Wake Up with Susan

Surrendering to the Universe: Embracing Trust and Transformation

• Susan Sutherland

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My journey in my Bufo Toad ceremony, which utilizes 5-MeO-DMT, a powerful psychedelic compound found in the venom of the Bufo Alvarius toad was nothing like I expected—it was raw, intense, and completely shattered my illusion of control. In this episode, I, Susan Sutherland, share how this profound experience forced me to redefine surrender and let go in ways I never imagined.

 I explore the delicate balance between letting go and taking inspired action toward our aspirations, and how embracing the universe's guidance can open doors to unimaginable possibilities.

Self-discovery is sometimes messy and emotional and this part of my learning had me frustrated, angry and ultimately in tears as I saw more and more of myself through my fears. I share how I attempted to control my spiritual narrative, a conditional surrender with a rider of expectations and requirements. This episode invites you to question your fears and attachments, and encourages you to recalibrate your approach to life, embracing the ongoing challenge of surrendering without passive resignation.

We are diving into what surrender is, what keeps us from doing it, how you can recognize when you are trying to control out of fear versus taking aligned actions.  

Let's explore the unknown together, trusting that the universe has greater plans in store, and learn how to work on releasing conditions and allowing life to unfold naturally.

“As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.”  Rumi

Check out the subliminal video to help you move towards allowing God/Source/the Universe to chart your course while you paddle.

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Have a great week - xoxo

Susan

Speaker 1:

Rise and shine everybody. It's time to wake up with Susan. Spiritual awakening can be a beautiful, messy and sometimes lonely journey, so let's do it together. I'm your host, susan Sutherland. I'm an intuitive healer and spiritual mentor. We are all called to rise up above our conditioning and limiting beliefs and shine our light on ourselves and others. So let's get to it.

Speaker 1:

Hi, family, this week I am talking about trusting and allowing and surrendering to the divine plan. Now, a couple of weeks ago, I would have told you I am a master at this. However, the plant medicine, buvo toad ceremony, checked me on that and let me know that I have a little bit of work to do in this area. So I'm going to share that story, but also really explore what surrender means, what trusting and allowing means, and how we can do more of that to allow the divine plan to unfold in our lives. A while ago, I was working with a friend and she and I traded readings and she told me that I needed to trust and allow, and at that time I was a really busy manifester. I would write down how I wanted my day to go, what my life would look like in six months or a year, and basically it came through that each time we put energy and intention out there, it's like adding a plank to a bridge, and I'll tell you honestly, I was adding planks to all kinds of bridges. I may never even get them completed, because I had 3 billion planks going where. It was like I want to do this and I want to do this and I want to do this, and that's ADHD.

Speaker 1:

Life as a manifestor All of the things, instead of like really honing in on one thing. Life as a manifestor I want all of the things, instead of like really honing in on one thing. But it came through for me is that when I'm doing that, the universe has to respond to our energy and intention, and so the waves of everything have to start going in order to make that happen. And what I'm doing is taking that energy away from my divine plan, from from what is supposed to happen. And so I I scaled back on that right, and this became my, my mantra, and I know I've said this on the podcast before, but my dreams and desires pale in comparison to what the universe has planned for me. Please show me right. And that's. And I was like yes, yes, you are trusting, you are allowing. You are the queen of this. Until recently, I got checked on that. I did a bufo toad plant medicine ceremony and I was checked hard on that.

Speaker 1:

So that's why we're talking about this today is because I definitely thought I was doing well and I needed this experience to show me, to correct me a little bit, and so it brought me home to really sit with what is surrender, what is letting go and how does that compare? And I've asked this to every teacher I've worked with how do I allow, while still taking action? Because I do feel like I overcorrected after that reading and it was like I'm going to sit and I'm going to read and I'm going to journal and like whatever's meant for me is just going to find me here in my little playroom that I'm in. It's just going to like my clients are just going to find me magically. And I realized last year that some of that was coming from a place of fear last year, that some of that was coming from a place of fear I allowed, allowing to replace my inspired action of putting myself out there, of really being diligent in going for my goals, by saying like, oh, I don't even know what my goals are, I'm just going to allow them. So I needed this situation, but I'm going to tell you what went down.

