People die from drowning because they fight it. Who wants to die choking on water?  I’d fight it too. But if you relax into the drowning, you are more likely to survive.

RELAX

I was talking to a client on the phone one day.  We were both buried in work, so much so that it felt like we were drinking out of fire hoses all day.  Having been through many weeks of this – I paused for a moment and said “Relax into the drowning, it’s easier that way.“ We both began to laugh, because it was a crazy time, a time when you lose yourself because there is too much to do, think about, be. But if we could relax into it, check off the boxes, do whatever we had to get done and leave the rest for tomorrow, we knew it would be easier. In that moment – we relaxed.

After I was “let go”, “terminated”, “fired” she emailed me and said here are some things that remind me of you.

Relax into the drowning

Don’t harsh my mellow – this was stolen from The Secret, although I didn’t know it at the time.

The mood inside my head is really bright

This is better than dead

If you don’t stand for something – you fall for everything!

I’m thankful for this memory and for her being willing to share it with me. I’ll admit I cried realizing that she wrote my words down and knowing that I made a difference in those crazy moments.

A few years ago I decided that I was going to align who I was in my life with who I was in my work life and this email from her was a great gift – letting me know that I did it! That I really was me at work, maybe not every time, but sometimes. I was true to myself and brought my authentic voice, even in hard times. It wasn’t about doing a job, but was about a real human connection.

Ultimately, we can only be responsible for ourselves and our own decisions, the actions of others are not ours, but if we can stop acting and start being real with each other we may find that sometimes we have an effect on people when we didn’t realize we could.

This is the future of everything, real human connection, not just getting the job done, but making it meaningful. Opening to honest conversations, instead of fighting them, relaxing into it.

What’s drowning you? Call on your authentic voice, to avoid drowning. Relax into it. Make it meaningful.