Hello and welcome to another episode of the Wild Free Will Podcast.
I am here today to talk to you about letting the universe in.
And what I mean by that is,
First let me paint you a little picture.
So I'm curious,
Sorry,
I'm curious how many times when things get tough have you moved from a space of being in flow and you know feeling really good and kind of shifted into micromanaging the universe and yourself and your life and the people around you and like trying to control every little thing and trying to find like a solution to every problem and none of it works.
And you're trying and you're trying and you're trying and like you come up with ideas but none of them are quite right and sometimes even the problems seem to like multiply and things just keep kind of spiraling I guess.
So if you're anything like me,
If you suffer from perfectionistic tendencies as I definitely think I do sometimes and I think we all do to an extent but some more so than others,
If you have any of those kinds of like habits usually when shit hits the fan our instinct is to like step up and like figure things out.
We got to figure everything out.
We got to find a solution.
We got to you know quote unquote fix the problem or whatever.
And in these moments,
And I have been living in one recently,
In these moments I really tend to forget so many of the tools that I have in my toolbox,
So many of the things I know,
The modalities and the ways I could make the situation better.
I really do tend to kind of like lose myself in the problems.
It depends too on like where I'm at.
If you listen to last week's episode I was talking a little bit about how like this has been a culmination of like a really,
It has been a really difficult period but it ended in a culmination of me really reconnecting with myself in a big way and kind of getting back to who I feel I'm meant to be which sounds like a lot,
Like you know big words,
But it really does feel that way.
And the culmination of problems that I was facing in that point,
My instinct,
And I will say this unfortunately,
My instinct unfortunately is still to micromanage everything because when there are maybe more problems than you want or more problems than you feel perhaps capable of handling,
I think that our instinct is like okay well we got to get rid of these problems,
We have to like solve it right now.
We got to figure this out,
Got to find a solution,
Whatever.
And to paint a picture,
The last couple of weeks has been a lot of things going on and there's been a lot of problems that need to be fixed,
I think.
And it's,
And I'm going to talk about that in a second,
But we feel that way don't we?
We feel like there's problems and they need to be fixed.
And that may or may not be true.
Hint,
It's not.
It's not actually true.
But basically there's been a lot going on in my partner's business,
In my business,
In my life,
In my partner's personal life.
He's like working and going to school at the same time and I'm like we're trying to like remodel our house and all of these things are kind of happening at once.
And in the meantime his coworker got hurt so he's working alone and you know he's getting close to,
He's in his final year so he's getting close to exams and like everything just felt like it's coming full on.
And even some of the good things like have been kind of like just like getting out of control.
And in a really silly way,
I'm going to give you a really silly example of like how this has kind of unfolded.
We were hoping to get away for Easter weekend and you know again my partner's coworker is out so you know he needs to work because like there is no one else.
And I had like a birthday party that I was supposed to go to and we were desperately trying to figure out how to make going away for a couple of days work without interfering with like you know work and the events that we had planned and like the things that we,
That we want to do.
It's not a have to do but the things that we want to do in addition to also getting away.
And I swear to you I was getting so frustrated because I just felt like no matter how hard I tried I could not find a solution that worked.
I could not find a way to make this like get away you know just for a couple of days make sense with the time limits that we had with the other events that we had in the middle and I was getting really really frustrated.
And I say that this is a really silly example because in the grand scheme of things it doesn't necessarily matter.
It was not life or death.
Nobody was like hurt.
Nothing really bad was happening.
But it really felt like we really need to get away.
We really need you know a break to take a breather.
It's been very full on for the last like three months basically almost four.
And you know we just want to kind of take a break and like you know get out into nature and just breathe.
Stop.
Rest.
That kind of thing.
And like we could not come up with a solution that made any sense where we weren't sacrificing one thing sacrificing sleep which at that point doesn't really make any sense because if you're sacrificing sleep when what you're trying to do is rest that seems really counterintuitive.
So I got to the point where I was getting frustrated more and more frustrated because I I feel like I'm really good at coming up with ideas really good at coming up with solutions and it just felt like there were no solutions to any of the problems that we were facing.
And that includes other ones that I haven't mentioned like things about like you know his work and my work and like the renovations and so on and so forth.
So there were like a lot of different problems kind of floating in the air and including this idea of like getting away.
