What are you holding onto?
Where are you trying to break your fall?
Allow what seeks to fall away to actually fall.
Whatever it is, let it fall.
Falls come in all forms and natures. There are physical falls as well as the falling away of opportunities, relationships, experiences, false securities, beliefs, truths, or even pieces of ourselves we no longer recognize.
In this season of fall in the northern hemisphere, I’ve been thinking about this a lot, particularly both the struggle and the wisdom we can experience in the process.
We love to try to soften the blow, to ease into the fall, and to protect ourselves on the way down. And then there’s our feeble attempts to orchestrate how we fall to try to experience less bruising and bleeding. Or to cling to something not quite right because we don’t want the good parts to fall away.
Yet all this separates us from feeling our feelings from their depth. It numbs our grief. We end up staying down longer because we placed more energy into how we want to fall rather than in replenishing for our rising. It also keeps us believing a fall can only occupy the space of negative energy which isn’t always true.
MY OWN PRACTICE
I’ve actually been trying to orchestrate a fall lately; scrambling to keep the pieces together to prevent this personal fall from knocking me completely to the ground but it’s been all hustle and very little flow, friends. It has profoundly worn me out. I’m still falling and so it’s time to allow. Allow the grief. Allow the tears. Allow the time. Allow myself to just be present to what is. Allow what is meant to fall away to actually fall.
This piece of the practice of courage has been challenging to me.
Shouldn’t I want to try to circumvent the fall if I can, even if I incur a few extra bruises? Shouldn’t I want to work hard to prevent loss or keep harmony or strategically outplay gravity or…?
However, even as I write all these questions down now, I can feel how they hold an earnest, honest desire—a kind of plea—born from my egoic mind rather than my present soul.
Courage in practice, however, gently asks me to return to my body, to feel what I truly feel, and to allow what is quietly asking to fall away to actually fall. To let go entirely. Despite my mind’s chatter and ego’s desires, courage in practice is being present to all that is on the way down or as it fades away.
WHAT I KNOW TO BE TRUE
Here’s what I’ve come to know about this aspect of the practice: to allow isn’t giving up. It is opening up. Allowing is opening ourselves up to being broken open rather than breaking down. Allowing opens us up for what is meant for us after the fall. So let’s not skip the hard parts. Everything we want is on the other side of the hard parts, including the freedom start again or to pursue what we really want.
REFLECTION EXERCISE
What wants to fall away in your life?
Maybe you can relate. Maybe you’re here in some way.
Maybe you’re trying to break a fall, skip a fall, or numb out what is asking to fall away.
What isn’t quite right?
What are you trying to make fit by shuffling or reordering all the pieces?
What fall are you attempting to soften?
What are you holding onto because something else just doesn’t seem within reach?
Name it quietly for yourself now.
Then allow, my friend.
Open your hands and allow.
What is meant to fall will fall. What is meant to rise will then rise. Always.
Forever with you in this practice,
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
An intuitive leadership and life coach for 14 years and founder of The Courage Practice, Tonyalynne Wildhaber coaches individuals, leaders, coaches, and soulful entrepreneurs to make friends with their courage, integrate wisdom with strategy, step into their highest potential, and transform their abundance and life from the inside out.
Tonyalynne is a frequent contributor to Forbes and Thrive Global. She is head-over-heels in love with the Pacific Northwest, loves iced coffee in all weather, and is attempting to train a dog named Ollie.
Courage in practice continuously transforms Tonyalynne’s own life in countless ways. She believes in the power of its practice and its connection to living out our highest purpose and for navigating challenge and transition with greater ease. She loves collaborating with others in cultivating their own unique practice of courage and welcomes such connection with you. Click here to book a complimentary consultation.