Latest / The MysticWithin Podcast / Ep. 8: When To Raise Your White Flag (Surrendering to Self-Preserve)
Transcript
- Vanessa: What happens when you've tried literally everything and nothing seems to be working out the way you want it to? you keep hitting obstacle after obstacle. Everything feels challenging and you don't even know which way to turn anymore. What happens when your hands are completely tied behind your back? Sometimes the answer is to raise the white flag. I know that might come as a shock to some since I spend basically every episode telling you to pursue your dreams no matter what, but surrendering sometimes helps you align deeper with that vision. But the act of surrendering can actually make you feel more empowered, more aligned with your vision, and more clear on the pathway forward. in today's episode, we're about to have a real conversation about why resistance can actually spin you completely out of control and why the act of surrendering can be seen as the best self-preservation tool for your spirit. My name is Vanessa, and this is the Mystic Within Podcast, a podcast designed for women reconnecting with their power, their purpose, and their intuition, one honest conversation at a time. Let's get in to the act of surrendering. I thought a lot about the act of surrendering lately. Astrologically, the eclipses are happening, which in normal people conversation, it really just means there's a lot going on and there's a lot of chaos brewing to the surface right now. eclipses are really about fate intervening and showing you what you need to surrender towards, let go of stories we've told ourselves, people, places, expectations, certain things that we want to have our hands totally wrapped up in. Currently I'm moving, hence why my mattress is on the floor. Hence why the couch in the background that's been in the last seven episodes is now magically disappeared. Instead of getting really frustrated that all of my furniture is gone and sold, I ended up having to have a sleepover in my living room with my TV. And that's my act of surrendering for the week. There's certain things we just need to go with the flow of this week. and that's exactly what inspired this episode. What do we do when we quite literally don't have control? Now, before I start this conversation, Mystic Within is rooted in women being reconnected to the power already within them. So inherently, surrendering to me does not mean giving up. Absolutely not. That will never be my message. If you're looking for that, you will have to look elsewhere. Surrendering to me really means giving up the need to control and giving in. to the flow of the situation. We put our swords down so we can fight another day. When we're going through a really rough season of our lives, we often feel like we need to overcompensate. Maybe we feel like we're not doing enough and we have to be doing way more to get out of this slump you're in or the negative season you're in. Our bodies start to feel tired, our minds are completely exhausted, our spirits and intuition are feeling drained because we keep ignoring them. What happens is we create so much resistance to the act of surrendering or rest or a pause in your life because we keep looking forward, wanting more, when in reality, we actually need to take a full pause. We can't work out of a space that's burnt out, exhausted, depleted energy, zero percent battery. It's impossible to get anything out of that, right? When we are already burnt out and fighting 10 times harder to push through, we use that precious energy we have left to resist. What the universe is actually trying to communicate, though, is step back, pause, stop, let me handle this. We fight back to the message of pause when the universe speaks because we don't want to pause. We want to go full steam ahead, especially if we're in a dark place. We feel that lingering in it or staying in it is going to keep it around. So we fight and burn out and completely drain ourselves. When the universe is really trying to communicate, step back, pause, let me handle this. You rest. I want to teach you guys a little theory. I have no idea where I got this from. I don't know any of it. I think when I was going through darker seasons, tougher seasons of my life, it kind of just dawned on me because it felt incredibly relevant. when you are in a rough season of life, you're in a depression, you're in a downslope, you're in a flop era, you are just spiraling out of control basically. And you try to do more, but it's not working, and you're digging your heels in deeper to this dark season. it's time to lay in the mud. When life becomes mucky, muddy, nothing is going right. We aren't aligned. Our intuition is out to lunch. We don't even know her or see her anymore because we're so focused on just following through with something that doesn't even feel authentic with us. We feel confused. We're fearful to take the next step. Nothing is recognizable on your journey. You just keep treading through the mud. There is nothing else on the path. The path has become muddy. the aligned path, starts to become muddy. It keeps dragging you in deeper. Your shoes are filled with mud, your legs are drenched. You're starting to sink like quicksand. what the universe is saying to you while you are walking that type of path is lay down. Lay down in the mud. Sometimes our lives don't need us to take rapid, wild action. What