And like it was all just kind of like overwhelming me.
And I want to be really clear because we can never really take self responsibility out of these discussions.
So I am saying that I was overwhelmed and that is true.
That was what I was experiencing.
But it's I also genuinely believe that it's a choice.
Now that's easy to say when you're not in the midst of overwhelm.
When you're in the midst of a very difficult or big emotion it's really really hard to be in that space and say well I understand that I'm creating this and I have the power to create something else.
It's very very very difficult to move from that space.
Even if you know how because I feel like I know how.
But when I get into that when I get into this energy of like got to fix it got to find a solution overwhelm overwhelm overwhelm it becomes very hard to see the forest for the trees.
And remember like I do this for a living.
I talk to people about this all the time.
I'm on the podcast all the time and still I get tripped up.
Like we're never not on our path.
We're never not you know constantly figuring things out and being presented I think situations that move us towards exactly the lesson that we are supposed to learn to kind of make our lives better.
So from this situation I just kind of reached a point where I couldn't really handle anything anymore.
I couldn't take any more of the overwhelm.
And I'm really lucky because I have connections in my life I'm able to turn to.
And I was talking to one of my friends and she asked me you know what would you say to a client or like how would you advise somebody else to deal with this.
And I mean the first thing that I thought of is the thing if I think about when I have felt the most at peace it was about two years ago I had just discovered Tasha Silver's work.
I don't know if that name rings a bell to to you but she is a writer and her books are they're they're different they're fantastic they're so easy to read and so immediately applicable and I remember that in reading her work it really fundamentally changed the way I felt about surrender and the way that I felt about my relationship to the universe to my higher power call it whatever whatever name feels correct for you.
And she has a beautiful book called Change Me Prayers and she has a lot of beautiful books actually but the two that are connected to the discussion that we're having today are Outrageous Openness and Change Me Prayers and I love them both.
I think I like Outrageous Openness better for the stories that she tells but Change Me Prayers is like the sequel that takes everything from Outrageous Openness a little bit deeper and it actually gives you these prayers.
And what Tasha Silver talks about is this idea of you know literally asking the universe God you know the divine you can use literally whatever terminology rings true for you.
For me I use the term the universe so asking the universe to change you in a way that makes it easier for you to confront whatever you're going through.
So when talking to a friend she was kind of like reflecting back to me what would you what would you do or what do you think you need to do and I said I probably need to read this book again because I remember in 2022 when I read it for the first time I was really like steeping myself in this work and at the time I was actually taking a trip home to Canada to see my family and I was at the airport this was post you know all of the crapola that we lived through and at the time like the airlines had laid off a lot of employees and so there were massive massive delays I don't know if anyone remembers this there were massive delays,
Baggage was being lost like all of this stuff was it was really not an awesome time to be flying it was particularly difficult because they were so incredibly understaffed all of the airlines but one airline in particular and that happened to be the airline that I was flying with.
So I get to Florence and at the time I was living in Lucca so it's about an hour away I get to Florence to the Florence airport and like just massive delays massive delays and my partner at the time was saying to me like how are you so calm and I said well it's just it's all gonna work out the way it's supposed to so it's really not an issue and and I was really impressed with myself because I really I remember saying to him at the time like I don't recognize me because another version of myself would have been so just lost in this situation so lost and instead I just felt such intense peace because I'm not in control of the airlines I'm not in control of the companies or the employees I'm not in control of my baggage once I kind of release it to the airline I can't I can't actually do anything about it and so worrying about it is just a huge waste of time and I know that you know this take whatever situation it is that you are worrying about right now and I know that you know in your heart that worrying about it is a massive waste of time that doesn't mean that you're not worrying about it sometimes the knowledge does not you know preclude the action so we know that worrying is a waste of time we know we cannot predict or control the future we know all of these things and still we get you know kind of tripped up and caught up in in the humanness of it all and that's okay that's okay that's part of what it means to be here you know in earth school learning all of these things and going through the process of dealing with the various systems that we live in and the bureaucracy and culture and traditions and all of those things it's okay it is normal but there is so much freedom when we remember the tools and when we remember the bigger picture when we remember that the world has existed long before us and it will exist long after us and we remember that we are in control only of our own actions and our own reactions and so the situation that I'm talking about now in terms of like what my current life is like and the problems that I'm facing what I was forgetting to do was to invite the universe in so I wasn't praying or communicating or asking for guidance necessarily I was just trying to like white knuckle it and like figure it out myself and whenever we try to do things on our own in