SUNRISE SALUTATION 151: Just Breathe....Let It All Fall Apart, And Remember To Breathe

You are so much bigger, greater, and more precious than any goal, deadline or commitment. This is a lesson I have been learning and integrating in difficult ways recently, and I am so grateful to so many of you beautiful souls who have helped me to learn this by being so patient with me in my season of transition.

I have spent so much of my life having people cast their projections of insecurity onto me, that I created a whole life from a story of not being worthy or good enough. In that narrative, I always found myself having to fight to prove my worth.

This stems from being in a family where I was often made to feel like a burden and a problem, and going through the school system as a black undiagnosed autistic girl. I was categorised as being dumb, when I couldn't grasp concepts in the way they were explained; or lazy, when I would succumb to the exhaustion that came from trying so hard and being made to feel like it was never good enough.

I got into and attended both Ivy League and Seven Sister universities - even gaining entrance into an MFA program for Creative Writing at Oxford University with no Bachelor's Degree. All of this after fighting through a story handed me in childhood that I would never be "university material." However, it never seemed to matter how much I achieved - it never felt like I was doing enough.

In truth, I also continued to surround myself with people who magnified these feelings of deep inadequacy too. My lack of self-worth meant that I settled for a lot of mistreatment, because I had become so used to being stepped upon. I had been groomed to believe this was the kind of treatment I was worthy of - that I should be grateful for other people's attention and approval.

When everything fell apart for me recently with the whole Substack and Stripe debacle, instead of fighting it, I just let it. I lay down in the falling rubble of what I had built and let it crumble without a fight, and I came face to face with this wounded story of incompetency that I had been burying deep under hyper performance.

Many people suggested I fight against these platforms, and thoroughly expose and berate them publicly. However, I chose not to. I shared with my community what was going on, and I did what was necessary to follow up on the situation, but I decided this was one battle I was not going to give any more of my life force to than had already been taken. I decided to fight for myself instead, by using the situation to get to the bottom of this old story and wound.

I also had had it with the old war timelines, where I had to fight to have something that belonged to me, or strive to prove myself worthy in situations where I may have even been overqualified. I was done with the fights - done with the unnecessary warring. I was ready for my soul to take over and lead me to my timelines of excellence - born from just being my open hearted, goofy, clumsy and late-to-the-party, autistic self.

In the past three months, I have entered into a zone of surrender that is wildly unfamiliar to me. I stopped pushing for the door that had been slam shut to be re-opened, and I retired into a cocoon, fashioned solely by my self-trust.

Instead of engaging the external war and distraction, I focused on finding the closure and peace from within. I knew it was time to get to the bottom of why this cycle kept occuring in my timelines, and to close another chapter of giving myself away to that which doesn't truly value my essence. It wasn't worth the fight because even if Stripe or Substack had reversed their decision, the sour taste in my mouth of how I had been treated would not be forgotten or easily abated.

I am disgusted, but still deal with both platforms - with a distance in my heart and a knowing in my mind that as soon as I am able to align myself with companies and platforms that treat creators with higher levels of humanity and integrity....that's exactly what I'm going to do. If anything, this experience inspired me to move into the work of creating an online safe space - both for myself and other creators in the near future. It pushed me deeper into my timelines of peace.

This would not have been possible if I had been overly concerned about chasing what was falling down, or expending my energy towards trying to make these companies see my worth....especially since they had already dealt with me so callously and cavalierly.

Instead, I let everything fall - my Substack, my expectations, and my need to try and rescue what was ready to die. I salvaged what I could in the wreckage - my members who would go on with me on my journey past this impasse - but in every other way though, I let this old story of striving to die in me.

I rested and recuperated from the blow - taking the time to test this theory of "the universe having my back." And she did. For as long as I breathed, tuned into my true worth and what I deserved, and made self-honouring decisons, I was taken care of - time and time again.

And out of the rubble....new realities have risen that are in higher alignment with my peace and true stability. Timelines in which I don't have to strive and kill myself to get a pittance of what my value is, are coming into clearer cohesion. Beautiful souls who see my beauty, worth and power - without my having to perform and prove - are arriving on the scenes, and helping me to slide into these timelines with more comfort and ease.

And although my life is still an interesting balancing act, as these new timelines concretise, I am learning to breathe through it all. I am learning on some days that just focusing on my breath - in the midst of the ongoing demolition process - is sometimes the kindest and most helpful thing I can do for me.

I am learning to be so patient and tender with myself, and in doing so, I am calling in other beings who treat me with that same reverence - many of whom are reading this right now 😄

And I am seeing how much of my old war timelines kept me in a loop because I refused to stop fighting externally. I wanted to change people and situations, instead of recalibrating myself internally to align with the experience I wished to have materially.

I wanted to work "harder" to get my children and I out of an abusive environment, and ironically, I was willing to abuse myself in order to do so too.

This time around though, my soul entered the chat loudly with a final and resounding "NO."

My soul said: "No more striving. No more chasing. No more harming yourself for hamster wheel style progress. No more begging for attention from people and places where you are not organically accepted and appreciated. No more eating casual disrespect, and fawning to be handled differently. No more of that story. No more!"

And this time I conceded.

This time, I learned to just breathe and let it fall apart. And any time my ego wanted to breathe life back into that which needed to die, my anxiety levels would rise and I would remember to breathe and let it all go again.

I invite you all to do the same - to lean into the power of your breath to transport you out of stagnancy and into flow. I invite you to lean so deeply into your own sense of worth, that you graciously allow what needs to fall apart to do so....as you continue to breathe and trust. Trust and breathe.

Asé