Surrender to the tidal wave. This fierce love is here to assist you in beginning a new, true, invincible life. If you’re feeling unsettled by the unknown and assaulted by change, remember, it’s a strength to be undoing that which no longer works. This is progress, not mayhem.

The artist Pablo Picasso wrote, “Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction.” And exquisite Nietzsche said, “You must become a chaos before giving birth to a shining star.” These are not poetic elaborations. They are descriptions of how change works.

You can’t control creativity, alchemy, reinvention, evolution and the divine flower rearrangement of your life. But if you trusted the Energy behind this miracle of change, you wouldn’t want to control a thing. You’d throw everything you had into the blender and watch it yield a grace beyond all reason.

So here’s the work. It’s not about staying in control. It’s about staying in love.

I know this isn’t easy to do. But you can take the fun bus or the misery bus, it’s up to you. Basically, this all comes down to letting go of how you think this should go, and embracing the possibility that something wise and beautiful is actually taking place. It’s about relaxing as deeply as you can and letting inspiration take you by the hand.

I’d like to offer you two simple strategies for this, and while I’m taking them from my career coaching experience, keep in mind that they apply in other arenas of life as well.

Don’t Get a Grip: Be Gripped

One of my coaching clients, Lisa, left a high-powered job to reclaim her spirit, which had gotten battered, neglected, and squelched for years in a high tech job. Initially, she soaked up the novelty of rejuvenation. She puttered in her garden, read inspirational books with a second cup of morning latte, and visited old friends.

Then the mad griffin of “responsibility” shrieked in her ears. Somewhere along the line, this meandering time- out became an indication of her worthlessness and impending annihilation . “Get a grip,” she growled to herself, a warning that the storm of reckoning would soon be at her lazy door.

“I’ve slept in and I didn’t even shower until mid-morning,” she whispers as though confessing homicidal tendencies or adultery to a priest. I try to reason with her. “Just because you slept in past 9:00a.m doesn’t make you a latent criminal or potential homeless person,” I say. I often sleep past 10:30a.m myself, as I’m a night owl and live by my own code, and have not yet, to date anyway, killed anyone. I remind Lisa, that if she nurtures her spirit, her spirit will not let her drift into aimlessness or indulgence. But relaxing is the best way to move forward. Relaxation invites inspiration, whole-minded flashes of genius that do not come through control, contraction, or suffering.

In my book This Time I Dance! Creating the Work You Love, I wrote a section called “The Year of Sleeping Dangerously” because I wanted readers to know that sometimes breathtaking change exacts a nap. When I left my law practice, I had to learn how to practice tolerance, when a part of me just crumpled after years of reckless ambition. I had to allow this “undoing” to take place, because I’d kept myself on such an adrenaline-paced, aggressive, and abusive schedule. Suddenly, I had the time and space to feel, and a thunderous freedom bearing down upon me.

It was hard to be naked and alive, standing in the fields beyond a schedule, identity, routine or grind. I had to grieve, rest, stare into the void and learn about who I was now. None of it looked “productive” by my old standards. But I didn’t want a life based on my old standards anymore. I wanted a passion-inspired life fueled by unseen forces of good. I had to dare new strategies, including relaxing and enjoying myself and being in the state of mind where I might actually encounter my own imagination and dreams. The free world has different rules than those of imprisonment. Don’t listen to the warden. Listen to the sparrow. Trust the magic of timing and healing and co-creating with the grace of your own divine nature.

You don’t have to get a grip. You want to be gripped. It’s a different track.

Fall in Love with the Unknown

The unknown is not the enemy. It’s an invitation to become even more alive than you were before. See if you can resist the temptation to grab at solutions and definitions too soon. In the haste to end uncertainty, many opt for smallness or inauthentic detours.

My client Ralph surprises me one day on the phone telling me he is resisting the pull to name his direction or to start his engines rolling again. “I’m going to live in the ‘I don’t know’ for a while says this former chief executive officer of some pretty chiefy things. Ralph is a tough-minded, take the bull by the horns and then some kind of guy. I am amused to see him leaving the bull alone. But he’s smart, even when he’s frustrated and there is calculated genius in his newly adopted receptivity. In the past, this man ran about eighty thousand miles an hour in the wrong direction. Now he says, “I’m taking my time because I really need to know where I’m going before I put the pedal to the metal.”

I urge you to stay open minded in this process. Beware the savvy one within you who screens experience. Many of us lead with our jadedness and demand tangible and certifiable results up front. But here’s the thing. The dictator isn’t the one who orchestrates the revolution. It’s the unknown that has your back. Follow your instincts and impulses. They will lead you to results and quantum possibilities that you could not predict or even know to imagine.

Having offered workshops and retreats for years, I’ve often had students ask me, “What will I get out of this workshop?” They want me to list the takeaways for them, the bullet points and guarantees. But I’m not interested in offering them that kind of inferior information. If I’m honest, I don’t know what they’ll get out of it. First of all, I don’t know what they’ll put into it. But more importantly, my particular calling isn’t about reciting information. It’s about creating a sacred space in which their own miracles can find them. That’s what always happens. Participants almost always leave with something they didn’t even know they needed, stardust on their shoulders, a new vista on their horizon, and a new name upon their heart. It’s the nature of inspiration. And it’s what happens for anyone who has the courage to follow their instincts beyond the map of the world they know.

Let yourself have new experiences. You don’t know who you’re becoming, so how could you really know what you need? You have your instincts to guide you. Your instincts are sweet voices of peace and joy. They are not the grouchy dictates of the old regime and they do not speak in the dialects of anger, anxiety or threats.

If change is in your life right now, or the life of a loved one, remember there’s a force of grace that stirs the winds. It may be playing havoc with the conditions of your life, but you are not your conditions. Let go of trying to control what you do not understand. Dare to love yourself and embrace your crazy, spectacular life. Trust the wild creativity of an Energy that only paints in shades of love. The caterpillar must give up so that the butterfly can emerge. I hope you will trust the process of your transformation and trust the miracle of change.

Copyright 2009 Tama J. Kieves, All rights reserved.

Author's Bio: 

Tama J. Kieves, an honors graduate of Harvard Law School, left her law practice to write and to encourage others to live fulfilling, meaningful lives. She is a sought-after speaker, career and transition coach and best-selling author of THIS TIME I DANCE! Creating the Work You Love (Tarcher/Penguin). Learn more about Tama’s workshops, international retreats, coaching, free monthly supportive e-newsletter, or download her Free Report on “Finding Your Calling Now” at AwakeningArtistry.com.