that way we are going to be I think fairly consistently less successful at whatever we are doing than we would be if we set the intention to co-create with the universe and to invite that kind of higher power inner guidance you know divine energy whatever into our lives and so reading Change Me Prayers again and I've read it many times over since I first found it it's been a constant like for years I kept it on my coffee table just as like a reminder because not even reading the book but having the book there in my energy seeing the title seeing the cover Change Me Prayers it just reminds me about like what I believe to be true which is that you know when in doubt pray it out kind of thing like there's just no reason to carry these things it's not getting us anywhere and I saw that really clearly in in this situation so I read through a little bit of the book and and I felt at the time that I was in such a state just like my my energy and my system was so overloaded that I was reading it but I wasn't necessarily taking it in and despite that everything began to shift from that point so regardless of the fact that while reading it and kind of reconnecting with that energy in the moment I didn't necessarily feel like something had shifted something did shift anyways so from that space I like surrendered in a big way I used some of the prayers in the book which is actually one of the things I like about it the most is that like you at the end at the back of the book there's like an index of like different prayers for different situations so I read a few of the ones that felt most relevant to me in particular that the one about surrender but once you kind of get into this habit you can also begin saying these things yourself so the idea is basically that you're asking the universe to to change you in a positive way meaning to change you for example in this particular situation I said you know you like universe please change me into somebody who knows that everything is going to work out who is able to release this situation and just trust that the highest outcome is coming because you can you you can say them yourself it's not like you need the book it's not like you although you should definitely read it because it really is like a gem of a book you don't necessarily need that but you you do need to kind of like look at your situation and then think about what it is that you really want here and my thing it doesn't matter what the problem is my thing always goes back to freedom so what was really bothering me about this situation besides my own behavior because I was really frustrated that you know despite my job and and the things that I know and the tools and everything I wasn't really getting myself out of it so despite that kind of sensation within myself what I was most disappointed about was that there just felt like there was no pathway available to me for freedom and I felt trapped especially in terms of this idea of like knowing that I need a break knowing that I want to get out of the the city where we live and move and not move although also that's a Freudian slip I think but like go somewhere for the weekend and like feeling like I wasn't able to do that and that like you know it's not this weekend not next weekend not for the next couple of months are we going to be able to do that that was beginning to feel really constricting to me and so much of this can be changed obviously with a mindset adjustment with an attitude adjustment that kind of thing but sometimes it's hard to get there it's hard to dive into the work of assessing the thoughts when you're still carrying the thing around whatever that might be whatever your thing is whatever the thought is right and so what I like about these prayers is that when you choose to invite the universe in you're able to just kind of let go and you're able to take a step back and all of a sudden when you take a step back and you're viewing the situation from the macro and not the micro you are able to see new possibilities and find new solutions so after and I mean this sounds like I think that this is the definition of a miracle in all honesty in this moment I read the book it didn't even feel like it was working it didn't even really feel like it was having an effect I mean it took some of the emotional charge away from the situation and then like after that not having read the book since so this was about a week ago and I haven't read the book since but everything has changed absolutely everything about the situation has changed reconnecting with the book reconnected me with the tool reconnected me with my own power with my capacity to connect with the universe and co-create with the universe I was able to really release the situation and just kind of like let go and let God and as they say when God closes the door he opens a window and so I was like a series of things happened that began to unfold really literally one right after the other that made it so all of a sudden going away is now possible I mean the other situations have not necessarily changed but we've gotten a lot of clarity around them so like since reading this book I immediately made a decision that regardless of whether we go somewhere or not I am taking a break full stop from that decision I had a bunch of appointments that would have happened around that time like when I was planning on taking some time off I had a bunch of appointments be moved by clients so I didn't say anything clients came up to me and said hey listen during these days I'm not available so my schedule was automatically on its own without me doing or saying anything to anybody already clearing itself and making more space for this break after that there was a ton of clarity around like we received a ton of clarity around situations that we have been waiting on for a while so we got more information about you know my partner's co-worker and how the situation at his work will unfold we found out more although slightly unpleasant information about the renovation but clarity is clarity and knowledge is power so we have more information about like when that's going to take place and you know what we're kind of waiting for and so on and so forth we also put a pin