Speaker 1:

Now, one of the great things about being intuitive and really connecting with your body and really feeling into what works for you, what doesn't work for you, is I very much trust these experiences. I trusted the center that we chose to go to. I trusted traveling to Peru at that time. I trusted each of these plant medicines because I do trust my body. I trust my body as a communicator to me that if something's not in alignment, it's going to come up. I will know that it's not a good situation for me. Sometimes I'd do it anyway and pay the consequences, but I really felt comfortable with this, and I'm telling you that because when I tell you what we did, it sounds a little crazy.

Speaker 1:

But if you look up Bufo Toad a lot of times, the experience is that you, you leave your, your individuated aspect consciousness, and you join with oneness, with all that is, you become source consciousness. Okay, so it's like you die and you go to the ethers and you become one with all and have this glorious, magical time, and then it's only like 15 to 20 minutes and then you return, but you're outside of time, you have no idea how long it's happening, and then you return to your body and I was very certain that I was going to have this magical source experience. Facts Snarky Susan sent her kids some text messages in the morning saying hey, at 11 o'clock, when y'all are taking history notes or in science, I will be one with God. So I'm not comparing notes, I'm just saying my day is going to go better. I was wrong. No, it was still better than history notes, but I was a little snarky and assumed that would be my experience. So what happens?

Speaker 1:

The bufo toad is a poisonous toad in the Amazon and they have a special man who goes into the Amazon at night because they're nocturnal, and he catches these toads and they have eight glands that hold venom. The venom is for their protection and so he only extracts from four so that they are not left in danger in the Amazon. So he does it really safely for the toad puts them back in their native environment after he extracts this venom. So when we did the ceremony, we each had a sitter beside us, one individual who was sitting and making sure we were good to go, and then we had a facilitator that brought around the medicine and this was like I've never watched Breaking Bad, but this felt Breaking Bad-ish, like I don't know garage drugs or something, because you have a glass beaker and the venom is in the bottom of it and she had a lighter and lit the venom and it created smoke inside the glass beaker and then we had to inhale the smoke and it was meant to be like like one long inhale and then you hold it for as long as you can until you can't, and then you would exhale and hopefully like have journeyed on to source at that point. So I never went back to the facilitator to be like did I do it wrong? Did I not clear the jar? Did I not hold it long enough?

Speaker 1:

I'm not sure what happens, but I do know plant medicine will give you what you need and not what you want. So that's what I got. Kind of how it happens it's hard to explain, but it almost feels like all of your consciousness is coming, coming, coming and it comes and it's like closing in on your head. And someone had tried to describe it to us and they just said trust and allow, and so as as the consciousness is like coming in and closing in on me. I'm just repeating trust and allow, trust and allow, okay. Repeating trust and allow, trust and allow, okay. And that dumb ass medicine said see, see, there, you're even trying to control that. You say trust and allow, but you're not letting go. You're not letting go, you still want to control the narrative. You have a mask on that says I trust and allow the divine plan, but here's all of the parameters that you have put around what that plan looks like, as long as it doesn't this only. If I get to this, I have all of this script for how things should go and I try to act like I have surrendered.

Speaker 1:

But it was made very clear to me that that was not the case. And so I'm receiving these messages and I was irritated, y'all. I went in there for oneness and I'm getting a lecture, and you know I can just see my teenager's face when you bring something up. It's like you know, that's exactly what I felt, and I tried to negotiate my way out and I was like, hey, okay, I got it. Can you eject me? Now I would like to go to the ethers. Thank you so much. And I was then told that I don't need proof of oneness, I don't need proof that we are an aspect of source. I don't need proof of any of that. I understand it and I am not meant to leave the body enjoying source. I am meant to bring more source into the body Y'all. I don't know how long it took me to open my eyes, like we kind of lose time.

