An update from Total Surrender Bootcamp

I have officially emerged from Total Surrender Bootcamp. I’ll admit that Monday was a little sluggish for me. It was a challenge to step back into the busyness of my life after such a deeply immersed weekend.

As I posted last time, I hit a sort of wall last week and needed to capitulate to my own powerlessness over several areas in my life. I spent quite a bit of time journaling, confronting my own fears and the way they hold me back. There were also quite some hours of meditation involved in this.

Several things came from this intense time. One is to trust my intuition. I have some powerful messages coming to me, I can feel their truth in my heart and belly. These insights are guiding me, both on the job front and in my relationships.

The other thing is this idea of choosing love. “How can I be Love?” was the thought that came again and again over the course of boot camp.

And, of course, these two things are intimately linked: Trust and Love.

I recently read Sam McLeod’s entertaining account of his Nashville boyhood, Big Appetite. It is a fun journey filled with Southern characters and food. There is one particularly poignant scene when a young Sam and his brother Mikey are interacting with Mamie. Mamie was the African-American women who resided with Sam’s aunt and uncle on their farm in west Tennessee. She cooked and mothered Sam and his brothers when they visited, providing nurture and general wisdom to all.

In this scene, Mikey is sad and homesick. Sam and Mamie are discussing Mikey’s sadness when Sam asks Mamie what makes her sad. And Mamie replies, “Laud, chile, ain’t nothing make me sad. Nuthin’ ever make a body sad. A person get to decide that. If you sad, or mad, or whatnot, it’s ‘cuz you choosin’ to be. It be your choice. Don’ never forget that.”

After my boot camp weekend, this is where I have landed: Mamie’s wisdom.

Because it is clear to me that this is about my own choices. I am constantly given divine guidance through my intuition. I need to trust that. I can choose to trust or to not trust, but the choice is mine. And as for all the rest, it is about choosing love.

And that is it: Trust and Love.

I am just humming with it, full, flowing and profoundly connected. I pray I can find my way to choose this and live in it for a while.

Trust. And Love.