The Permission to Relax
What can happen when you stop pushing so hard.
Hi, I’m Reid! I write about my life experiences and how we can all live in brave new ways. Dare You is a reader-supported publication. To receive weekly posts and support my work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. 💗
If you are a consistent reader of this blog, you know that I struggle to relax and not be productive. It’s been a journey of push and pull throughout my entire life… trying to give myself permission to let go and relax. Sometimes I’m successful, and sometimes I’m not. I know I’m not the only one who has experienced the seismic guilt of not being productive or moving the needle forward in life. It’s as if you feel you must EARN the right to rest and relax.
I must say, I have made great strides on resolving this issue, but sometimes it can flare up right at the moment I should be letting go. Like now!
My husband and I are heading up to the mountains for the week to be with our friends and family, and have a wedding party with our closest friends we’ve known since childhood who were there when it all started. While packing, I began to feel this rumbling feeling in my stomach, urging myself to “not waist” this time in the mountains and try to use it to be productive. But that would defeat the whole point of the week in the mountains! This week is for spending time with loved ones, hiking, sitting on the porch and watching the rain fall from the afternoon thunder storms. It’s for reconnecting with friends, and celebrating love and togetherness.
I had to sit myself down and give myself permission to relax this week… and of course, I know that when I actually allow myself to rest and go with the flow, THAT’S when I get the best creative downloads anyway. Once I gave myself permission to relax, KNOWING that I would inevitably feel the same feelings again, I was able to allow the feelings to float downstream, past my grasp. And before I knew it, they were gone. The feelings of inadequacy or guilt will always pop up… but it’s how you handle them that actually determines where your life goes from there.
So this week, I will sit on the porch and read a book, enjoy time with family, go on long hikes in the woods, and reflect on the past three years…. Today, July 1st, marks the 3 year anniversary of my husband and I reconnecting and starting our beautiful life together. So much has changed for us since then, and honestly, the wild ride of our life together has been the happiest I’ve ever been. I remember the days leading up to us reconnecting I had NO CLUE what was in store. But you know what I WAS doing? I was relaxing. I was saying “yes” to adventure, I was detached from my old expectations of life, I was a free agent and not taking anything too seriously… I was in my zone of genius just being myself and giving without any expectations in return. And then there he was… plopped down right in my lap.
The point is… When my husband and I got together, I wasn’t stressing or trying to force something in my life. Instead, I was going with the flow and enjoying. Which is the energy where things come through.
If you struggle with letting go of the need to be productive like I do… is there a vacation, a day, an afternoon that you can give yourself where you are free’d of the need to “do.”? Can you give yourself the gift of relaxation and open yourself up to things unfolding without your effort pushing them into place?
That space… the quiet, the breath, the letting go… is often where the real magic happens. Not because we’re trying to manifest something, but because we’ve finally stopped gripping the wheel so tightly that life can meet us where we are. The best things that have ever happened to me have come when I’ve softened my grip, stopped forcing, and started trusting.
I’m learning that life doesn’t always reward the hardest worker… sometimes it rewards the most open heart. Here’s to softening, to allowing, and to remembering that just being is more than enough.
-Reid
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