Speaker 1:

In that scenario, when I was able to open my eyes, nothing was swirling, nothing was weird, and I looked at my facilitator and I was like I go outside and he said yes, and I got up. He didn't even seem concerned that I couldn't walk. There was no like wobbliness or anything. So I got up and I left that ceremony temple and I took my journal and I went and sat at the river and I bawled my eyes out, I cried and I cried and I cried and that was something. At that point we'd had two ayahuasca ceremonies and I had not cried. That's not really true, because when my face was getting lasered I did go to feel my face and I felt tears coming down my face, but it was never that like release crying. I just happened to be crying and didn't even know it during that ceremony. But this was like. This was like that painful, like from the depths of your being crying. And I was out there by my I don't know. Maybe they were all in the ethers, I don't know, but I was outside for a long time by myself and I cried and I cried.

Speaker 1:

And then I started writing about why I fear letting go. What are the the things I'm afraid of? What are the attachments that I do have to what this journey looks like and what I'm ready for or what I think I'll do it if it looks like this? And so I just started really getting a lot of that out of my system, especially in that moment to be real. And it's one of those things. Like it felt like the curtain got pulled back from the wizard, like you saying all these things you're putting on this show, like you're doing it, and and I genuinely thought I was like, I genuinely thought that I was living in this place of surrender. And then the curtain got pulled back and it was like, oh shit, oh my gosh, I have so many expectations about what this looks like or what I'm willing to give up. So it was. It was such a release for me to get all of that out, but when I got home I realized I do have a lot of work to do, and it started with trying to understand more what surrender is, what letting go is, versus passivity. And so that is where this episode came from is because I wanted to get real with myself and just start checking myself for where I am operating out of fear instead of out of trust. When I need to look deeper into something, then that means a lot of you do too. So I wanted to share this and that's kind of me exposing me, me exposing myself as a fraud for acting like I had that all figured out, and I sure didn't. But here we go. We are going to be talking now that I've gotten through all of that. We are going to be talking about what is letting go versus what is giving up, kind of what the balance is between allowing and just not doing.

Speaker 1:

And I have really struggled over, I would say at this point, at least two years trying to navigate what that looks like for me, at least two years trying to navigate what that looks like for me, and to come home and be in this program, be in this business program where it's like you got to do this and achieve this, and da, da, da da, which it's a great program for that. But I had to go back to week one because now I was given one step, one next step on my journey and that's the only step I was given. So I had to start recalculating my goals back to that one step, which is that's fine, it's fine Start over. We were only seven weeks in, it's no big deal. But it was purposeful for me to go back, because the second time around you're going to hear things and they resonate a different, a deeper way anyway. But it is now like whatever vision I created when we were scripting who we are and what we want to do, I had to essentially burn that and say no, I'm just focused on the next step and trusting and allowing that as you take that step, the next step appears. That's a Rumi quote. Right as you walk on the path, the path appears. That's probably a wrong quote. So maybe not a quote, but roomie inspired. Or you've seen the memes where it shows just the bottom part of a staircase and you don't have to see the top to know that you can take that next step. So I'm just being constantly reminded now that I don't have to see the big picture, I don't have to see the finish line. We know it's about the journey, but it is really hard to drive to an unknown destination, and that's what we're asked to do. We're asked to just kind of allow it to unfold in a perfect way. So that's what we're talking about. I've rambled on for 15 minutes now, but we're going to get to it All right. So let's start with.

Speaker 1:

What is the difference between surrender and passivity? Surrender is an active choice to trust in higher intelligence, god, source, the creator, while still taking action and being engaged with life. It means letting go of control and of attachments to the outcome or to the timeline. When you surrender, you are still taking action, but it is from a place of flow and not from a place of force. You have to trust that things are working out for your highest good and you have to be open to those intuitive nudges and synchronicities that kind of guide you to the next step.

