Give Up Everything and You Will Have it All

We all have a dream life. One that is far beyond our wildest imaginations, and yet, most people unconsciously opt for mediocrity. God knows I have. We settle for work, partners, friendships, hobbies, and situations that are “okay” or “good enough” because it feels safe. We (our egos and other internal protective mechanisms) love for us to play it safe. These mechanisms keep us from physical harm and ensure our basic needs are met, but if we’re not watchful, they can also lead us to shrink ourselves and block us from ever reaching our greatest potential.?

And this isn’t to say safety is not a good thing, it is essential. It is only when life and our intuition are guiding us elsewhere and we don’t move with it that things start to get messy.

If you want to have it all, you must be willing to give up every single thing you have.?

This was my lesson for 2022 and the Universe called my bluff. She all but demanded I give it all up and I did not do so willingly, at least at first. Life gently took every single notion of safety that I had meticulously put into place while I gripped tightly in an attempt to control, leaving claw marks in all that was eventually released.?

It’s easy in theory to proclaim how unattached we are, but in actuality — we are scared shitless to let go of how we think our lives should be…even if life is nudging us to make space for something greater. The familiar feels safe, but it’s in the familiar that your dreams and potential go to die.?

This process of giving it all up began unfolding slowly at first. I gave up clients quickly because this wasn’t my first rodeo, so that didn’t feel scary. I let go of creative projects, which hurt a little more. I stopped people-pleasing and agitated people who were used to me going along with whatever they wanted, which resulted in a lot of confrontation and fear. My health was taken away, and that’s when things started to get really sketchy. I gave up life and faced death as I bled out in an ER bed, although I was surprisingly calm through that one. And when it finally came to letting go of my relationship, I clung to him more than I clung to life.

I finally collapsed the final piece of my contrived future and laid the foundation for a new life for my daughter and me in less than three days. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I didn’t know how it would happen, but I got out of my own way, trusted blindly, and employed every tool I’d picked up in my 33 years. Not to spoil the ending too much, but I almost immediately stepped into a life more beautiful and abundant than I ever could have imagined possible.

I say this being mostly on the other side of the most challenging bits, but I uncovered some painful truths along the way. One that I’m almost embarrassed to say is that I’m just learning how to truly love. I thought I was, but I realized how I was unconsciously using most people and things in my life as a tool for my own validation or said more simply — I have only been able to love conditionally.

Many of us were taught the way of conditional love. Conditional love says, “I love you so long as you do and give me exactly what I want, and I take away my love when you don’t.” Unconditional love says, “I love you. PERIOD.”

There’s an incredible book called?Awareness?by Anthony De Mello. It will hurt your feelings, but it’s the kick in the ass you might need to really go about your business of L-I-V-I-N. In it, he shares better than I could about what the experience of giving it all up is like:

“You were given a taste for the drug called Approval, Appreciation, Attention, the drug called Success, Prestige, Power. Having got a taste for these things you became addicted and began to dread their loss. You felt terror at the prospect of failure, of mistakes, of the criticism of others. So you became cravenly dependent on people and lost your freedom. Others now have the power to make you happy or miserable. And much as you now hate the suffering this involves, you find yourself completely helpless. There is never a minute when, consciously or unconsciously, you are not attuned to the reaction of others, marching to the drum of their demands.”

It’s not like my intuition hadn’t told me to give up all of these things for months, if not longer, before finally taking them from me. I just ignored it for all of the reasons Anthony De Mello outlines above – because I am addicted to those powerful “drugs” of approval, appreciation, attention, and success. And these aren’t inherently problematic UNTIL they determine your state of being. I needed all of those things to validate my very existence and to assure me that I was enough.

De Mello goes on to say:

“The consequence of all this is terrifying and inescapable: You have become incapable of loving anyone or anything. If you wish to love you must learn to see again. And if you wish to see you must give up your drug. You must tear away from your being the roots of society that have penetrated to the marrow. You must drop out. Externally everything will go on as before, you will continue to be in the world, but no longer of it. And in your heart you will now be free at last and utterly alone. It is only in this aloneness, this utter solitude, that dependence and desire will die, and the capacity to love is born. For one no longer sees others as means to satisfy one’s addiction.”

Now, it’s not to say you have to burn your life down to arrive at this place of freedom. But often, when we are in this desperate and unconscious state, we’re likely grabbing for people, places, and things that aren’t what we actually want. I needed solitude to finally give up this addiction, and I still do, to be frank. But this is the freest I have ever felt, and my dream life is quickly becoming my reality.

Being in what I have been referring to as “sacred aloneness,” has allowed me the space to get really good at meeting my own emotional needs so that I’m not preying on people, places, and things to do that for me. It’s felt like a return to wholeness and within this space, what I truly desire continues to make itself more and more clear.?

And though I am alone, I am hardly lonely.?

My sincere hope for you is that you’re finding your own freedom and living your dream life or are at least en route to it.

What was your BIG 2022 lesson?

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If we haven’t met, I’m Katie. I’m a writer/ghostwriter for socially conscious leaders and companies. I also provide spiritual support for the grieving and dying.?

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