Here are the first two things I learned during Farm-on-the-Beach 2020: 

1. Surrender is a low-regret decision. 
2. Resisting reality is exhausting. 

So far, very few of my best laid plans for this Farm-on-the-Beach extravaganza have played out as planned.

In a major plot twist, we had 11,000 lightning strikes in California the weekend before I moved to the farm for my month of monk mode. And see, California and lightning don’t really play well together. That particular weekend of lightning sparked over 300 wildfires, massive evacuation orders and put life into suspended animation for about 40 million people. 

In a major stroke of grace, I got to the farm roughly 2 hours before the main highway into the area was closed. We arrived one day before smoke and ashes began to rain down at home. Without knowing it, we’d managed to plan our month-long retreat in a spot north of the fires where the wind blows southeast, so we’ve only had a whiff or two of smoke all week. 

At the same time, the fires and road closures stopped my childcare plans from coming to fruition. Our off-the-grid farm turned out to have neither good wifi nor cell service, so I spent my first few days here getting the internet upgraded. These sorts of snafus kicked off a domino effect of what felt like blockades between me and my uninterrupted writing time. 

For the most part, I’ve been able to stay open-hearted and out of feeling stymied by sitting with the question: “What wonderful thing could be coming through this?” 

I hold that in my mind as I watch Londyn frolic in our little apple orchard, not with the nanny I’d originally hired, but with a lovely local woman, her infant and her 3-year-old, Rosalyn, who come over to play with Londyn every day so I can write. 

Every time they pull up in the driveway, Londyn squeals “MY FRIENDS ARE HEEEEEERE!!!!!!” 

This never gets old.  

For the most part, I’ve been able to maintain paciencia and stay in flow mode, even on days when I have almost no time to write, by reminding myself of what I learned from Jon Kabat-Zinn. He said: “You can’t fight the waves. But you can learn to surf.”

I hold his words in my mind as I drive down the hill from the farm in the morning, about a quarter-mile, to the totally unspoiled coastline of the Pacific Ocean. This little commute and its vast oceanic vista cleanses the grievance from my spirit and reminds me of just how consistently we’re winning by being alive, especially when we practice surfing the waves instead of complaining about them.

I’ve been learning to reset myself, when aggravated, with the reminder that resisting what IS is a losing game. 

I’ve been reminding myself of what Byron Katie says. She says that wishing things were other than they are is a bit like trying to get a cat to bark. It’s frustrating, foolhardy and a waste of your precious life force.

I’ve also been reminding myself of what I teach my own writing students, which is that sometimes when you begin to write a book about a thing, life begins to serve you up opportunities to master the very lessons that want to come to your readers, through your book. 

So I’ve been staying loose, in part, by looking for those lessons and documenting them, all along the way.

And mostly, when I feel the temptation to list my obstacles in the interest of getting someone to please understand meeeeeeee… I’m reminded that you can’t create a liberating journey for someone else from the energy of struggle and angst. 

And that’s what I’m here to do. On Planet Earth and on this farm, right here and now. I’m here to write my fourth book, which is shaping up to be a playbook for radical liberation, wholeness and reclamation. I’m here to metabolize the last year of my life and to reset SoulTour around a vision and roadmap that has expanded and focused, somehow, at the same time, over the past season.

One of my clarities that has fully downloaded over the last year is knowing what I call my “signature symptom” The high-level human problem I exist to solve is the problem of repression: all the ways that we silence, hold back, abandon, divorce, reject, shush, hide and sabotage ourselves. 

Repression is a massive cause of human suffering. 

We learn to repress ourselves early in life. The adventure of an awakening life is to unlearn these habits, over time, so that we might rediscover our whole, True Self and start bringing 100% of our True Selves out. First to ourselves. Then, to the world. 

This is important because reclaiming your True Self feels like inner peace. Self-respect. Alignment. No more inner critic. No more imposter syndrome. No more hiding. No more touchy subjects. No more blocks.