Speaker 1:

Passivity, on the other hand, is inaction, avoidance or helplessness. It stems from fear or self-doubt, or a belief that nothing you do matters anyway. Instead of trusting and allowing, passivity leads to ignoring and avoiding responsibility, signs that you are leaning more into the direction of passivity. You wait for things to change without taking action. You feel powerless and stuck in victim mentality. You ignore your inner guidance and opportunities. You avoid challenges instead of facing them with faith. So surrender is a mindful and empowered release of control, while passivity is fear-based avoidance of responsibility. The same can be said for letting go versus giving up. The big difference between them comes down to the mindset and energy.

Speaker 1:

Letting go of control is like saying like okay, I've done my part, now I'll allow the universe to take it from here. It's kind of like if you plant a seed and you plan it according to the proper planning guidelines and you water it and you put it in a place that it gets proper sun, you don't keep checking and like are you doing it? Are you doing it? You have to trust that you've done what you needed to do and then allow the water and allow the sun and the soil to take care of the rest of it. You've done your part and you surrender control.

Speaker 1:

When I had my first baby, I was getting these weekly emails of like how your baby's growing, and I found it so fascinating this week your baby's growing kidneys and I wouldn't sit there and stress all day. How can I help these kidneys grow. I knew that my part was getting proper nutrition, getting enough rest, getting enough movement, but the rest of it I had to trust that things were happening according to schedule. I could only control my part of growing this baby, which was really taking care of me, and then trusting that my body would be able to do the rest. That perfect, like mind-blowing way that we can grow a human inside of us. Because it still just baffles me that all of those things are taking place week by week. It is such a beautiful process but I wasn't doing it. I did trust and let go and know that. You know, if it says that he's getting kidneys this week, I just assume they're developing correctly.

Speaker 1:

But giving up, on the other hand, is more like throwing your hands in the air and say, whatever, nothing's working, I'm done. That comes from frustration and hopelessness and feeling like you have no power, not trusting that you have done your part. Letting go of control is rooted in trust and giving up is rooted in fear, and I feel like my whole year has been like love or fear in A Course in Miracles. And now we've got trust or fear, and fear is always the problem child, isn't it and y'all. I feel like I have been confronting my fears left and right and center, and I guess I was just getting the low hanging fruit like, oh, I'm afraid of this. Let me work through it, because I did not see this coming. I didn't see it coming. I didn't realize all of the fears that I have around this journey.

Speaker 1:

All right, so letting go obviously keeps you moving forward, while giving up keeps you stuck and stagnant. When you surrender, it doesn't mean you don't care. It means that you are open to create space for new possibilities, things bigger than your wildest imagination, and miracles to show up in your life. And I know there have been so many times when I was in control and I was making some dumb ass decisions and it took control being taken away from me for things to break in a way that was more beautiful than I had planned. Goodness gracious, I'm looking back, and if my own plans were not derailed, what a mess I would be in.

Speaker 1:

In order to trust the universe and our divine plan, while still taking inspired action, we have to strike the balance between faith and effort, and this is not something I have excelled at. So what we have to do is get clear on what we want, and I know for me, I'm getting clear on the first step and beyond that, I'm getting clear about the feelings. How do I want to feel? I want to feel impactful. I want to make a massive impact while still living a life of ease and joy, because I don't want to make an impact to where I'm working 120 hours a week. That is no life for me. I do know that. But I do know now that I am not going to write out the specific script for what that looks like. I'm not going to get clear on my goals because I am at a new place of truly surrendering. I wish the universe would just give me a script so I could read it over and see if I wanted to make any adjustments. But apparently that's not how it works and that's okay.

Speaker 1:

But if you specifically are working towards manifesting something, if you really want a beach house or you really want to get a promotion, those are fine things to work on. It's a different journey than I am on right now, but that is one where you do this exact same thing. You get very clear on that bridge you're building, but then you allow it to transpire in a way that may surprise and delight you. So if you really wanna be financially free, which would also lead to time freedom, and that is the way to live, if you really have that as your clear vision, wouldn't it be a shame if you sat here and you dictated out exactly how you were going to work and you were going to earn money and you would invest it this way and you could do it this way when you have an uncle you don't even know about? That would be leaving you $50 million in three months. Like, wouldn't it be a shame that you were building a bridge, that you had to work really hard for the next 10 years to set up this possibility of being financially free, when the universe has a way to make that happen that you couldn't even conjure up if you tried? I wish I had that uncle. But I'm just saying when we get really specific, we are building a bridge that might be like a shitty, rickety wood bridge when we could have, like this sparkling lit, beautiful golden gate bridge. You know what I'm saying. Perhaps just saying my goal is to be financially free. That would make me feel how.

