When I left London two months ago, I came back up to the North of England, to Lancashire where my parents live. It was supposed to be a pit stop, a breather, a temporary blip whilst I figured out where I actually wanted to go.
That somewhere would involve light and sunshine and mountains and forests and adventure. It would not involve a fast approaching Northern winter, nor the tiny market town where I grew up. My life was going to be bigger and more important than that. People destined to do deep, impactful work in the world do not live in Lancaster.
And yet with every day that passed, Lancashire surprised me a little more.
I spent my evenings down by the sea near my parents’ house watching sunsets more beautiful than I’d ever seen. The dramatic coastline drew me in. I visited my sister in the Lake District and spent time with my baby twin nieces. I woke up in a tent surrounded by mountains and spent the days making goofy noises at these two tiny people. I took the train to Lancaster, gobbling blackberries along the way and was reminded day after day of how friendly the people here are. I walked the streets of Lancaster, reconnecting with places I’d known growing up. I sat and watched a show band in the town centre on a Bank Holiday Monday; someone from a market stall gave me a free loaf of bread and a plate of rice salad. Every day was better than the last.
I resisted. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Lancaster was too small. Too insignificant. Too unimportant for my very important life and work.
But day after day, as the signs kept coming, I eventually had to admit and accept that this is the place I’m meant to be. Not California, not New Zealand, not Costa Rica but here, in this town you can walk across in ten minutes flat.
Humbling. Very, very humbling.
And with this experience I realised, probably for the very first time, that I am truly not in control. I have my plan and life has its. Life will always win, sooner or later. To resist is to prolong struggle and suffering. To see and accept what life is showing you is to allow the natural flow of synchronicity, power and joy back into life.
The more you try to force life in the direction your mind wants it to go, the more of a struggle it will inevitably be. Have a plan, of course have a plan. Have goals and dreams and places you want to go. But hold onto them with the gentlest touch. Don’t focus so intently on your mind’s created plan that every diversion from it creates more and more suffering in your life.
There’s nothing for you to do to in order to surrender and relinquish control. This is a not-doing. It’s an acceptance that whatever is present in your life in this moment is what is correct and right, whether you see it yet or not.
Basically, go with the flow, yo 🙂
Love and courage,
Leah