This is also important because when women repress themselves, all of humanity suffers. Our unlived lives burden our children and block the world from receiving our gifts.

And the opposite is true: When women begin embracing both their inner powers and their inner chaos monsters, radical alignment ensues.

The ideas, books, movements and businesses they create from that place will power the next season of human evolution. 

Your un-repression is my personal mission. And that’s why I’m here.

Last night I had a long talk with one of my quaranteam homegirls who is here with me, and the conversation meandered to the story of when she bought her home, 18 years ago. She talked about how extreme the market dynamics were in favor of the seller, how glitchy and grindy the negotiations were, and how it just got to a point where it seemed highly unlikely things would work out.

She said she called her husband and just told him she was ready to let the house go.

He agreed. So she called their real estate agent and said: “Let it go.”

She let it go. 

She let go of her attachment to the home. 

She let go of the attachment to the vision she’d been playing in her mind for how her family might look and live and grow in that house.

She just let it go. 

And the next call she got was from the agent, excitedly telling her how a bunch of different little circumstances had rapidly lined up so that the deal was back on, if she wanted it to be, on her terms.

Hearing her say this was what my friend Monisha would call the right medicine at the right time.

It was my reminder to let it go.

Let go of the struggle.

Let go of the recitation of the struggle.

Let go of my preconceived attachment to things playing out my way. 

Let go of my action plan. Let go of my calendar. Let go of my “lists”.

Let go of my attachment to a given, specific outcome.

And as I felt myself more fully let go last night, the energy from my struggle with reality began to flow right back to me. 

And almost without any involvement from me, that energy kind of electrified the mission – lighting up the big picture in my mind and my spirit again.

I was reminded that I’m not here to check a bunch of stuff off a list. 

I’m here for un-repression. Liberation. Reclamation. Wholeness. For the joy of creation. Mine and yours. 

Letting go was my reminder to stay focused on the vision and flexible on how it comes to pass. 

To watch for the wonderful things. 

To inhabit this moment fully. Which you can’t do when you’re wishing this moment was playing out any other way than the way it is actually paying out. 

And let me tell you something: This level of surrender is always a very low-regret decision. 

It always feels like shackles off. 

Always feels like an opening, like space being created, like reclaiming all the sprays of life force that were feeling so pulled in some many directions, bringing them back inside, back home. 

In the week to come, I invite you to recognize those moments when you’re feeling pulled in a million different directions because things aren’t going the way you’d planned, and to press the sacred pause button. 

Take a sacred pause. Create a little momentary refuge. 

Take a moment to stop reacting. 

Recalibrate your nervous system and your connection to Source. Watch the ocean. Hug your dog. Pull up a photo of someone who fast-forwards your heart to “unconditional love” and list 10 things you love about them, even just in your mind. 

Remind yourself just how miraculous it is that this planet and your body are constantly conspiring for you to live. 

Give thanks.

Take a deep, grounding, 360-degree inhale that oxygenates your entire torso: front to back, side to side.

Then empty your lungs, creating fresh new space for the next 20,000 breaths you’ll take today.

And as you do, use the power of your focus to reclaim your sovereignty over your own thoughts, actions and emotions. 

Then, surrender more deeply to what is. Surrender to Divine Timing. Surrender to the truth that your delays are always beneficial to you. Surrender to your own Inner Guidance. Surrender to the assistance that is always trying to get to you.

Surrender to the truth that life ain’t going to play out as planned almost ever. And surrender to the truth that some of the most wonderful people, places, things and moments in your life are trying to get to you through the very circumstances that seem like crises, losses, curve balls and plot twists.

This is the paradox that will give you your joy back: sovereignty and surrender. 

It will stop you from the depletion and inner strife of resisting what is. 

If you can hold these polar opposites in one heart at the same time, you will get your power back.

Inhale sovereignty. 

Exhale surrender.

Head up + heart out,

Tara-Nicholle Nelson, MA, Esq.
Founder + CEO of SoulTour

@taranicholle on FB | TW | IG | LI

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