When we accept something that our Souls are actually begging us to reject or change, we wind up resigned to the idea that “it is what it is” and a certain degree of denial and distance from true self sets in.
Sometimes the work to change what’s not working feels so daunting it seems easier to accept it. But this isn’t real acceptance. Real acceptance comes through opening our hearts and our eyes to what’s actually happening - not turning away - reckoning with it until we’re able to stop pushing, hating, railing against it.
There is deep peace in acceptance. It’s visceral.
Denial and resignation, on the other hand, are painful. They’re states of being that feel like shoes which are just a little too small. We can wear them but they hurt. And we can’t wear them for long. They’re always urging us to take them off.
Healing is about liberation. It’s the relentless, gentle tug of the Soul to be loosened from everything in our lives which doesn’t sit well with us authentically, which doesn’t fit right.
I read a quote yesterday (from @houseofleaders) that said:
Marriage is hard. Divorce is hard. Choose your hard.
Obesity is hard. Being fit is hard. Choose your hard.
Being in debt is hard. Being financially disciplined is hard. Choose your hard.
Communication is hard. Not communicating is hard. Choose your hard.
Life will never be easy. It will always be hard. But we can choose our hard.
Pick wisely.
Which kind of hard are we willing to submit to and direct our efforts toward? The hard that reinforces our denial and resignation? Or the kind that leads us ever deeper toward acceptance and healing?
In the contrast of these IRL weeks recently, I'm struck, within myself, by how thoroughly I had acclimated to pandemic living. It’s kind of just hitting me now, like a delayed reaction. I was starving for the nectar of being with other people but I trained myself to be grateful for notes and phone calls and zoom parties.
In the beginning I was complaining a lot about how much it sucked. But then I made a conscious effort to take up the perspective of: it could be so much worse - I’m going to give thanks and nip the bellyaching.
But the Sag, fire-belly extrovert in me has been hurting. I shut her down too hard. I have been feeling that lately. It’s clear in the relief and pure JOY I feel being screenless, with rooms full of people, talking about what I love best: healing + what gets in the way of our healing.
Sometimes it’s not until we feed ourselves that we realize how hungry we are.
Don’t resign yourself to survival mode. Keep looking for the trail of crumbs that will lead you back to your true heart’s desire. The fiercest way we can push back against the atrocities of the world is to never give up on our passion and on our capacity to find it no matter how far we believe we’ve strayed from it.
