The only way out, is in
When your back's against the wall and all roads lead to nowhere, there's only one place left to go.
There comes a time in every person’s life where you realise you’ve hit a wall. Maybe the path you were journeying down led you to an impasse. Perhaps you’ve been railroaded by an onslaught of unforeseen obstacles that have made the route untenable. Or maybe, through all your blood, sweat and tears you finally made it to the finish line, exhausted, bruised, but immensely proud of everything you’ve been able to overcome, only to find yourself asking…now what?!
When we arrive at these moments, it can feel like we’ve had the wind knocked out of us. Our innate desire to grow, evolve and progress is the fuel that continually drives us forwards. We do not like to be told there is nowhere else to go. We hate taking no for an answer. It feels incredibly disconcerting when our passion, our life's work is either achieved, or we realise that perhaps it wasn’t the right passion and we’d like to explore a different path. Because if our passion is no longer our passion, does that mean our life is devoid of creativity, purpose and meaning? For some of us, that is a fate worse than death.
But time in the void can actually be good for us. Sometimes we need to feel around in the darkness in order to find our way back into the light. It can build character, strength and resilience. It can be the very thing that leads us to the next big thing. On the other side of our frustration, is growth, fulfilment and expansion. Hell it may even be the catalyst for your own spiritual enlightenment, if you’re lucky! But try saying this to someone who is well and truly stuck. They will not thank you for it, let me tell you.
The Trap of The Void
The problem with the void is that we sometimes end up looking in all the wrong places to find our way out. We bang on people’s doors, we seek clarity in other people’s opinions, we scour the internet high and low, and if you’re anything like me, you go searching into a bottle of wine more times than you care to admit. It’s rare that any answers are ever found in there. Not any good ones at least. We look everywhere outside of ourselves for answers. We think if we just do enough research, have enough conversations, read enough books, the answers will surely become clear. And sometimes they do.
But what if they don’t?
This is exactly what happened to me a few years ago. I’d left my former acting career behind, a decision that filled me with a lot of pain, shame and an overwhelming sense of failure. And as relatively unsuccessful as my acting career was (sadly you won’t find many credits if you IMDB me), it wasn’t just a job but my life’s work and passion that I was leaving behind.
At the time though it was hard, I felt ready for it. I was sure I was making the right decision, and I stand by that to this day. But what I hadn’t prepared for was the hole that would be left in its wake. Sure I had a good job, at a good company that I had worked incredibly hard for. But was it my passion? I thought that it was. But when you make the choices you think you should make…the ones you think society expects of you, the ones you think your family would want for you, they are very rarely the choices that we actually want for ourselves.
So if we don’t actually want what we thought we wanted, how the hell do we figure out what it is we actually do want?
I fell for the trap of the void. I searched in all the usual places. I was convinced that the answers would be found, somewhere out there in the universe. I had resigned myself to the fact that I was incapable of coming up with the answers myself, so if only I could find the right mentor, oracle or guru. Surely they would know what to do.
But for all my determination and sheer bloody mindedness, the oracle was never found. Occasionally my friends and family would try to give me advice but this only seemed to enrage me.
Don’t you think I’ve already thought of that! My subconscious would cry. For I knew if there was an obvious and easy solution, I would have found it already. But as with most things in life, it’s not that simple.
I was starting to feel like I’d exhausted all my options. The further I went digging, the more confused I started to feel. I could feel myself slowly suffocating under the smog of my own confusion and I was starting to resign myself that I may be destined for a life without creativity, purpose or meaning. My very own fate worse than death.
(You’ll have to forgive the dramatics, kinda comes with the territory.)
Letting Go is a Paradox
Eventually I had nowhere else to go, but inwards. It felt like the most counterintuitive thing in the world to stop grasping, reaching, striving. To sit still, to sit quietly, to sit alone. To loosen the grip I’d been trying to maintain over my own reality. To resist the pull of trying to fix everything. Of trying to fix myself. I started to meditate. Occasionally at first. Softly exploring, experimenting and approaching it lightly, with a gentle curiosity. It felt hard in the beginning. To sit still for that long. To keep the intrusive thoughts at bay. To be quiet for that length of time! I’m a Gemini Sun and a Pisces Rising so I just LOVE to talk about my feelings (in case you hadn’t already got that from subscribing to this newsletter). But I had made a commitment to myself. I told myself I would show up to meditation. Everyday. For 45 minutes at a time.
I’ll admit I was possibly doing this for the wrong reasons. I was almost using my meditation practice as a form of self-flagellation. A punishment for all my failings. But to my husband's (and my own) immense surprise, it was a habit that I made stick.
And what happened next surprised me.
After a few months, not only did I start to enjoy my meditation practice, I actually started to look forward to it. It became like a little slice of peace and calm in my overstimulated, over caffeinated world. I could feel myself becoming more mindful as I went throughout my day. Sure I had stresses and could still feel myself react to them (if only internally…mostly), but I was becoming a lot more conscious of these reactions. I was more aware of my emotions and could feel a separation emerging. A detachment of sorts, between me and my thoughts. A realisation that I am not my thoughts and emotions, and that actually with practice I could become an impartial observer. Noticing my feelings, exploring them, not suppressing them, but allowing them to be felt, acknowledged and then with a sense of gratitude, letting them go. It was a liberation.
But what’s more is that I could finally feel the fog starting to lift. The more time I spent in meditation, the more I could feel new thoughts and ideas dropping into my subconscious. It’s like my time in meditation had created so much space, the channels that had once felt so blocked were suddenly open and flowing freely. And that’s where all the ideas for the next iteration of my life and career started to come through.
In truth, meditation was only the first part of the journey. In the second chapter I discovered coaching and I will always be eternally grateful for the incredible coaches I’ve worked with who helped me pull the pieces of the puzzle together and gain the confidence and the clarity to actually move forward with these ideas. But that’s a story for another day.
Meditation and coaching have had such a profound impact on my life that through the process of my own spiritual journey, I realised that these are tools I long to share with others too. If I could help someone in the way that other coaches and meditation teachers have helped me, I will be eternally grateful. If I can support a female founder to launch that new idea, project, or business, if I can help a woman become the leader she always wanted to be…the kind of leader the world needs, I will know my time here has been well spent. So I cannot tell you how much it means to me that I am now a qualified meditation teacher (and ya girl only went & got a distinction!)
Thank you to the British School of Meditation for helping me to deepen my learning and my practice. A practice that I still create time for almost everyday.
I am so excited to now be able to share everything I’ve learnt with you and it’s my mission to support more purpose-led businesses and their teams through coaching and meditation workshops. As well as being great for overall wellness, it can help with mental resilience, mindfulness, clarity and confidence (to name just a few of the benefits).
If you’re interested in working together, send me an email to lauren@moodldn.co to receive a copy of our corporate deck and let’s book an exploratory call to discuss. Check out the Experiences section of our website for more info.
Meditation has fundamentally changed my life for the better. Perhaps it can do the same for you.
Lauren x
IG. moodldn.co
LI. www.linkedin.com/in/laurenparmar
I loved your piece ❤️ I understand how conflicting the process of learning to let go and just be with your own chaos can be. It's amazing how meditation can change and shape us.
Beautifully written, thank you.
Thank you so much 🫶 it really does feel like such a contradiction to let go amidst the chaos, but when we do it can be so liberating. Thank you for reading, I so appreciate it and your kind words x