Speaker 1:

What is the feeling behind what you want? Because what we are always after is the feeling and get really clear about how you want to feel. So mine is really about impact. I want to feel purposeful, I want to feel fulfilled, I want to feel like I am aligned with my higher purpose. But there have been times when I mean, even still, I have a picture of a couple holding hands at a dinner table and I have a picture of kids running onto a soccer field. And I put those pictures up when I was working a corporate job and I had a lot of flexibility in that job. But I would sit on conference calls for hours in a day and by the time I got to soccer practice or when we got to dinner I felt drained and Mark would come home from work and sometimes it just our dinner didn't feel like I wanted it to feel.

Speaker 1:

And now our dinner is the favorite part of my day. After we eat, we sit around and we talk for a while and we feel connected and that's what I wanted. It wasn't a specific dinner. I didn't have specifics. I knew from these pictures that that's how I wanted to feel. I wanted to feel wasn't a specific dinner. I didn't have specifics. I knew from these pictures that that's how I wanted to feel. I wanted to feel at the soccer game like I was free to be there, like she was getting the best of me in this space and not a rundown version.

Speaker 1:

Now, I don't mind carpool, even a little bit. I enjoy the time with my kids, but also when I'm going there, I usually have a great audio book, or I am, you know, commuting with myself in the car, which is also hard to come by, where there isn't stuff always going on, and so really allowing myself to feel into what I wanted those afternoons and that dinner time to feel like changed how I called that in and it really works. So you don't have to make purpose and impact. If you want your dinners to be nice, if you want to have good relationships with people, if you want to really love your body, make that your goal, not working out five times a week. You see the difference there. Okay, listen to your intuition.

Speaker 1:

Inspired action isn't doing something for the sake of doing and I know this is for me that I'm saying it. It is really about doing it because it feels in alignment with what you're working towards. That doesn't mean that we don't have a whole lot of other to-dos in this living life. I can promise you that doing dishes does not feel like an aligned part of my life, however eating food does. So there are dishes to clean, so just understand that sometimes we do things because they are necessary parts of our existence and then other times really check in and say are you doing this because it feels aligned or because you think you should do it? Are you chasing something? You know I've been tracking my monetization journey on YouTube and I've found that really fun. But now I'm having a lot of questions about if that is making me really overly focused on the timing of that. So I'm going to have to sit with that. But I know I have created a lot of tasks for myself around that that I know they're not in alignment with my purpose, but we'll see about that.

Speaker 1:

We are also going to release control and let go of force. I saw a brilliant TikTok this morning that explains this perfectly. It is like a cat. Okay, if you go to a neighbor's house and you want to pet their cat, the cat is going to run away from you. If you chase the cat, the cat is going to go. If you end up getting, the cat is going to like claw your eyes out right. But if you sit there and accept like, oh, there's a cat, that's really nice, and you feel comfortable in yourself and say, oh, it would be nice to pet the cat, but I'm not attached to it, it's no big deal If it comes over, great. And as you're sitting there knowing that, take it or leave it, no attachment to the outcome of this engagement with the cat, the cat will in fact come sit on your lap.

Speaker 1:

The more we chase something, the further it gets from us. The more we try to control when something happens, the messier it gets. When we can accept that it might be nice, but if it never happens, that's okay. That's when we drive into us. And so the more you can release, susan, the need to control the narrative, the need to control the timeline, the need to control the outcome, the happier it'll be, the more smoothly it'll go and the more divinely planned it will be. So you have to surrender the timeline and you have to trust past evidence and signs.