it's asking is for us to surrender completely. To the human experience you are having. Sometimes the only thing you can do is truly lay in it and surrender completely. You have to throw your hands up in order to preserve any future you have for yourself. It's actually essential to the story. It's essential to your story that you take a pause, that you take a intentional moment to regroup, to come back into alignment so you can step forward with your truth under your belt, with experience under your belt. With peace and calm moving forward. You almost have to bathe in the mud and cleanse yourself with the mud. Surrender to the need to fight your way out of it. the need to fight and force yourself out of a emotion or season of your life or mood is usually a response to not wanting to feel it, to not wanting to experience it. But the more we put resistance between you and whatever it is you're avoiding and trying to fight off. It actually prolongs the process of that entering and being in your life and being there to teach the lesson, being there to have you feel the feeling, being there to confront it. That constant resistance to get you out of the mud is truly actually pulling you deeper in. But what happens when you just throw your hands up? You take your shoes off and you completely lay in that mud? What happens when you feel the emotion? What happens when you confront that person? What happens when you really take what you are experiencing day by day and you stand presently with whatever comes up with it? And you support that experience and you take all of the lessons that you could possibly learn from that experience. What happens then? when you lay in it, when you surrender and embrace it, embrace the moment of pause. I promise you, there will be a day when you look around and the mud has turned to clay. And it is now the foundation for you. Walk the path forward. That is what the act of surrender is able to do for you. That is self-preservation. Seeing ahead of time that I am going to burn out, I am exhausted already. And if I keep going like this, I'm going to can go to the place of no return. You can't have that. Energetically, you can't afford that when you are going. Towards your dream life. Taking care of yourself, nurturing yourself, nurturing your dream and vision also includes you taking care of you. And sometimes that does mean you need to be honest with yourself and understand that ooh, I need to pause. I need to retreat for a second and realign. And then I can handle this in a more authentic way, in a more empowered way. A more empowered state. That's exactly what surrendering does. And I'm talking to the people who feel like they're constantly going in a billion directions, or nothing's going right when they put in the efforts. That's when you need to pause and really reconnect with a part of yourself that you keep ignoring. And usually the thing that you're putting resistance towards is the thing that's actually going to empower you. Now, laying in the mud doesn't mean you're not doing anything. It's not like you're just doing nothing for months on end and or weeks on end, however long you need to be in the mud appropriately. It's not that you're giving in to depression or these dark feelings or these dark times or rough moments in life. It's about coming into a solid place within yourself. Where you can live presently and take care of you. my It really is about coming into this core power of yourself and reconnecting with that. What you're gonna do during this time of laying in the mud is live presently and nurture yourself. You're nurturing yourself back into alignment. What does that look like? Getting adequate rest, journaling, drinking lots of water, eating foods that feel good to your body. Good foods, healthy foods, whole foods, fruit, veggies, protein, balanced meals, fiber. We're taking care of ourselves. We're showering, bathing, brushing our teeth. We're going back to how you would literally take care of a child. These are the base foundations of life. And this is why I say: when you surrender, these are the things we're building back up. Because we can't work out of a space where your body, mind, and spirit are not functioning in a way that's productive for you or aligned with you or feel good to you. When we are able to live presently, we're not worried about the past, we're not worried about the future, those things don't exist. It's right now, right? That's all we have. If those things feel daunting to you right now while you're in the mud, that's fine. Take a deep breath. That's it. if that's all you can do, that's all you can do. We're being gentle to ourselves. We're showing ourselves compassion and grace because laying in the mud is not easy. It's hard. But also it gives you permission to pause. It gives you permission to really rely on spirit, the universe, and a higher version of yourself to take care of your life right now. And again, we're preserving ourselves right now. That's what this is. It's not you doing nothing or giving up or stopping your dream life. This is part of your dream life. You need a pause. it's truly about prioritizing rest, prioritizing self-preservation, and a necessary pause so you can retain your energy, build your energy back up and move forward with more clarity. Now, if you find yourself laying in the mud for too long, that's when I need you to make moves. You don't want to become the