Navigating Loss & Avoidance of the Potential of Loss

For years I resented my degrees because I didn't feel like they prepared me for the world of work.  I had grown up with belief that if I did the right thing, got A's, and continued on to do degrees then everything after that would work itself out.  An amazing question a facilitator asked me the other day is: "Did you expect your degrees to create your life for you?"  And my answer was yes.  Yay for that awareness!  Now I feel more capable of choosing to create my life rather than waiting for someone or something else to create it for me. 

Lately I've been acknowledging a resistance in me to being controlled.  I don't like someone else telling me what to do, or dictating my choices.  Today I had the awareness that I actually enjoyed functioning within a structure that was "controlled".  In academia I knew where I was going and what I was doing, I had a course outline, specifically defined goals and the means to achieve them through focus and commitment.  What created the experience of tremendous pain and grief was when that structure was "taken away from me" and no one was there to assist me to make that transition and guide me on how to move forward.  What I acknowledged today is that I don't actually resist being controlled, guided, or told what to do, I just had something in my energetic system that was protecting me from the loss of that.  The decision was that I could not live through that experience of being coached, guided and directed and then having that being taken away from me "again".  As an adaptive strategy to avoid that experience, I created safety through just living in the present moment and having no coach, no guide and no direction.  Not having it was safer and easier than having it be there and then be taken away.  On the surface though, I desired to be directed, goal oriented and moving towards something and it was painful and confusing why it was so hard to do so. 

​What in your life are you refusing to have because you've decided you can handle it being given to you and then taken away?  What I'm being present with today, is that I do have the tools to be with that experience.  I can be present to receive what is given, and I have the tools and capacity to feel whatever comes up if/when something is "taken away" or "leaves" my experience.  With this new awareness I'm able to unravel this energetic pattern that keeps me from having direction, being guided, moving towards goals and enjoying structure.  I share this with you today as an opportunity for you to potentially become aware of what's keeping you from having what you desire to have, moving towards new experience, and receiving the tools so that you have the capacity to feel and be present to your experience so you aren't stuck in resistance and avoidance.  What if now is the time to receive the gift of new awareness and be willing and able to change and transform what we haven't been willing or able to before now?