Speaker 1:

Look back at times, like I just did, where you have been in control and you needed something to come and circumvent it, because you were on the wrong path or when things worked out in a way that blew your mind. It was so much better than you could have imagined. Keep a log of your synchronicities and the time that the universe has your back, either that you've controlled it and you got saved from yourself, or things that panned out way better than you could have imagined, or you finally surrendered and was like I don't know how this is going to work out, but it did. Keep notes of that because it really helps to reassure you when you have doubt that your highest interest is always in play, and sometimes we have to accept that the challenges that we face are part of that too. I know for me, my biggest challenges have been my biggest teachers, my biggest propellers forward, and so when we try to avoid all of the puddles, we miss some of our opportunities for our biggest expansion.

Speaker 1:

And, of course, try to stay high above, stay in gratitude and joy and presence as much as you can to feel that guidance, to feel that alignment. But we are done ignoring the sadness. Go to the river and cry, okay. Sadness is not a bad experience. Disappointment and frustration are not bad experiences. They want to be expressed. We just have to continually choose to express things in a healthy way. So if you don't have a river to go, cry to sit in your closet, let things out. But we are going to not pack them down in our energy body to carry with us. They want to move through us.

Speaker 1:

Emotion is energy in motion. It wishes to pass through you and when we honor that, it doesn't have to be a souvenir we take from day to day. We can express it and allow ourselves to feel the entire range of emotions that we get to have as humans, without feeling bad about that and I always want to say that when I'm like, be positive, because I do feel like it went the way of people feeling like negative or lower vibration Emotions create bad things in their life. No, suppressing them does, but experiencing them doesn't Allow these emotions to move through you. Just choose healthy ways for them to move through you and learn from them and, as quickly as you can, start lifting yourself up. So I just want to make that qualifier.

Speaker 1:

So, basically, we this is what we're going to do. We're going to row the boat right. Your inspired action are your row strokes. Your paddles Are those the things or the stroke? Okay, your paddle strokes is your inspired action. We are going to trust the universe to provide the current or the wind or whatever we need to guide the boat. So you're not going to be like all right and start paddling really hard on the right side trying to get it to go left. Susan, you are going to trust that taking this inspired action, this steady, continual action, will lead you in the path that is perfectly designed for you. So, no more steering the boat, all right, it all seems like it makes sense.

Speaker 1:

If we know we should trust, why do we still hang on? Why do we white knuckle that's what Spirit has called it before. It's like you're white knuckling it. You're holding on so tight. Why do we do that? Because letting go feels risky. It's like stepping into the unknown without a safety net. That's why.

Speaker 1:

But there's a few more reasons. Like surrendering means that we don't have all the answers and if you're like me, that is sometimes hard to admit that with all of the studying and all of this going within that I haven't been given the full map. I have only been given, like a dot, a little dash of. This is the direction to go, and sometimes that is hard for me to accept. For real, we also have this battle of our ego self and our higher self, our ego self, likes the achievements, it likes the validation, and our higher self just doesn't need that. But we have to catch it and address it and just be like oh okay, that's from my littlest self and I am not going to let that version of me be the decision maker Now.

Speaker 1:

We often believe that if we can just try harder, plan more, worry more, we can force things to work out how we want them to. But control is an illusion, because there's so many parts of the equation that we are not in control of, like timing, other people, other events. We don't know what is going to unfold in the next couple months or year or years down the road, and so we really can just surrender to the present moment and take actions for today. And of course, we have attachment to outcomes. We get attached to how things should happen. We have like the perfectly planned, like, oh, this is how things are going to go and that would be perfect when they should happen, what it should look like. But true surrender means letting go of the need for it to go exactly as you planned. It means trusting that they'll go exactly as they are meant to.