mud. You just want to use it to cleanse you and create a foundation for you. You're not, doing nothing during this time. You're building those foundations so you can build that energy back up and move it along. It is the act of surrender, not giving up. Now, if you're listening to that and being like, I can't do that, I need you to ask yourself why you cannot do that and keep asking until the answer is, I have to do it. I deserve to do this for myself. I need a moment. I need a week. I need two weeks. I need a month. Whatever it is, it's the time where you're coming back into yourself and taking care of it, It's a period of time where you are taking care of your mind, body, and spirit. And those are the pillars of your life. What happens when you bend a stick too far? It snaps. The pressure, the resistance, the tension within the stick causes it to break. The same goes with humans, with us. When we exist day in, day out, where we are living so far out of alignment, we're completely stressed out, it's causing tension in our lives. The energy in our body begins to work overtime to compensate with basic life, let alone the stresses that are being put and placed upon our lives. And what actually happens is there's resistance that gets mucked up in our bodies. What happens with our energy when we keep living like that is it actually starts to create blocks. In our body, in our energy, in our energy centers. If you've ever heard of chakras, that's where the energy centers come from. And those chakras, those energy centers actually spin energy all around our body. A sign of a healthy body is a sign of moving, flowing energy. But when we live in states of constant stress, constant resistance, constant tension, what happens to our body? The energy stops flowing. There's blocks happening in these centers. Physically, we're going to feel physical pain. We're going to have mental anguish. There's going to be stress in parts of our body. It is actually physical manifestations of these energy blocks that will harm your life. And that alone is a reason why the act of surrendering is healthy, is okay. Ignoring the call for alignment is not just a spiritual statement. I'm not just saying you need to be in alignment and take a pause. There's physical repercussions for stress. And if you want to take all of the spiritual language out of it, there you can go look at many studies about cortisol in the body or how stress affects the body. Or how important rest is to the body, how important sleep is to the body, taking care of ourselves, joy, happiness, alignment, authenticity. You can look up everything I'm I'm speaking on. surrendering has nothing to do with you giving up or you failing, you stopping the vision. It has everything to do with investing in your body, your mind, your spirit. So you can see that vision and go after it at the best of your ability because the universe needs you to be at your full potential. And that can't happen when you're completely burnt out. You're not listening to your intuition, and you're certainly not working from a place of power. When you care about the vision and the dream life, you care about current you. You care about the state of how you feel, how you want to feel. And it's about seeing the signs before they actually manifest into your life, If you are in that stage of life right now where you feel like nothing is going right, everything feels out of your control. you feel like you want to control everything, but it doesn't seem to help anything. So what's the point? You feel like you're giving up. You feel like you're constantly depressed or you're in a cycle of stuckness. I really need you to listen. That's surrendering. Is okay as long as you are using that time to build and take care of yourself. That is what I am speaking on today. That is what it means to lay in the mud. We're waiting for the mud. As we lay in the mud, as we take care of ourselves, show ourselves compassion, invest those basic essentials and necessities of our lives into ourselves again, the mud will clear and we can see the future with more clarity and we can walk the path forward with more alignment. If you are on the precipice of laying in the mud, I am here to help you. And if you are interested in working one-on-one in my 12-week coaching program Returning Within, I am here for you. This is a sacred, connected program aimed to help you reconnect with your power, your intuition, and be able to see the path forward with more clarity and alignment. The link for my mentorship program, as well as my tarot sessions and readings and Reiki sessions, they will all be in the bio and in the show notes. I cannot wait to connect with you guys and support you in whatever way I can on your journey to your dream life. Thank you so much again for spending today with me, listening. I love podcast days. I love hearing the feedback. I love hearing what you guys need to say. If this episode has shifted your mindset about surrendering or taking a necessary pause, send it to a loved one, a friend, your dog, your fish. spread the word, spread the message. You can listen on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or my YouTube channel where you can subscribe as well. Until next Wednesday, I love you guys so much. Thanks for listening again and have an amazing week. Happy eclipse season. Thank God we're coming to the end, guys. If you've had a hard week, that's why. Bye.