We're told to let go of the past, our cares and concerns in order to reside in the beauty of the present moment. However, to really let go takes an enormous amount of faith. It's not something we learn at school, yet its fundamental to our sense of personal power, trust and inner calm.
This kind of faith is synonymous with a deep trust in your own being. In your ability to listen. To decipher between your delusions and inner knowing. Faith in that beyond which language can contain or a path laid out and paid for by your ancestors who lived long before they could imagine your own presence.
Before letting go, we need to examine that which we are holding on to. The "good" and the "bad". Those labels and experiences which hang to you as familiar ghosts, cloaking your natural state as you make your way through the world. The mother, the banker, the 'type-A personality', the artist, the pet lover, cilantro hater, the "I don't do that" and "that's just me…"
Have you ever made a list of these things? And looked at how each makes you feel? Do they trap you? Or make you feel free? Do they give you a sense of security, whether good or bad, in their ability to define you in a world where the options are limitless? Do they provide a framework through which living is easier? Provide you with self permission to be and act how you want or need to? Do they limit you? How do they let you be and not be? And how would it feel to drop them, one by one?
All that we identify with - the past, experiences, labels - are relative in their usefulness to us based on where we're at. They can be incredibly useful and necessary. They can also weigh us down and make us immobile. And this is not about letting those go and pretending these parts of you never existed. It's about releasing your hold on them so you can allow them to transform as all things in life do. The stage has been set, the lessons learned, and you must let go in order to dive into those deep waters of transformation.
But in order to dive deep, we must have tremendous faith. Faith is a practice. It means showing up with honesty for yourself daily. For some people, a mantra or an affirmation can bring them back to this intention to release control and have faith in their being here. Creating an affirmation which aligns with your own truth and where you are at is going to serve you the most.
If you need some inspiration you could try:
"I trust in my inner knowing"
"I have faith that my soul knows, even though I do not"
"I trust in my being here, now"
"I surrender to my spirit who knows the way"
"I trust in the timing of my life"
Your breath is another tool to bring you back to a deep trust in yourself. See, the most important aspects of your being are lived without your conscious control. Though we now live in a society that worships the thinking mind, it is not responsible for the most essential parts of you being here. The life cycle is made of creation, sustainment and destruction. Your thinking mind was not responsible for your conception and birth. It's not responsible for your organs functioning, heart pumping, limbs moving and breath flowing. And through natural causes, it won't be responsible for your ending.
Practicing pranayama or meditation where you focus on your breath, gives you a space to practice faith in the non-thinking parts of yourself which so essential in your presence here. As you relax into your practice, you'll see that you are not breathing, but breathing is happening. The same way you are not pumping blood, but blood is flowing. You trust that the next breath will come, and release the need to control it's length, timing and the space in between. You begin to observe the happenings. This can create an enormous amount of space to relax into, and faith in the happening of your being.
Black Onyx is a beautiful stone to work with through this process of standing in faith, and releases that which does not serve us. It's dark depths remind us that it is in darkness where seeds are planted, and in which we first grew. It helps the wearer to release old negative patterns, and is your ally through the continual process of trust, release and surrender. Keep it close as you move through these sometimes difficult times of transition, and let it remind you of the magic which became you, in the dark places through which you grew.
Words by Kirilly Dawn