Speaker 1:

That's for me, and I do that all the time and I think some of you guys do this with your spiritual practice too, like it's check, check, check, check. I'm doing all the right things, everything's gonna start happening for me, but we're doing this from a place of should. We're doing that from a place of control, where, if I do all of these things, then I'm going to get this, not from a place of genuine connection or allowing things to happen as they must. We think that the more we do, the harder we put ourselves into the practice. We think we can effort our way into things happening as we want them to. And we do have to take, of course, inspired action, but a lot of times we lose the energy of inspiration when we make it a checklist or it's like, well, I'm going to add this to my program and this to my program and it's so I can speed up the timeline. I'm going to do this because I'm going to hurry this healing along, because I want this and this and this in my life. Yeah, y'all do it, I know you do and let's be real, we want things now.

Speaker 1:

Accepting divine timing means that we are going to have delayed gratification and I'm telling you, if you live in America, you're going to struggle with that. We are used to things happening, you know, pre-recorded, where we can watch it on our schedule, and everything is available to us at all times. You can get any food from any restaurant delivered to your house, like. Everything is convenient and fast and available, except your divine plan, and that's where you have to just be like. When will it happen? I don't know. So good luck.

Speaker 1:

We do have to know that the divine timing works for our highest good and that's where that trust comes in. We have to trust that things are going to work out for the highest good. You all know people who are always planning for the worst possible scenario. They spend their life planning for things to go wrong, which really wrecks the present moment. Right, and it puts no trust in the fact that if something did happen, you would have the tools and the resources at that time to deal with it. But instead they're like always prepared but never present, because they're living in their anxiety and living in their stress for all the shit that is potential. If it happened they would be ready, and a lot of times they're just overly prepared for stuff that never happens. Don't be like that. Okay, trust that when things come up, it is because they are meant for you. You are prepared for them. You can take them on. You will have the resources and the stamina and the energy and the know-how to deal with what is in front of you Now. That doesn't mean like be silly, unprepared. It just means don't waste your energy and your time in a constant preparation for things to go bad. That is no way to live, okay.

Speaker 1:

Here's a couple of signs that you are white knuckling life. You are in a constant anxiety and overthinking. They're not a whole lot of trust involved in either of those things. You feel stuck or frustrated. No matter how much effort you put in, you're not moving forward. That's because you are working your actions through your mind and not from your heart space. You are forcing instead of flowing. You obsess about timings and outcomes. That's me. I definitely like things to happen sooner rather than later and am working right now on shifting my mindset and allowing more trust and releasing these fears that came up for me. And you don't know what.

Speaker 1:

I remembered that one of my very favorite ways to deal with fears and limitations is with subliminals. Subliminals are affirmations, but they are played under a soundtrack to where your subconscious can hear them but your conscious mind cannot, which means like if you have a subliminal and it says I live in an abundant life and you're broke, your ego won't be like no, you don't. That makes the affirmation not work, and so a subliminal goes under music so that it's there but you don't have a conscious rebuttal to it. So I actually made myself a subliminal video. That is all about trusting and allowing the divine plan. It is about aligning with your values and taking action from an inspired place. It's all the things I'm talking about today, where it has nothing to do with specific goals. It has to do with hearing your inner voice and aligning with that to take action towards your purpose.

Speaker 1:

So I actually uploaded that to the YouTube channel because maybe it would help you too and it's just a cool track and you can listen to it in the background is kind of my favorite things to do or no added time. It doesn't take you any additional time. That's not like add in 30 minutes of journaling. This is play it in the background while you cook dinner, and so there's no additional time required for you to take this into your practice. So just wanted to put that out there. If this podcast resonates for you, then this might be something that would be really helpful for you to learn to let go and start allowing yourself, your higher self, to be more of a guide in your life.

Speaker 1:

So a couple more signs that you are white knuckling is that you are frustrated and exhausted and that you are ignoring your signs and synchronicities. You are ignoring that higher, knowing that you have working on your behalf. So let's talk about how we are going to move forward, how we are going to shift out of this fear-based thinking and into trusting and allowing Pause and breathe. Take a step back and visualize yourself releasing the grip. Releasing the grip and trusting that the right path is unfolding. Check in with yourself. Make sure, when you are making important decisions or even scheduling your actions, drop into your heart and ask your heart is this in alignment? Let go of the timeline, susan. Things will happen when they are meant to Follow the signs and synchronicities and trust that you are supported.

