What you can plan is too small for you to live.
Hello friends,
Welcome to this special content for you here on Insight Timer.
My name is Lew Redman,
Meditation teacher,
Life coach,
And your friend on the path.
And the quote that I started with today is from David White.
It's one of my favorite quotes.
What you can plan is too small for you to live.
This encapsulates what I want to share with you today to help you learn how you can let go and surrender,
Not needing to have a plan,
Not needing to always control every aspect of your life.
There is a magical life ahead that you cannot see.
You may sense it.
You may intuitively feel that as you do your work,
Quieting your mind and healing your nervous system,
You are opening to a broader awareness and deeper experience of life.
Trust your senses.
At the same time,
You may plan for the future and try to predict what will make you happy.
And I get it.
We do this because we yearn for a sense of control.
But in doing so,
We miss aligning with what wants to move through us.
Like holding water in our palms,
The more we grasp at life by attempting to optimize the future,
The more it slips through our hands.
How do we reconcile trusting the unknown with planning for the future?
It happens through the bedrock of spirituality,
Letting go and surrender.
What we surrender is our notion that we can control our lives.
David White's quote reminds us that life's greatest moments come by surprise.
It would be unfathomable if you had told me 10 years ago that I'd be speaking to you about spirituality.
In 2015,
I took a hike that led to my first spiritual experience.
I didn't plan to have a radically transforming experience.
It found me.
The mind can't plan for something that is beyond the mind.
While necessary,
Plans,
Predictions,
And future-focused thinking block us from the universal mystery to show itself.
Most of us don't surrender because what could go wrong has a powerful grip on the mind.
Planning for something good and worrying about something bad are two sides of the same coin.
Just as the best things in life take us by surprise,
So do the worst.
No amount of worry could have saved us from COVID or a jarring health diagnosis.
Letting go of worrying is a practice of self-reliance.
As you accept and embody your present state,
You are training yourself to handle whatever life brings.
If you can be with the moment you're in,
You can handle life.
It's more challenging to let go of our desire for a future state,
The yearning for life to be different than it is,
Is the tightrope I walk with myself and my clients.
We want to get from A to B,
But what if there's something greater than B?
We can't know.
This truth is why building a practice that brings us back to the moment is essential.
Letting go and surrender,
It doesn't mean we stop taking action.
We act,
But we surrender to the outcome.
And the irony is,
When we want something to happen,
It tends to not happen.
The person at the meditation retreat who wants the spiritual experience is the least likely to have it.
Yet once we let go of the attachment,
We open a chandel to receive that thing or even better.
So I'd like you to slow down for a moment and repeat this affirmation to yourself.
Notice if you can feel its resonance in your body.
Notice if you feel resistance in your body.
Here it is,
When I let it go,
I get it all back.
When I let it go,
I get it all.
Just notice if you can connect with that.
When I let it go,
I get it all back.
Yes,
There are things to be smart about.
Planning has its place,
But remember,
The life you can plan is too small for you to live.
Here's a maybe more familiar quote for you.
Life happens when you're busy making other plans.
Resist the urge to control the future and surrender to now.
Feel your full embodied senses so that intuition and instinct can lead you forward.
When you allow your life to be lived through you,
Magic and miracles abound.
I want you to feel this beauty,
This unfolding in your life.
It's there for you.
And so how do we practice surrendering?
It starts by realizing that we have everything we need inside of us.
Coming into an embodied sense of this knowing,
Meditation of course,
Helps us to do that.
Helps us to access our inner resources and from there,
Things expand and unfold.
Another way that you can help practice surrender is to make goals not to get something you don't have,
But to embody more of who you already are.
So it's coming from a space of appreciation,
Of fullness,
Rather than a lack or a scarcity.
Another way is to practice spontaneity.
Go out to eat without looking at Yelp.
Walk down the street where a few restaurants are and see what calls to you.
Go for a drive,
Get lost.
Trust your instincts on each turn.
See where you end up.
Allow yourself to come into something that's new.
This helps us to just let go and trust that we can not have a plan.
In addition to that,
Practice breaking out of your routine.
If you meditate in the morning,
Try doing it at night.
Go for a long walk at a time that you would never go for a long walk.
Take a random day off and just wander somewhere.
Eat what you would make for dinner for breakfast.
I'm just kidding on that.
You could if you want.
But seriously,
Try something new.
This will shift the grooves of your habituated mind and open some room so spirit can enter.
And lastly,
To help you let go and practice surrendering,
Trust your history.
If you're listening to this,
It means you can handle whatever life brings.
You are strong.
You are resilient.
Trust yourself.
You got this.
You've always had this.
You're here.
Alright,
That's it.
Thank you so much for listening.
I deeply appreciate your time and attention.
If you want to get some more insights,
Please check out some of my courses that I have on Insight Timer.
I really give so much of my energy to creating these courses for you.
My newest course is 21 Days of Morning Motivation and Inspiration.
I'm getting lots of great feedback on that.
So go check it out and find what course calls to you.
If you want to stay connected to updates,
Things that I have going on here,
Find my circle,
Lose Circle.
And that way you can get connected with all new tracks and things that happen.
As well as if you sign up for my newsletter on my website,
That's a good place where I'll share upcoming events and new meditations and insights and articles and all the things.
So make sure you're connected.
I love the opportunity and appreciate the opportunity to connect with you.
Let me know what you thought of this by leaving a comment.
And I send you so much love.
Namaste.
