Permission to Evolve
I’m just returning from a week long stay in Mexico (Mexico City & Oaxaca), which seems to be a place that continues to call me back for the last couple of years, and I’m reflecting on the massive shifts I experienced:
I launched a mini-workshop on regulating the nervous system
I had calls with 2 different talent agencies who are ready to sign me (creative dreams!)
I had huge breakthroughs in my capacity to receive (rest, love, money, creativity)
I stayed at one of the top most beautiful places I’ve probably ever seen
This is an incredibly stark contrast (and milestone of growth) to the last time I was in Mexico in early February when I was doing some spontaneous solo traveling / soul searching after attending a friend’s wedding and in full transparency, I was in a very rough place (don’t let these IG photos deceive you).
If you’re into tarot at all, it’s clear I was having a full blown Tower moment which one of my favorite tarot teachers, Lindsay Mack describes as:
"…….An initiation, helping us to clear out what doesn’t serve. When The Tower shows up, it signals that some structure, pattern, or belief system in our lives has outlived its usefulness, or was never truly aligned for us in the first place, and needs to be torn down so it can be rebuilt."
And that is exactly what was happening to me. I was in the throws of what felt like a massive rug being pulled from underneath me in all areas of my life.
I was pivoting (again) in my business, I had just started acting and was feeling very raw and vulnerable, my romantic relationship was going through some extremely challenging realizations, therapy was intense, my community was shifting and the vision I thought I had for my life was getting upheaved right before my very eyes.
And I was a mess.
I was anxious, in what felt like perpetual states of overwhelm, my nervous system was constantly dysregulated, I felt ungrounded, out of sorts and lost.
But at the same time, even amidst the intense internal crumbling & chaos, I very much felt like I was coming home to myself. There was a deep knowing that I needed to go through this because I knew in my soul that some very deep part of me, my identity, my beliefs and my patterns had died or was in the process of dying.
……And something / someone else was in the process of being born.
And that's just it, our evolution is a birthing process.
We don’t always know what or who is on the other side of that process but just like the butterfly in the chrysalis, we keep surrendering; we keep trusting; we keep going.
I know when I surrender to my own evolution, I am giving myself permission for the next best version of myself to come forth. I’m putting my trust in something greater than me and working with life instead of against it.
I’m more present, more peaceful, more generous, more intuitive and more in flow because my energy isn’t going towards fighting life and myself.
But how do we surrender? How do we let go and allow for our own evolution when a huge part of us wants to hold on to what we know and who we know ourselves to be?
A huge shift for me in being able to surrender more easily and allow my own evolution to unfold has been creating more internal safety for myself by learning to regulate my nervous system.
It’s scary to surrender because it’s steeped in uncertainty; most of the time we don’t know what’s on the other side and we’d rather hold on to the old, even if it’s not working, than to let it die and embrace what will likely be infinitely better.
This fear can activate our stress responses (fight, flight, freeze, fawn) and although they are there to protect us, when not understood or managed, they can keep us stuck and block our own growth (or at least make it much harder / more painful than it needs to be).
When we have a (more) solid internal foundation, we have more capacity to hold the discomfort that often accompanies growth and change and gives us stamina and compassion for our metamorphosis.
7 Tips for Self-Regulation When Fear Grabs Hold:
1.) Pause! Stop what you are doing as soon as it’s possible / appropriate (most things can wait, tending to yourself is priority #1)
2.) Acknowledge what you are experiencing, even if you don’t have the "right" words to describe it (fear, anxiety, grief, etc). Give it a voice to help release its grip!
3.) Locate where you are feeling it in your body and place a loving hand there
4.) Breathe into the sensation and allow it to take up whatever space it needs to (practice deep belly breathing). If you're interested in breathwork, I like Susan Ateh.
5.) Validate yourself and your experience, say kind things to yourself & create safety ("it’s ok for me to feel these big emotions", "it’s safe for me to have this experience," "thank you body for communicating to me, I’m listening")
6.) Tap!
7.) Take care of your physical body (checking if you need rest, water, food, movement or something snuggly to feel safe in)
Evolution is not always easy but it's always possible. It's our birthright. We deserve all of our soul's longings and the world needs the fullest version of you, your presence, your gifts.
And as the calendar year comes to a close, I hope you stop and give yourself the gift of reflection and acknowledging how far you've come.
I’d love to hear if you’d like to share and if you don't hear it from anyone else, you are hearing it from me: I am proud of you. Keep going.
Until next time, sending you love & a whole lot of regulation.
Bianca
p.s - If you’re looking for more intimate ways to work with me in your own evolution, I’m launching a monthly audio(note) mentorship which you can find out more about here