Speaker 1:

Surrender isn't weakness. It is the ultimate strength and freedom, and when I think about it like this, it's accepting that I don't have to figure it all out. I don't have to plan the next. Let's see how many years do I have left? Because I said I'm living to 120. So, like I don't know 80 years, I don't have to plan out the next 80 years of my life. I can trust that everything will unfold in perfect timing and all I have to do, all I have to do, is take the next step.

Speaker 1:

Now I don't know why I'm not fully embracing that, because when I travel with Mark, legit, I just bring a suitcase. He's done everything. Now, part of that is because he loves me. That's like 1%. 99% is because he's a control freak and wants everything done his way. But I y'all, I have leaned into it because I feel like the rest of the year I am managing all of the things, all of the things, the schedules, da-da-da, da-da-da, da-da-da. And when I go on vacation I manage nothing, like I don't even carry my own passport. He does it all Like I'm his other dependent and I love it very much.

Speaker 1:

Now, when I went to Peru, I think Marisa kind of clued in before we left when I had read none of the emails I had done. I had done nothing. And then I'm asking questions and and I was like, can you tell that I don't have to engage on vacation? She was like I was actually just thinking of, of that, and so it was really actually important for me to end up having to travel by myself to Peru and put on my big old pants and know that I can do this, because I have not had to do it in a long time and it has made me extremely lazy. But why can't I be so trusting and so confident with my whole life, Like I get to just show up for it with a suitcase? Part of me right now is thinking well, I'd like to know what kind of clothes to pack. Is it going to be warm? Is it going to to be cold? Immediately I start having all of these questions. But if only I could give the universe as much trust as I give mark for our vacations, and I see the circumstances happen all the time where I don't know why things are happening, but then they happen in a beautiful way.

Speaker 1:

I told y'all I scaled back my tennis career, my tennis profession, this year because I was playing too much and I just felt like I needed to shift my priorities a little bit this year. Well, the varsity tennis team at my kid's school ended up not having a coach this year and I was able to say yes to that, which is a whole different level of managing trying to get other children home from where they have to be when I'm at a tennis match. And I was able to say yes to that, which is a whole different level of managing trying to get other children home from where they have to be when I'm at a tennis match. However, it created that space that I didn't know I needed at the time, and it ended up working out perfectly that now, with my 16 year old son, I get to have this special time with him, and so I'm really excited about it. You know, once I figure out the carpooling situation but because I trusted, I felt like I needed to back away from tennis, like I don't know what's coming. I just know this is an important step for me right now, and little did I know that that would be what fell in my lap as far as a need for the school, but also an opportunity to connect with Dashiell in that way, which is really fun for me. So when I'm sitting here talking to y'all about it, it makes perfect sense that I can let go and trust Doing.

Speaker 1:

It is a whole different situation, so I am going to be listening to my subliminals and I'm going to be looking at myself in the mirror. As I say, my dreams and desires pale in comparison for what the universe has in store for me. Please show me and I'm really going to mean it and I am going to try to burn up the like celebrity rider that I have. That's kind of the image I get when I think about my trusting and allowing is like yes, I'll come and play for, but you can only have red M&Ms in a bowl for me and green apple Jolly Ranchers and 10 dozen roses in my dressing room. Like I'm going to do what you want.

Speaker 1:

But here are all of my conditions. So I'm not exactly sure, other than the subliminals, how I'm going to work through all these conditions, but it is a work in progress and I just kind of wanted to show you that the curtain got pulled back. I'm going to work through all these conditions, but it is a work in progress and I just kind of wanted to show you that the curtain got pulled back. I'm exposing myself a little bit but in hopes that it helps you and I love you. Thanks for listening and I'll see you next week. Bye, thank you so much for joining me this week. Be sure to not miss any upcoming episodes by subscribing to the podcast. That way, it's available automatically in your RSS feed. This is a crazy journey. Let's do it together.

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Susan Sutherland

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