in another situation that's been dragging on for a couple of months like that finally came to a conclusion and so all of these things one right after the other unfolded and then the last thing happened actually last night which was my friend whose party birthday party we were going to that was also kind of like holding us back from being able to make a decision about whether or not to go away she messaged me last night that she's decided that because it's Easter weekend she doesn't want to have her party then and she's going to move it to another day so like all of these things happened after I just said listen universe sup please change me into somebody who can let this go please change me into someone who trusts that everything is working out exactly the way it's supposed to and for the highest good of all involved and literally a series of things then immediately began shifting first it started with my decision and then it was a domino effect thereafter and so what I am hoping that you get from hearing this besides honestly going out and buying the book this is not an ad I don't know Tasha Silver I just really really love her work and she has a very different view on manifestation than most people do which was which was really interesting I was really grateful to be able to see that process from from another perspective but the purpose of this is just to to encourage you like when you are in those positions one gentleness with yourself especially if you feel like you're not able to get from where you are to where you want to be so in my case I was in overwhelm I obviously wanted to feel peaceful and I definitely wanted to feel free and no matter what I was trying to do none of my doing was getting me there and it took a conversation with somebody to like with my friend to reflect to me that like what would you do in this case you know if you could do anything or what would you say to a client or how would you how would you advise a friend and then being that own friend to myself and kind of taking my own medicine so like that conversation happened and I immediately went and grabbed the book and just spent like you know I don't even think it was that long like 20 minutes reading it because I knew that that was what I needed to do and from that injection of positive energy in reading the book and also in choosing to you know take my own medicine and do what I know is right I was able to begin to shift the energy even though at the time it didn't feel like I did so taking that time to I would say maybe reach out to somebody if that feels like it's something that's available to you and trying to treat yourself as if you were a friend you know like really approaching yourself with that gentleness and kindness is so huge and that in and of itself creates expansive energy and a sense of openness and then just inviting the universe in.
I don't think that we are meant to be carrying all of the things that we carry in especially in our modern society I don't think that we are meant to be carrying all of those things on our own and so many of them are not ours to begin with and we are constantly tapped in and plugged in to you know like the matrix the energetic field other people's energy through social media and the internet and that kind of thing and sometimes that creates a little bit of noise that stops us from being able to hear ourselves and sometimes it stops us from being able to hear our inner guidance or our connection to to whatever we feel is you know our higher power and so really taking a second to get quiet and then just you know inviting the universe in and asking for support you know whatever the word is for you like god universe higher power Allah Buddha I mean I don't think it actually I don't think it actually makes a difference what the word is that you use you know divine the divine source energy whatever like please help me see this from a different perspective please change me into somebody who can see this from a different perspective please change me into the person I want to be in this situation please help me see another way you know and just kind of in doing that we kind of take the charge away and we kind of place it in the hands of the universe and we say okay I don't feel like I can deal with this right now with the tools that I have available to me or with the energy that I have you know either within me like the energy I have available or like the energy that I feel I have in my field please help me see this differently or please hold it for a second until I get back to like a space I can deal with this or please guide me to see like another path another way forward and just really letting go of control which is scary it's scary I think it's it is it's scary also because we are kind of taught to to like white knuckle it like we're taught that when there's a problem we need to solve it and like to come at things from a very sort of academic perspective and so it can be very difficult in those situations to say okay I'm just gonna like give this to God you know let go and let God like I can't do this anymore it takes a lot of courage I think to be able to just let things go and you know say like to a certain extent also kind of say fuck it no like just um I can't do this I'm done I'm done spending time and energy thinking about this right now I need a break and I'm going to give this to the universe and I'm going to trust that the universe is going to give me um the guidance that I need to be able to handle this or there's going to be a solution you know of the highest good that comes through um yeah the end I hope that this episode serves you and that you are able to invite the universe in because you know everything becomes juicier I think when you do and uh yeah if you have any feedback or comments or if you liked this episode you know please rate uh subscribe leave a comment leave a review all that good stuff you know um it like just lights me up so much when I hear what you guys think um you know good or bad because it's all it's all relevant it's all helpful it's all moving us forward so yeah um I hope you enjoyed this episode I hope you have a great weekend and I will see you on the next episode of the podcast ciao
